Planning laws - No more cash in lieu of houses

In its new report, Building for Inclusion, Focus Ireland indicates that targets in providing social and affordable housing are not being met for a variety of reasons.

The report is particularly critical of the process of allowing builders to make cash payments in lieu of providing actual houses.

When the scheme was first introduced in 2000 as part of the Planning and Development Acts, it was designed to ensure that 20% of the land in most housing developments should be reserved for social and affordable houses, but the industry lobbied strongly against it, going all the way to the Supreme Court.