Ryan O'Meara
Question:1. Deputy Ryan O'Meara asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [14723/25]
View answerTuesday, 29 April 2025
Questions (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
Catherine Ardagh
Question:2. Deputy Catherine Ardagh asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [14730/25]
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Ruairí Ó Murchú
Question:3. Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [15162/25]
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Séamus McGrath
Question:4. Deputy Séamus McGrath asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [7772/25]
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Tom Brabazon
Question:5. Deputy Tom Brabazon asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [13976/25]
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John Lahart
Question:6. Deputy John Lahart asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [13977/25]
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Richard Boyd Barrett
Question:7. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [15507/25]
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Paul Murphy
Question:8. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [15510/25]
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Barry Heneghan
Question:9. Deputy Barry Heneghan asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [15512/25]
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Cian O'Callaghan
Question:10. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [17123/25]
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Rory Hearne
Question:11. Deputy Rory Hearne asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [17124/25]
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Rose Conway-Walsh
Question:12. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [17316/25]
View answerCian O'Callaghan
Question:13. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [18952/25]
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Peadar Tóibín
Question:14. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [20955/25]
View answerOral answers (46 contributions)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 14, inclusive, together.
The Cabinet committee on housing last met on Monday, 31 March and is due to meet again this Thursday, 1 May. The committee works to ensure a co-ordinated approach to the implementation of housing policy. Housing supply has increased significantly over the past number of years. We now have the highest social housing build per annum in half a century, while the latest figures published by the CSO show that almost 6,000 new homes were completed in the first quarter of this year, a rise on the same three months of 2024.
While these figures are welcome, the Government is committed of course to scaling up delivery further. The programme for Government sets out our ambition to accelerate housing supply, building on progress to date and recognising housing as a major social and economic challenge. Since we have come to office, we have demonstrated our commitment to this ambition. Just this morning, Government approved the establishment of a dedicated housing activation office in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to identify and seek to address barriers to the delivery of public infrastructure projects required to enable housing development. This office will engage and align stakeholders, including local authorities, infrastructure providers, industry and others to tackle barriers in a co-ordinated way.
It will also have a key operational function seeking to unblock issues on the ground. The office will focus on infrastructure needed at a local level to support housing delivery on multiple sites.
In addition, we now have a dedicated division in the Department of public expenditure focused on the delivery of very large scale infrastructure projects, many of which will enable the delivery of housing at the scale we need in the areas where it is needed most. To build houses at scale, we need to provide other services at scale such as energy, water and transport. These areas are front and centre in our priorities as we review the national development plan. The housing activation office will co-ordinate its work with the new infrastructure division to ensure effective co-ordination.
We have consistently said we need to reform our planning process. A very important milestone will be the imminent establishment of An Coimisiún Pleanála to replace An Bord Pleanála. This new body will result in a changed and more resourced organisational structure and will have mandatory statutory deadlines, accelerating crucial planning decisions and reducing delays in court. In support of this reform, we will all need to recognise the importance of a more effective planning and legal process that balances the rights of the individual with the broader societal need for improved services.
Since coming to office, we have allocated an additional €450 million to build a further 3,000 social, affordable and cost-rental homes. This is on top of the €6 billion already allocated in budget 2025. We have also approved the allocation of €325 million in capital funding for the second-hand acquisition programme. This increased funding, which will support tenant in situ acquisitions, will help to prevent people falling into homelessness due to the sale of their rental homes. Earlier this month, the Government agreed the first revision to the national planning framework. This sets the strategy for our development in the years to come and, importantly, will enable local authorities to zone sufficient land for residential development to support the step up in delivery. The Government has also approved the drafting of legislation to regulate the short-term letting market. This will provide for more long-term availability of homes in areas of greatest need while balancing the legitimate requirements of the tourism sector. We are in the process of developing the plan for home delivery for the next five years and beyond. We will pursue every action possible and be creative in our thinking as we move to step up delivery of housing.
It is clear that we have challenges, in particular, with the viability of apartment development and the high cost of construction. We will need to be ambitious in our approach, keeping all options on the table in order to address these challenges. I am confident that we can build on our success to date and achieve further momentum across all areas of housing delivery over the lifetime of this Government.
