The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Mr Dick Roche T.D. and the Minister for Housing and Urban Renewal Mr. Noel Ahern T.D., recently announced the publication of a new housing policy statement Delivering Homes, Sustaining Communities. Launching the document in the Civic Offices in Ballymun, Minister Roche sought to define sustainable communities – the key concept at the core of the policy document: "Sustainable communities are places where people want to live and work, now and in the future. They are sensitive to their environment and contribute to a high quality of life. Such communities are safe and inclusive, well planned, built and run. They offer equality of opportunity and good services for all".

While acknowledging the ambitious scope of the statement, the Minister insisted that such a vision was achievable. "In Delivering Homes, Sustaining Communities we are setting out the actions ensure the vision for sustainable communities is achieved. In part, it is a policy agenda. But we are also investing substantial additional resources in housing services over the period of NDP 2007-2013".

The last decade has seen phenomenal demand for housing and record levels of housing output to meet that demand. However, it has been estimated that a further 600,000 homes will be required over the next nine years. The scale of these requirements presents a challenge and an opportunity to deliver new development to the highest physical and environmental quality. Delivering Homes, Sustaining Communities provides a strategic reference to help deliver on this challenge.

The Minister also said that"Building energy efficient and environmentally friendly housing is particularly important in the context of the pressing challenges of climate change. Providing infrastructure to support the delivery of the required levels of housing will remain at the heart of Government housing policy. The planning framework to deliver on this agenda is in place. We must ensure that connections are made between different elements of physical and social infrastructure if we are to build sustainable communities.

The challenge is to provide an integrated strategy to meet the growing and diverse needs of our population in a high quality way. In 2004, NESC commented on the complementary goals of adequate quantity and quality of sustainable development. I am confident that with the comprehensive range of actions set out in Delivering Homes, Sustaining Communities we can achieve this".