A new report going before Cabinet this morning has found that more than 60,000 homes could be built on State-owned land.
The Report on Public Land has identified 83 State-owned sites with the potential for up to 67,000 homes in the medium to long-term.
The work compiled by the Land Development Agency (LDA) indicates that land in the cities of Cork, Dublin, Limerick, Galway and Waterford could be used to construct thousands of homes.
The LDA believes that 9,760 of the homes identified in the report could be delivered in the next five to ten years.
A further 17,440 homes are proposed on Class 2 sites, which are considered to have medium to long-term potential, while there are a further 39,710 on long-term, Class 3 sites, bringing the total number to 66,910.
More than half the homes could be built in Dublin, according to the report.
The sites with greatest potential include property owned by Horse Racing Ireland at Leopardstown in Dublin where more than 2,000 homes could be built.
A site owned by Gas Networks Ireland on the Dock Road in Limerick, lands at Galway Harbour along with a site in the possession of the ESB in Wilton in Cork City, could be used to build thousands of social and affordable homes.
Land around the Bus Depot at Conyngham Road and a Central Bank site at the Mint in Sandyford in Dublin, along with land at the North Docks Bus Depot in Waterford, were also viewed as suitable for housing.
Construction on that scale would make significant inroads into the housing crisis after Taoiseach Leo Varadkar recently said 250,000 new homes were needed to fill Ireland’s housing deficit, far more than foreseen in the Coalition’s 2021 Housing for All master plan.
This is the first LDA report on the future potential of State-owned land to deliver affordable and social housing.
The report is aiming to unlock the potential for under-utilised State-owned lands and to create a development pipeline of potential sites for affordable and social housing.
The sites were assessed based on their ability to deliver affordable housing, facilitate the creation of new sustainable communities, and add to existing ones.
A full breakdown of sites identified by the LDA's planning division shows the locations nationwide which includes Dublin (38), Cork (14), Limerick (6), Galway (8) and Waterford (4) Sligo (4), Letterkenny (2), Dundalk (4), Drogheda (1) and Athlone (2).
Other reports will soon examine the housing potential of State-owned sites in other relevant public land areas, of which there are currently 38.
The report will now be subject to further consideration by the Government and the LDA.