Housing is the single greatest issue facing my generation. We need to fully embrace modern methods of construction. I will focus on modular-style homes and log cabin buildings or whatever name one wants to give them. I welcome the discussion on planning permission exemptions for backyard-style extensions or developments but we need to move beyond that. Will the Government consider expanding planning permission to modular and log cabin-style homes beyond what is currently being discussed? There is massive scope in that regard. I appreciate it will not be the single solution but it is part of the solution. I ask for consideration of that matter.
The tenant in situ scheme funding allocation to Dublin City Council in 2025 was reduced to €95 million, a significant decrease on last year. Coupled with the new exclusions that a property cannot be in need of refurbishment and has to have been in HAP or RAS for the past two years, this has limited the council's ability to work. There are currently more than 100 tenants with applications pending a decision from the council on whether it will go ahead with the purchase, leaving many families in this city at risk of homelessness. Given that Dublin City Council already has the burden of nearly 70% of the national homelessness figure, I ask the Taoiseach to reconsider the funding and operational restrictions on the tenant in situ scheme. Providing adequate resources and flexibility to Dublin City Council is essential to continue protecting vulnerable tenants and preventing homelessness in our city.
The tenant in situ purchase scheme was a means of saving people from homelessness. It is frightening that Louth County Council, which was provided €18.884 million last year for social housing acquisitions, has only been provided €12 million this year. That is a reduction of 36%. The previous Deputy spoke about the tighter constraints and conditions. In my engagement with Louth County Council, it said it will be able to apply this scheme to fewer people. People in the same circumstances as those who previously were saved from homelessness will not be saved now. There needs to be a rethink of a scheme that actually saved people from homelessness.
I ask for a timeline for the publication of rural housing guidelines. We were told they were with the Attorney General over the summer. We all know the difficulties people have. They just want to know that they will, if they follow decent planning conditions, be able to build and live in the areas they are from. It is necessary. We have to look at planning as it concerns the modular and log cabin-type buildings discussed earlier. Like everyone else, I have been contacted by multiple people. We need to get on with that work. I understand it is a solution for a small number of people but it is necessary. We need to look beyond what is being spoken about at the moment.
I thank the Taoiseach. I have a sore throat, so please excuse me being brief. Regarding the first home scheme, the programme for Government sets out the intention to extend that scheme to second-hand homes. It is a critical provision. I would like it to happen as soon as possible. The first home scheme has been incredibly successful for newly constructed homes. It has helped many individuals and couples bridge the gap between what they could raise through mortgages and so on and what the properties actually cost. It has helped to create the necessary bridge, providing family homes for thousands of people. It needs to be extended to the second-hand market. There has been debate about inflationary pressures that may result. We do not have the luxury to debate these issues endlessly. We need to get on with it. This scheme has proven to be a success. I ask the Taoiseach to use every means in his office and the new housing activation office, which I welcome, to ensure we fulfil the commitment in the programme for Government as soon as possible.
Like some of the other Deputies, I raise the tenant in situ scheme. A recent motion passed by Dublin City Council, the second-largest democratic chamber in this country, asked for the previous tenant in situ scheme to be reintroduced. Not only have Dublin City Council and other councils around the country run out of funds, but there are changes in the system whereby a tenant in situ applicant must have been in receipt of HAP or RAS for two years prior to application. I am at a loss as to the public policy objective of that change. Surely, if somebody qualifies for social housing, he or she should qualify for the tenant in situ scheme. It is urgent. It is the only method of saving people from homelessness right now.
I also wish to raise the commitment in the programme for Government regarding modular homes, which Deputy O'Meara raised. We need to move this on with speed. I agree with some of the previous speakers - we cannot endlessly debate these things. We need the public consultation to be dealt with and truncated as quickly as possible and to get on with the policymaking and necessary legislation to bring in exemptions so that people can start planning and looking at designs, builds and delivery for young couples who cannot otherwise acquire housing on the market.
Regarding the Cabinet sub-committee on housing, I know the issue of the gazumping of young people will mean a lot to the Taoiseach. I saw a house for sale recently in my constituency for €495,000. That is really expensive but by the time it was sold, it had gone up and up. In Scotland, when a house is put up for sale, quite a bit of consideration is given by the vendor and the person selling it on the vendor's behalf. When you name the price on the market in the local estate agents, if it is £495,000 and you are offered that figure, the house must be withdrawn. You have attained the market price you looked for. Will the housing sub-committee examine a process like that? That would save soul destruction and heartbreak for younger people in particular who think they have the means to afford a house but are then outbid.
