Housing, Local Government and Heritage | Modern housing production methods to facilitate the provision of supply of homes to the market in addition to those already in hand in order to address the increasing demand arising from the termination of tenancies or other factors which might make it difficult or even impossible for families to provide housing by other means such as purchase or rental through the local authorities

QUESTION

To ask the Minister for Housing; Local Government and Heritage the extent to which he can avail of modern housing production methods to facilitate the provision of supply of homes to the market in addition to those already in hand in order to address the increasing demand arising from the termination of tenancies or other factors which might make it difficult or even impossible for families to provide housing by other means such as purchase or rental through the local authorities; if he can identify those counties currently trying to face this challenge with a view to increasing the supply within months rather than years; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

REPLY

Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) has been identified as a key measure to address the different housing needs in Ireland and methods to support the development of MMC in Ireland are set out in Housing for All.

MMC is the term used to describe a range of manufacturing and innovative construction alternatives to traditional construction, including modular construction. MMC has the potential to boost productivity, increase efficiency and improve sustainability in the construction sector.

The coordination of initiatives to promote MMC adoption is being led by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (DETE), through the inter-departmental MMC Leadership and Integration Group.

These initiatives include the Accelerated social housing delivery programme; the Roadmap for increased adoption of MMC in Public Housing; The Construct Innovate Technology Centre; The National Demonstration Park for MMC and training for industry and public sector professionals.

MMC is central to the Government’s Accelerated Social Housing Delivery Programme. This programme is being led by my Department and will see the delivery by 13 local authorities of at least 1,500 social homes using Modern methods of Construction across approximately 36 sites. It is intended to expand the use of the Design and Build procurement approach to enable greater use of MMC in social and affordable housing delivery.

The table below shows the breakdown of the sites in the Accelerated Delivery Programme by local authority.

 

Local authority	No of Projects	No. of Homes (approx.)
Cork City	1	222
Cork County	4	71
DLR	3	300
Fingal	5	263
Galway City	1	84
Kerry	4	172
Kildare	1	65
Limerick	1	19
Louth	5	309
Meath	1	47
Sligo	8	281
Waterford	1	35
Westmeath	1	12