HOUSING MINISTER EOGHAN Murphy has approved €84 million in funding to support the delivery of 1,700 ‘affordable homes’ on local authority sites.

The funding is being delivered under the Serviced Sites Fund, which assists local authorities in making land available for the construction of affordable housing in high demand areas.

These homes are then to be sold as private stock, rather than being used as social housing. 

To date, funding support has been allocated to enable the delivery of almost 3,200 affordable homes for purchase under the scheme.

There are 25 projects in total that have been given the green light with this latest funding tranche in Cork, Dublin, Galway, Kildare, Kilkenny, Limerick, Waterford, Wicklow and Wexford.

“We’ve seen recently that house prices have been cooling down, even falling in some parts of the country as supply increases. But for too many people home ownership still remains out of reach,” Minister Murphy said today.

Unless the government steps in to bridge the gap, young couples and workers may not be able to afford to buy their own home in our cities and large towns. That’s why we are using local authority land to build more affordable homes for young workers and couples, and that’s why these approvals announced today are so important.

“The market will not fix our housing problems alone, the government must lead on providing more affordable homes.”

The Department of Housing said the homes will be made available for purchase under operational provisions that are currently being developed.