I welcome the opportunity to speak today on the work of the Housing Commission and the significant work the Government is doing and will continue to do to implement the commission’s recommendations.
Before I do so, I wish to say I am honoured to have been afforded the opportunity to take on the housing brief. I look forward to contributing to an area which has the potential to significantly enhance the lives of people in our society.
This afternoon I will update the House on the work ongoing in my Department since the publication of the report of the Housing Commission. I am delighted to take the opportunity to speak about the housing policy agenda more broadly. I will set out some of the key reforms we will progress to address the immediate challenge of boosting housing supply while supporting those policies and structures needed for a sustainable housing system and a supply of new homes in the country that it needs into the long term.
This twin-track approach of short-term pragmatic actions in tandem with longer-term deliverables to underpin the sustainability post-2030 speaks directly to the broad direction of travel proposed by the Housing Commission. It will be a challenging task to marry the two and - the House may not agree fully on this - mine and the Government’s primary focus will be on achieving these ends.
The report of the Housing Commission has been much referenced in this House since it was published last May. As I take up the housing portfolio, it is opportune to set out the scale of work that has been progressed over some months in response to the commission’s report. I also want to outline how the commission’s work has been reflected in the programme for Government, how the Government continues to examine in detail the commission’s proposals and how it can build on the solid platform laid by Housing for All over the last three years. Before continuing, I want to acknowledge and reflect on the achievement the commission’s report represents. I commend and thank the commission members on a challenging job well done. Each of them brought drive, commitment and passion to the task set. The commission was established in December 2021 to consider long-term housing post-2030 and examine how to build on the policy changes outlined in Housing for All and related Government policies. The main report is the output of more than two years grappling with and developing solutions to a myriad of complex and interlinked issues. The commission was unquestionably diligent in this work. The members brought a wealth and breadth of experience and expertise, adopting a meticulous evidence-based approach and consulting extensively with the public, housing providers, tenants, younger adults and other sectoral stakeholders, all of which is reflected in the depth of the commission’s consideration which can only really be appreciated when one examines the report. It is more than 400 pages long, covering ten thematic areas and including more than 80 recommendations and around 500 actions and subactions.
At a high level, the commission considered that housing should be affirmed as a unique national priority supporting social cohesion and economic development and with a focus on expressing our collective aspirations for society. I wholeheartedly agree with the commission in this respect and will work tirelessly to make this happen. More specifically, the commission proposed a housing deficit should be addressed through emergency action and cleared over ten years. It recommended a radical reform across all aspects of the social housing system. It set out a suite of actions for the private rented sector and it issued a call for a greater focus on outcomes with an enhanced ambition embracing a different risk- and decision-making environment across the administrative system.
Again, with some exceptions and a different emphasis in some areas, there is much that resonates with me and my vision for the future of the housing system.
These points and others are captured by recommendations in the report and I will touch on as many of them as time allows during this debate. There is much to be considered in the report and there are many areas where implementation may be complex or have potential consequences elsewhere, but I can confidently say we are scoping and progressing many of the actions. Some have been committed to in the new programme for Government, while others are reforming thinking on the step change needed to build on Housing for All and to deliver 300,000 or more new homes by 2030 and 60,000-plus per year thereafter.
Building on the engagement my officials had with the commission last year, I spoke to the commission’s members recently to thank them, hear their views and invite them to engage further with me and my Department as we strive to implement their proposals. A point made by one of the members at that meeting stuck with me, principally that the report is best considered as an ongoing resource for ideas and solutions, rather than as one that can be quickly consumed and implemented. Of course, we must act with urgency in the face of the crisis facing many households, but we must not lose sight of the longer term need as we do so.
There has been much commentary suggesting we have not engaged seriously with the commission's report. Much of this narrative is uninformed and I would like to put it to bed here today by outlining the work under way since the Government published the report last year. My Department began examining the report almost immediately after it was published, assigning dedicated resources for this purpose. We moved quickly to task the Housing Agency to support this work, not to reimagine the commission's consideration but to help examine costs associated with them, identify priorities and consider implementation timelines, resourcing implications and so forth. The commission rightly considered these matters to be more appropriate for the Government. This is, in itself, a complex and time-intensive exercise and it is taking time.
