The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, James Browne TD and Minister of State for Planning and Local Government, John Cummins TD, have announced the 82 infrastructure projects which will be supported in the first phase of the Housing Infrastructure Investment Fund (HIIF) programme.

The approved projects will directly enable the delivery of 86,000 new homes and provide the potential for a further 113,000 homes.

These projects are the first to be funded as part of a major multi-annual fund committed to unlocking land and enabling the delivery of housing at scale.

Administered by the new Housing Activation Office within the Department of Housing, the €1 bn Housing Infrastructure Investment Fund is the largest housing infrastructure fund announced in Ireland for many years.

Announcing the projects being funded, Minister Browne said: “Today, we are making our first announcements under the Housing Infrastructure Investment Fund. In our first call for applications, we invited Local Authorities and the Land Development Agency to apply for funding to progress infrastructure projects that will unlock housing in towns and cities across the country – with an emphasis on shovel ready projects and works which can be quickly started.

“Having examined all the applications, today I am announcing 82 projects which will be supported and accelerated under the programme. These 82 projects can unlock land to deliver 86,000 new homes and create potential for a further 113,000 homes. This is exactly the type of result we were looking for when designing this fund.

“I am intensely focused on delivering more homes but also on delivering the best possible environment for constructing more homes. Across the country, we see zoned land lying idle because the critical enabling infrastructure needed to support housing development is not in place.   The projects I am providing funding for today will directly tackle this problem.  By investing at scale now, we can accelerate home building.”

Minister of State Cummins added: “The Housing Infrastructure Investment Fund is a commonsense approach to delivering more housing. It provides the crucial enabling infrastructure to get construction moving in towns across Ireland. I am particularly pleased to see a good mix of projects being funded – with a good geographical spread across the country.

“To tackle the housing crisis, we need to build houses, but we also need to build the best possible environment for delivering more homes. That is why infrastructure is so important. The Housing Activation office, working with local authorities and others, has identified obstacles and blockages within the system that we can now target through the Housing Infrastructure Investment Fund. The projects we are funding today will create the infrastructure and environment on the ground to realise the full potential of lands across the country and help deliver the extra homes our communities need.”

The projects approved today include sites that enable local activation in towns across the country, as well as projects that enable housing delivery at scale on more strategic landbanks in and around the state’s five Cities.   The Housing Activation Office, will coordinate the multi-agency investment required at all levels, working directly with critical utilities and transport agencies, including Uisce Éireann and ESB Networks, to ensure that complementary investment is provided and that lands are fully serviced and ready to deliver housing.

The Department will continue to develop the HIIF and intends to broaden the approach in future calls to include a range of public and private sector delivery partners. View the full list of projects being funded today.

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