Parliamentary questions

328. Deputy Duncan Smith asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to give serious consideration to acquiring the Balcarrick Martello Tower, Donabate which is a recorded National Monument and heritage site in private ownership that has recently been put up for sale on the open market which is of huge importance to the Donabate and wider Fingal area; and if he will make a statem…

329. Deputy Duncan Smith asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage when the details of the recently extended pyrite remediation scheme will be published; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [68642/25]

330. Deputy Duncan Smith asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage when the updated changes to the defective building block remediation scheme will be published; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [68643/25]

331. Deputy Conor D. McGuinness asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the details of the grades of oifigigh forbartha Gaeilge in each of the local authorities, in tabular form; if he will consider raising the grades of all oifigigh forbartha Gaeilge to Grade 7, a management level which would enable oifigigh to do their work in an effective manner; and if he will make a stat…

332. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the number of major infrastructure projects that experienced delays arising from Environmental Impact Assessment or Appropriate Assessment processes in each of the past five years; the average length of delay recorded at screening and full assessment stages; and his Department's systems used to track these delays…

333. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if his Department has prepared a full delivery schedule to meet the stated target of 12,000 new social homes per year; and if he will provide the year-by-year and quarter-by-quarter milestones for 2026, 2027 and 2028. [68744/25]

334. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if his Department has completed any assessment of the staffing, technical and financial resources required by local authorities to achieve the 12,000-unit annual target; and if he will provide his Department's internal modelling for required engineering, planning, procurement and project-management capacity. [687…

335. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the actions taken to ensure alignment of zoning, serviced land, water capacity and planning permissions with the 12,000-unit annual social housing target; and if he will provide any internal reports or delivery forecasts assessing this alignment. [68746/25]

336. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the current national level of local authority housing units classified as non-lettable for more than 12 months; and the proportion of these units requiring structural versus minor refurbishment works. [68749/25]

337. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the number of technical, engineering, and planning posts sanctioned for each local authority in 2023, 2024, and 2025; the number recruited; and the number still unfilled as of the most recent reporting date. [68750/25]

338. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if his Department maintains real-time tracking of housing delivery bottlenecks across local authorities; and if he will publish the three most common causes of delay identified in 2023, 2024, and 2025. [68751/25]

339. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the expected date for the publication of the first productivity indicators for residential construction, including those relating to Modern Methods of Construction; and the timeline for updating these indicators annually. [68820/25]

340. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the annual average and median decision timelines for SHD and LRD applications in each of the past five years, by local authority; and the average and median timelines for planning appeal and judicial reviews. [68821/25]

341. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the planning timeline assumptions used to underpin the delivery pathway for the target of 300,000 homes under Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025 to 2030, including assumed statutory and non-statutory timeframes for applications, appeals, and judicial reviews. [68822/25]

342. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the number of infrastructure barriers identified by the Housing Activation Office in each local authority to date; the category of barrier identified in each case; and the corrective actions recommended. [68823/25]

343. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the number of social housing projects approved above basic unit cost levels in 2023, 2024 and to date in 2025; the reasons for the variance in each case; and the way his Department intends to begin systematically recording and publishing this information. [68824/25]

344. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the number of local authority homes in Cork city and Cork county that have been upgraded to BER C in 2025. [68826/25]

345. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the actions being taken to close any gaps from delays in the current retrofit delivery rate in achieving the Government's target to retrofit 36,500 local authority homes to BER B2 by 2030. [68829/25]

346. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the steps his Department has taken since 2022 to secure more granular productivity data to support national housing targets. [68830/25]

347. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if his Department has assessed the budgetary and value-for-money implications of the absence of residential specific productivity data within the national construction sector, and if he will outline any measures taken to ensure capital allocations for housing delivery are supported by reliable productivity metric…

348. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if his Department will support the development of new data collection methods within the CSO to measure labour and capital productivity in residential construction separately from other construction activity, and if he will outline what steps, consultations or technical workstreams have been undertaken since 2022…

349. Deputy Michael Cahill asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to urgently commence work on the proposed sewerage scheme for Beaufort Village, County Kerry (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [68894/25]

350. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to detail the primary operational, staffing, procurement, and supply-chain constraints reported by local authorities in returning void social housing units to use; and the measures, financial, regulatory, or administrative, his Department is considering to reduce turnaround times and increase throughput. [68963…

351. Deputy Mairéad Farrell asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage when Lough Corrib became a candidate special area of conservation, considering that there are conflicting dates on the public record, both domestic and European; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [68968/25]

352. Deputy Mairéad Farrell asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to detail the relevant agencies and local angling stakeholders the National Parks and Wildlife Service engaged with to prevent the introduction of the invasive demon shrimp (dikerogammarus haemobaphes) into Lough Corrib SAC, considering that the species has now been found in Portumna, County Galway; and if he…