Reflecting the urgency needed, however, we are focusing first on those recommendations identified as key by the commission, as well as those others that can potentially have the greatest impact on supply in the short to medium term. This work is continuing at varying stages of progress. At the same time, we are mapping the full suite of recommendations and a direction of travel for substantial longer term reform. This includes work that is already under way in my Department but to which the commission's recommendations speak directly and indirectly. There are many commitments in the programme for Government relating to housing and infrastructure informed wholly or in part by the commission's report. We are taking these commitments forward and incorporating them into the broader work under way as appropriate.
The commission highlighted the need for a joined-up approach on infrastructure that supports housing development. The Government has considered how this might be best achieved, focusing on actions that can have an almost immediate impact, and to this end has committed to establishing a strategic housing activation office. This new office will report directly to me. It will focus on enabling infrastructure to support public and private housing development and providing solutions to infrastructure blockages. In this regard, the commitment draws on the commission's recommendation for a housing delivery oversight executive, co-ordinating related investment across key utility providers and intervening to unblock infrastructure issues on the ground. Backed by the required capital funding, it will play a game-changing role in enabling housing delivery in the near term and into the future. The office may not be exactly as the commission envisaged on day one, but it reflects a pragmatic approach to quickly achieving the underlying objective.
I agree with the commission in that speed is of the essence, especially if we are to maximise delivery this year and secure a robust pipeline in the years hereafter. I hope to bring proposals for establishing the office, including its role, functions and staffing, to the next Cabinet committee on housing and thereafter to the Government for a decision. I am mindful of the need to move quickly, but I am also keenly aware of the importance of securing the right person and team to lead and support it. Critically, the office must be led and staffed by persons with the necessary expertise, access to the key actors and a depth of understanding of the system in order that it can hit the ground running and have an immediate impact.
Allied with this, the new towns and cities infrastructure investment fund is a cornerstone commitment of the programme for Government, again aligning with commission proposals. The fund will be scoped and designed as part of the review of the national development plan. It will enable more strategic investment in infrastructure, land assembly and derisking of strategic sites for residential development in towns and cities. Importantly, while the decision is still to be made, it could provide funding firepower to facilitate the work of the strategic housing activation office.
We have also committed to establishing land activation units in local authorities to ensure a more proactive approach to identifying opportunities for development. This will build on the recent investment in local authority resources and help tackle important issues such as vacancy and dereliction through the vacant homes officers and town regeneration officers. The commitment will implement a key action in the commission's report, enhancing the powers and resources of local authorities and supporting and enabling the delivery of sustainable levels of housing. Relatedly, my Department is working with local authorities to review resources of housing delivery teams to secure future staffing needs and ensure the optimal structures for housing delivery are in place. Key in this regard will be developing, ring-fencing and retaining greater specialism in the sector relating to direct-build housing. The Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, will speak later to the intersection of the Housing Commission's report and the significant reforms under way in our planning system.
Since Housing for All was published in 2021, almost 107,000 homes have been added to the national housing stock through new builds, the completion of historical unfinished developments and vacant properties being brought back to use. Much still needs to be done but we have achieved a lot, with a step change in delivery in recent years. Last year's dip is certainly disappointing. I remain optimistic, however, that with appropriately targeted action by the Government, many of the more than 100,000 commencement notices lodged over the past two years will translate to new home completions and a general upward trajectory in the supply of recent times can be sustained. All our efforts must now focus on achieving the targets in the programme for Government, delivering more than 300,000 new homes by 2030 and building to 60,000 per year by the end of the period.
The commission's report contains a range of estimates for housing demand projections, including estimates of unmet housing demand. I welcome a range of views and the testing of assumptions underpinning the Government's housing targets, just as I would also test those put forward by the commission. The commission estimates unmet demand of between 212,500 and 256,000 homes. I understand there was much debate among the commission's members regarding this estimate, which is natural, given that any estimate of unmet demand necessarily relies on judgments regarding underlying assumptions, such as the rate at which Ireland's average household size will converge with that of peer countries. Given that we currently have a younger population than many of our peers, the commission's judgment on the average Irish household size in the event of a less constrained housing market underlies its estimate of unmet demand.
