Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 13 July 2023
488. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he will indicate his projection of the relative need for cost-rental versus the affordable purchase scheme to be developed by public authorities; and the basis on which this projection has been made. [35373/23]
View answerHousing for All commits to deliver 54,000 affordable homes to either purchase or rent between now and end 2030, with 29,000 delivered by end 2026. The majority of homes will be targeted at Affordable Purchase with an overall average delivery ratio of approximately 2:1 Affordable Purchase to Cost Rental. These new-build homes will be targeted primarily at first time buyers and those facing demonstrable affordability constraints.
The Housing Demand and Need Assessment (HNDA) framework and tool assists local authorities develop long-term views of housing demand and need and provide a robust evidence-base to support decisions about new housing supply, wider investment and housing related services that inform an overall national housing profile.
The HNDA tool helps project housing demand estimates across four tenures, namely social, affordable, private rental and private ownership. Generally, it does this by projecting population growth and distribution across and within local authorities, as well as forecasting house prices, rent prices and incomes to make an assessment of the future affordability of the different housing tenures. The tool is populated by a range of different demographic, income, and house and rental price scenarios and assumptions for this purpose.
Using the ESRI's household projections and deploying the tool's Convergence Scenario, the HNDA methodology produced an estimated housing need across the four tenures for the period to 2030. This estimate underpinned the annual average target of 33,000 homes per year in Housing for All and informed local authority housing supply targets to 2030, including social and affordable housing.
It is intended to review the HNDA framework, including the tool and underlying demographic, income, house and rental price scenarios and assumptions this year as the detailed Census data become available. As a critical element of this work, the ESRI will update its research on structural housing demand. It is expected that this work will be completed towards end-2023.