People want to know what is so impressive about Brendan McDonagh's CV that he is worth almost €500,000 a year to be the so-called housing czar.
They will be outraged when they find out that his qualification is not experience in addressing the housing crisis but instead in causing it. He has been CEO of the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, since 2009, when he was appointed by the late Brian Lenihan. It took on loans on land and property originally valued at €88 billion. That gave the State control of almost all development land suitable for housing. Over the next 16 years, Brendan McDonagh flogged it all off for less than half the price. Some 90% of it went to US vulture funds, which sold it back to the same developers who took out the bad loans in the first place for far less than they originally owed. It was an absolute scam, which cost the people €34 billion and has left vulture funds and property developers hoarding all of the housing and development land that we need to solve the housing crisis. How on earth can the Government appoint Brendan McDonagh to solve a crisis he created?
Right across Dublin Bay North and, indeed, the entire country, vacant and derelict buildings are sitting idle while people are crying out for housing. Hundreds of people email me weekly. They are dying to get into these houses on the same street they are in in north Dublin. Local authorities are struggling with enforcement. I urge that there be an investigation into Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council regarding the amount of funding that is going into derelict and vacant sites investigation teams. Will there be a commitment to the radical overhaul of our approach, penalties put in place on a long-term vacancy, the streamlining of our CPO powers and finally giving communities in Dublin and across Ireland the power to bring these sites back to life?
The housing crisis is an absolute disaster. The Taoiseach spoke about homelessness earlier. I want to raise this issue. It is very clear from the data that the main cause of homelessness is evictions from the private rental sector. There is no lack of clarity in the figures on that. Some 30,000 households have been evicted since the Government linked lifted the eviction ban in 2023. However, one of the key measures in response to that is the tenant in situ scheme. I have been contacted by constituents from Dublin North West, including one from Santry, a mother with three children at immediate risk of homelessness. She has lived in her home for the past seven years with her children and is in receipt of the housing assistance payment. We contacted Dublin City Council, which did not mention tenant in situ as one of the responses to this case. It is clear that Dublin City Council and other councils across the country do not have the funding for the tenant in situ scheme to prevent families like this mother and her children from becoming homeless.
How does the Government think it is appropriate that we allow this scale of homelessness? Will the Government fund the tenant in situ scheme properly? Does the Government feel it is appropriate that a person who caused homelessness and stood over the evictions of properties - the Taoiseach can raise his eyes to heaven-----
Get out of it.
Do not tell me to get out of it.
You cannot talk about personalities in here.
Yes, we can. He was a CEO who oversaw the eviction of thousands of people from NAMA receiver properties. He contributed to the housing crisis. The Government will now appoint him as a housing fixer. The only doors that will be battered down, as the Minister said, will be the doors of people who are facing eviction. It is absolutely inappropriate. The Taoiseach can shake his head. He should shake his head in shame at the level of homelessness in this country and not put his eyes up to heaven about me raising this issue.
Did the Cabinet sign off on the €430,000 salary associated with the strategic housing activation office today? People in County Mayo and across the country who cannot access housing or who are paying exorbitant rates want to know that. This is almost €500,000 in salary for a role that should not be necessary if the Government stuck to its housing projections and implemented the recommendations of the Housing Commission report.
Earlier this month, I wrote to Mayo County Council to seek information about a number of social housing acquisitions in 2024. In Mayo, there has been a cut of 63% to funding for new applications for social housing acquisitions. This has a real impact on people's lives. By the end of 2024,13 tenant in situ acquisitions had been paused.
I am working with a woman whose landlord is selling the house she has lived in for the past seven years. This mother is living with a brain condition and she has a nine-year-old daughter. They are facing homelessness, but because of the restrictions on Mayo County Council, it can no longer purchase a home under the tenant in situ scheme. She said, in her own words, "We have nowhere to go". The best the county council can offer them is emergency accommodation. I ask the Taoiseach to reverse the cuts and severe restrictions to the tenant in situ scheme.