I agree with the commission that clearing unmet demand is a priority action and must be addressed within the decade. I also agree that estimates of housing requirements must be regularly assessed and reassessed, and I expect to revisit the targets in 2027. Our revised targets, underpinned by expert, peer-reviewed research and modelling, are credible and ambitious. Scaling up capacity to deliver 60,000 new homes by 2030 will be an enormous challenge but it is one that can be achieved by, among other things, appropriate supports to grow the construction industry's capacity year on year. Growing capacity will establish a platform from which housing supply can be ramped up to the higher levels needed after 2030 and provide a platform to deliver on the commission's recommendations of addressing unmet demand within the next ten years. I await further analysis by my Department to underpin new targets for each tenure as part of the next housing plan. We will consider all views on these estimates but whatever the overall number, the point remains we must seek to grow supply significantly for all tenures while doing so in a sustainable manner.
Scaling up the use of modern methods of construction is a key Government priority which can help speed up delivery with achievable reductions in delivery times of between 20% and 60% for projects through the effective maximisation of scale. In line with the commission’s report, my Department is working with the industry to develop a standardised design approaches study to build awareness of the benefits and opportunities for the sector presented by standardised housing design. A timber and construction steering group is also focusing on areas such as regulation, public procurement, research and public awareness to increase the use of timber in construction.
Modelling by the Department of Finance estimates that delivering 50,000 homes on average per year to 2030 will require some €20 billion in development finance each year. The State is doing more than ever in this space, directing an unprecedented level of public resources at housing, and will continue to do so. The level of investment required in the long term, however, cannot be solely the responsibility of the State. It will also require considerable levels of private investment. Some of this private investment will come from our domestic banks, and we will work with them to ensure they are appropriately using their lending capacities to support the development of housing nationwide.
It is an unassailable fact, however, that the majority has to be secured from international sources. It is clear from last year's completion figures that there has been a significant drop in apartment delivery, rooted in the almost complete retrenchment in institutional capital since 2022, which has severely impacted on the delivery of new homes. Institutional investment, such as that from Irish and other European pension funds, will be key to generating the additional supply of new homes we need.
There is no getting away from this. Uninformed commentary unfairly labelling all private investment as harmful impacts our ability to attract this investment and provide the additional homes we need. Critically, protecting renters and attracting finance for home delivery are not mutually exclusive. Securing this type of investment will benefit today's renters and those wishing to avail of accommodation in future. To do so, we have committed to establishing the stable and predictable policy approach necessary to attract and retain private investment and this will inform our thinking on the review of the rent pressure zone, RPZ, regime. This review will have regard to the need to appropriately balance the interests of landlords and tenants to support a sustainable, long-term model for rent price regulation. My Department has asked the Housing Agency to review the operation of rent pressure zones, which will fully consider the Housing Commission recommendations in this regard. The review will be completed by the end of March, after which I will consider proposals to bring to the Government prior to the ending of the current RPZ controls on 31 December this year.
I stress that we can both protect renters and attract finance for new homes for rent at the same time. Increasing the supply of properties for rent benefits all renters and that is why it is a key ambition for the private rental sector. The commission has made significant and far-reaching recommendations that will alter the operation of the social housing system as we currently know it. For example, it recommends retaining and recycling all social housing moneys within the system for maintenance and future delivery. It recommends merging social housing with cost-rental housing, based on the principle of a cost-recovery rent and it recommends increasing social and cost-rental housing to 20% of the national stock.
The commission acknowledges the long-term needs from these recommendations and the need for significant appraisal and consideration before any substantive decisions can be taken. I am committed to considering these recommendations as part of the need to establish a better platform from which housing supply can be increased to meet the need arising in the long term. This consideration will be reflected in the new national housing plan, although the need for appropriate appraisal and consideration to enable decisions to be taken in relation to these seismic, longer term ambitions may take some time.
The approved housing body, AHB, sector will continue to be indispensable partners in delivering and managing social and affordable housing as we work towards further scaling up delivery and a more sustainable longer term system. The Housing Commission reinforced the crucial role of AHBs and recommended policy and structural reforms to maximise the potential of the sector while addressing risks and impediments. My Department established the AHB strategic forum in 2024 to collaborate on a future vision and reform roadmap for the sector. The forum was informed by multiple sources, including the findings and recommendations of the commission. We are currently finalising the forum's report and expect a review of the recommendations arising in the coming months and for the agreed priority actions to be incorporated in the new housing plan.
