Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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298. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government with regard to the 'Section 28 Guidelines - NPF Implementation: Housing Growth Requirements' which issued in July 2025 and which contain the new annual housing supply targets for all local authorities, which display targets that appear in the final two columns of Appendix 1 on p.14, one column covering the period 2025-2034 and the other 2035-2040, the reason the figure for some local authorities like Carlow, Cavan and Sligo, employ exactly the same figures for the period 2025-2034 as used in their development plans, while others, such as Kildare, Laois and Monaghan, depart significantly from their development plan targets; the reason this is the case; why no reason or criterion of these differing treatments is offered in the guidelines themselves; if he will publish the precise methodology employed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53337/25]

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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The Revised National Planning Framework (NPF) was finalised and approved by Government and the Oireachtas in April 2025. The Revised NPF identifies the need to plan for approximately 50,000 additional households per annum to 2040.

To ensure that local authority development plans reflect the requirements of the NPF in respect of housing as soon as possible, I issued the NPF Implementation: Housing Growth Requirements Guidelines under section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 in July 2025. These Guidelines set out the housing demand scenario to 2040 for each local authority, by translating the NPF housing requirements into average annual figures and set out the requirement for planning authorities to commence the process of varying their development plan to meet the new housing growth requirements.

The housing demand scenario is aligned to the ‘50:50 cities’ distribution in the National Planning Framework. The national target set out in the Revised NPF also includes a provision for ‘unmet demand’ and it is an objective of the Guidelines that this unmet demand will be addressed in the near term, up to the year 2034, subject to monitoring of the implementation of the NPF.

The housing distribution at local authority level is based on the NPF 50:50 City scenario, which in turn is built on the NPF aim to achieve more regionally balanced population growth, split roughly 50:50 between the Eastern and Midland Region, and the rest of the Country (i.e. the Southern Region and Northern and Western Region).

The new housing growth requirements are set out in Appendix 1 to the Guidelines in the form of an annual housing figure for each local authority and provide, on average, a 60% increase on the housing figures issued under the 2020 Guidelines, i.e. to planning for an annual average output of c.55,000 new homes per annum over and above the current target of 33,000.

The current adopted Development Plans for the 31 local authorities already reflect, in many cases, the inclusion of ‘additional provision’ in relation to housing and land use zoning, with the result that the initial annual housing target of c.33,000 dwellings per annum, as set out in the Housing Supply Target Methodology/Guidelines in 2020, has been translated in to a cumulative annual target of c.48,000 in adopted plans. As a result, the 2025 Guidelines incorporate the current core strategy figures as published by local authorities within city/county development plans (CDPs) as a starting point. Accordingly, each the baseline figure for each local authority is at least the same at the current CDP target.

For local authorities where delivery against the current CDP targets has been relatively strong (at or in excess of 50%) over the past three years, the baseline figures have been adjusted upwards (for the period to 2034) to reflect this, with proportional allocation of the difference between the c.48,000 in adopted plans and the c.55,000 national figures distributed between the relevant local authorities. This approach ensures that additional growth figures are targeted, in the near term, in areas with the greatest likelihood of housing delivery.

In addition to the baseline housing growth requirement, planning authorities have also been requested to address the scope for additional provision of up to 50% in excess of the baseline housing growth requirement, in light of the urgent need to increase housing delivery and to optimise the ability to deliver on the housing requirements of the Revised NPF. This approach recognises the fact that, for a variety of reasons, a relatively significant proportion of zoned lands are not activated over the period of a development plan.

Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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299. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government given the lack of pace in zoning additional land for housing, the reason Sligo County Council has been left waiting for the finalisation of the draft Ministerial Order dated 8 November 2024, thus leaving the council unable to implement its development plan as adopted in autumn 2024; if he will issue the final ministerial direction; if he will provide a date on which this will be done; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53338/25]

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Section 31 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 empowers the Minister to direct a planning authority to take such measures as he or she may require to ensure that its development plan complies with the requirements of the Act.

The use of this power is conditional on the Minister first receiving a formal recommendation on the matter from the Office of the Planning Regulator (OPR) and thereafter forming the opinion that one or more of the criteria set out in section 31(1) of the Act apply. These matters include, but are not limited to, where a plan fails to set out an overall strategy for the proper planning and sustainable development of the area, or a plan is not consistent with the objectives of the National Planning Framework (NPF) and the Regional Spatial and Economic Strategy (RSES).

Since its establishment in April 2019, the OPR has had statutory responsibility for the evaluation and assessment of local authority plans in accordance with section 31P of the Act. The Office is statutorily independent of the Minister in the performance of this function pursuant to section 31R of the Act.

In the exercise of its plan evaluation function, the OPR may make submissions to the relevant planning authority including such recommendations as it considers necessary to ensure effective co-ordination of national, regional and local planning requirements by the relevant planning authority in the discharge of its development planning function.

With respect to the preparation of the Sligo County Development Plan 2024-2030, the OPR made three submissions to Sligo County Council at different stages of the plan-making process, as set out below:

• 24 September 2021 – OPR submission on the development plan’s pre-draft issues paper.
• 22 December 2023 – OPR submission on the draft development plan.
• 5 July 2024 – OPR submission on the material alterations to the plan.