13 June 2006

Environment

Part V Affordable Housing

Ciarán Cuffe asked the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the number of the 10,000 affordable houses which were part of the Government commitments under sustaining progress that are completed; and the number expected to be completed by the end of the period covered by the sustaining progress agreement.

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (Mr. N. Ahern): Significant progress continues to be made under the Sustaining Progress Affordable Housing Initiative with provisional figures to the end of March 2006 indicating that a total of 1,961 housing units have been provided to date on AHI sites and through the Part V affordable arrangements.

To date, over 70 projects on State and Local Authority lands are planned which, together with the projected 2,500 housing units under the Part V affordable arrangements, have the potential to deliver over 10,000 affordable housing units under the initiative. My Department will continue to drive forward progress on all of the projects to ensure the earliest possible delivery of affordable housing units. This may entail further use of the land swap approach which was piloted successfully on the Harcourt Terrace project and other actions to parallel different stages of projects and shorten delivery time.