Affordability and home ownership remain at the heart of the Government's housing policy. We have been very successful in growing a new affordable housing programme from a standing start in 2021. To date, more than 6,000 approvals have been issued under the first home scheme. In addition, nearly 1,300 local authority affordable purchase homes have been purchased by first-time buyers across 16 local authorities. I met representatives of the Land Development Agency this week and heard about its pipeline, which will see the agency deliver a volume of homes on a par with the largest home builders in the country, a significant proportion of which will be apartments.
We have worked hard to build a pipeline across the affordable purchase and cost-rental areas. I note the commission's support for the affordable housing framework we have put in place, as well as its proposals to build on this and regularly review the functioning of these schemes as the market evolves. My Department is working on ten-year specific breakdowns of the housing targets for the period ahead. This work will inform the targets for social, affordable and cost-rental houses over the next five years. I welcome the recommendation from the commission to deliver cost-rental housing on a greater scale and we have made some good strides in this space recently.
From 2021 to the end September last year, we delivered 2,640 cost-rental homes through AHBs, local authorities, the Land Development Agency and the cost-rental and tenant in situ schemes. Affordable housing schemes, including cost-rental, are starting to deliver at scale and this momentum will continue as the pipeline is developed. The programme for Government commits to building more cost-rental units and embedding it as a permanent tenure.
Addressing vacancy and dereliction and bringing existing properties back into use as homes is a key priority for this Government. The Housing Commission draws particular attention to this important area. It notes that while the overall vacancy rate has declined in Ireland, there are high levels of vacancy in some rural areas and it remains a serious issue. The Government has also been taking action in areas highlighted by the commission, including ensuring vacant homes officers are in place across all local authorities. The vacant homes refurbishment grant is a key enabler in reducing vacancies and is proving extremely popular, with the number of grant payments rising from 100 in 2023 to 1,349 by the end of last year and equating to 1,449 vacant properties being returned to use as homes. We will continue to push initiatives in this area in line with programme for Government commitments and informed by the ideas of the commission. All of these commitments and targets will inform discussions for the forthcoming national development plan review, as will the programme for Government commitment to invest additional capital in Uisce Éireann. This investment is essential if the scale of the necessary housing development exceeds what is provided in the Uisce Éireann capital investment plan underpinning its strategic funding plan from 2025 to 2029.
The ambitions I have set out, particularly around addressing the immediate issues of increasing the supply of new housing, rely on securing the appropriate levels of capital funding and a strengthening of the whole-of-government approach introduced under Housing for All. Maintaining the considerable levels of collaboration and joined-up thinking across key Government Departments with our delivery partners and sectoral stakeholders will be critical. I am committed to continuing and deepening this collective approach in the coming years. Funding will also be critical. Without funding the required solutions, we run the real risk of exacerbating the challenges we already face. Work is already starting on the review of the national development plan and this is due to be complete by July. The last national development plan review recognised the importance of housing as an issue of national importance and I will again make the case for its critical importance. I recognise these will be challenging discussions given the many important competing priorities drawing on a finite level of available resources, but I am optimistic the outcome of the review will reflect the focus and measures needed to meet the challenges ahead. Of course, the Exchequer and the national development plan cannot be the sole contributor. Other sources will also be important. The incoming Apple moneys and the revenue from the disposal of State shares in AIB can also contribute to the investment needed in critical areas, acknowledging the many expectations of my ministerial colleagues in that regard. I will engage regularly with the Minister, Deputy Chambers, over the coming months to secure the moneys needed to deliver them. Securing the appropriate funding will be a key factor in defining our progress over the coming years.
I thank the Housing Commission for its work which, as I have set out, is having a significant influence on the Government's work. I acknowledge much still needs to be done to implement the recommendations. I will continue to consider the report as I work through the actions to boost supply in the immediate term and further develop my plans to deliver on the longer term ambition of a functioning housing system that meets the needs of all.