The Government is employing a new housing tzar with a salary of €430,000, which is an incredible figure. Because of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independents, that may well be the salary someone needs to buy a home in many parts of this country at the moment. We have a record breaking Government for all the wrong reasons. We have record house prices, rents and numbers of people on the homeless list at the moment. There are incredible figures. This Government is in reverse on the most important issue facing the country.
In the majority of Government targets on housing, the Government cannot meet its targets, even those targets that are well short of what is actually necessary. Does the Taoiseach agree that at the heart of this plan is the Government is looking to put space between itself and the housing crisis? It is looking for a mudguard to deflect attention from its actions on the housing crisis. It is another effort to outsource what should be the competency of the Minister. He is well paid and has at least 20 senior managers in his Department. Will the Government go about the job of building houses for Irish people?
This Government and the previous Government built more social houses than had been built since the 1970s in the past four years.
That is not-----
That is a fact. Up to 48,000 social housing units were built. Nothing compares with that in the previous 15 or 20 years.
There were one and a half-----
The Deputy just keeps on shouting.
I am not shouting. I am just-----
The Deputy keeps coming forward with facile and superficial analysis of the housing crisis.
It is not-----
He sets himself up as a housing expert. He is nothing of the sort.
That is not true, actually. The Taoiseach can take that back.
That is why I would appreciate if he allowed other people to give their perspective. The only reason I raised my eyes was because I thought it was wrong of the Deputy to personalise the issue, demonise an individual who cannot defend himself in this House and make the assertions he has made about someone who has not been nominated to any position by Government. No decision has been taken, but the Deputy chose to take a cheap shot at an individual, blaming that person for all of the evictions that have happened in the past ten or 15 years. That was wrong. That is all I am saying. I do not think that is good enough either. We are all entitled to have different perspectives on the housing problem but let us not demonise individuals for the sake of a cheap political score.
The Taoiseach just said I was nothing of the sort. I was an academic in Maynooth. That is-----
We have built close to-----
This is the same nonsense. The Taoiseach is trying to take me down. My academic-----
The Deputy is an elected representative and he has set himself up-----
I am, but I was also an academic in Maynooth. The Taoiseach said I am nothing of the sort of a housing expert.
I did not say the Deputy was-----
The Taoiseach did. He said I was nothing of the sort.
You are out of order, Deputy. I ask the Taoiseach to continue.
The Deputy is not a construction housing expert. He never has been. He is-----
There is also housing policy. That is an expertise.
The Deputy lectures in social policy, and I believe he is a good lecturer in social policy.
That is part of housing.
That does not make the Deputy a housing expert.
Yes, it does. Housing policy is-----
It was good for the electoral pathway.
I will ask Deputy Hearne to please observe the rules of the House and allow the Taoiseach to answer the questions that he has been asked.
The Taoiseach is making derogatory comments.
You have had your opportunity.
In terms of social housing, there has been a significant step change. Last year, more than 10,000 social houses were delivered. More than 48,000 social houses have been added to the social housing stock since 2020. We need to do more and we need to build more social houses. The tenant in situ scheme was introduced in 2023. All Deputies have correctly raised that. There was no tenant in situ scheme before 2023. Substantial progress was made in respect of it. There were approximately 1,000 such arrangements in 2023. Approximately 1,800 social homes were acquired in 2023. A thousand of those were for properties where tenants received a notice of termination. In 2024, more than 1,000 notices of termination under the tenant in situ scheme were received. Some €325 million is to be applied this year to local authorities.
There is a sense in the examination of the application of the tenant in situ scheme across the country that not all funding was being used for those for whom it was designed, that is, people in immediate need or those at risk of homelessness because of the termination of a tenancy. There is some evidence that it has incentivised second-hand acquisitions more broadly than was intended. The scheme, therefore, has been refined with a view to trying to get local authorities to focus specifically on those at immediate risk of homelessness and not as a way out for some landlords to sell their houses expeditiously to local authorities.
We have to get the balance right on new builds and acquisitions as well because other Deputies earlier in the day referenced, for example, the fact that in one city in County Limerick, apparently, approved housing bodies were purchasing 60% of their stock as opposed to new builds. The balance has to be gotten right in that respect.