Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 21 May 2024

Vol. 1054 No. 4

Housing Situation: Motion [Private Members]

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

notes that:

— the most recent Central Statistics Office report stated that in the past year house prices have continued to skyrocket, rising by more than 7 per cent Statewide;

— across the State, first-time buyers now face an average price of €400,000 to buy a new-build home;

— the rate of home ownership has fallen to its lowest level in 50 years under this Government, as house prices and rents continue surging out of control;

— the number of new homes coming onto the market for people to buy and own fell last year and has flatlined under this Government;

— investment companies and vulture funds are hoovering up properties to rent out at extortionate prices which is making the situation worse; and

— the Tánaiste made a personal promise and a commitment to the electorate that if they got into Government he would deliver 50,000 affordable houses at prices that would be less than €250,000;

further notes:

— warnings from trade unions that the housing and affordability crisis is threatening our public services, with teachers, nurses and Gardaí unable to find affordable accommodation in cities, towns and villages across the State; and

— similar warnings from employer representative groups that the housing crisis is undermining our economy and that many employers are finding it increasingly difficult to attract and retain staff due to a lack of affordable housing;

condemns this Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Green Party Government for delivering zero affordable homes to rent or buy in 2020 and 2021 and missing their inadequate affordable housing targets in 2022 and 2023;

agrees that people need a Government that will deliver homes that people can afford, and that will take on the vulture funds, the big landlords and the vested interests that are making the housing crisis worse; and

calls for:

— a radical reset of Government housing policy; and

— at least a doubling of output in the number of affordable homes to buy and rent.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil like to present themselves as the parties of homeownership. In his speech the Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, near as made the same claim. The problem is that almost none of the facts support that contention. The Minister of State's own party has been in government for 12 years and has been propped up by Fianna Fáil for seven years. Homeownership is at its lowest level in 50 years. Home ownership as a percentage of housing stock, particularly for younger people, continues to fall, despite what the Minister of State has said. One of the reasons is that, despite the fact that in recent years there has been an increase in the overall number of homes delivered, the actual number of homes being built to go on the market for regular working people to buy has flatlined. Let me give the figures for the Minister of State because I suspect his officials have not done so. In 2019, there were 8,679 new build homes that went on the market for people to buy. Last year, which was a record year for new home building according to the Minister of State, there were actually fewer new homes that went on the market for people to buy. When affordable purchase homes are taken out, it was about 8,500. That figure was less than in 2022 when it was about 9,000. If the same number of homes are coming on the market to buy every year, then house prices are not going to fall. If, at the very same time, you are turbocharging that constrained market with an expanded so-called help to buy scheme with a highly controversial and high-risk shared equity scheme, then prices are going to rise. This is exactly what has happened under the Government's plan.

How anybody can think that presiding over the greatest level of house price inflation since the Celtic tiger is in some way compatible with a commitment to homeownership is just living in cloud-cuckoo-land. Those two things do not match. The Government loves to say 500 first-time buyers are drawing down their mortgages every week. That is true, but the vast majority of them are not buying new homes, even with the Government's inflationary help to buy and first home schemes. They cannot afford to buy the new homes that are being built. Why? Because average home prices are now in excess of €400,000. Where are people buying those homes? They are buying them further and further away from the places they work, from the places their children go to school, or from the places where they study and spend their leisure time. The Government is not only consigning an entire generation to unaffordable homes, those few who can actually buy their homes are living further and further away. What is the cost? Huge commutes, a huge impact on their financial well-being, especially with the cost of diesel and petrol rising, but also huge impacts for the environment and climate. This is not a sustainable or sensible housing policy.

If all of that was not bad enough, let us have a look at the Government's affordable housing schemes, because Ministers like to wax lyrical about affordable housing. In fact, Darragh O'Brien made a remarkable assertion earlier today. He said that 4,000 affordable housing solutions had been provided last year. I believe the Minister of State used a similar figure in a previous speech. It is kind of a funny thing; you cannot live in a solution. You can only live in a home. A very large number of those solutions were approvals for high-risk shared equity loans that were never drawn down. People did not actually buy the homes, not that, if they did, they would be affordable. How many affordable homes did the Government actually deliver last year? It was 1,368. The Government missed its target by 61%. The year before that the Government delivered 1,007 and missed its target by 52%. That is a shockingly low level of affordable housing output.

Even more remarkable is the price of these so-called affordable homes. Ballincollig is not the most affluent area in the country but it is a very nice place to live. What is the full price of an affordable home delivered under your scheme, Minister of State? I will tell you. According to Cork County Council, it is €395,000. That is an affordable home under the scheme. Come up now to Dublin to my constituency in the suburbs of Dublin Mid-West. In Clonburris the full price of an affordable home under the Government's scheme is €435,000. Just so Darragh O'Brien can prove he is not doing any particular favours for his own constituents, what does a Government affordable house cost in Lusk in the Minister's own constituency? Are you listening, Minister of State? It is €565,000. In what world is €565,000 affordable? Here is the sucker punch. If the price of the house goes up, the volume of equity owned at the end will also increase, so the purchaser might pay even more. If, after spending 30 years working hard to pay down the mortgage, they have not paid off the €100,000-plus equity, this amount will be passed on to the kids as a penalty they will inherit and will have to pay.

Best yet is affordable rental. In Citywest the Land Development Agency bought apartments from Cairn. What are the rents? This in this suburbs. This is not the docklands in Dublin or a super salubrious part of the city. It is just an average place where good working people live. The Land Development Agency's rents are €1,400 for a one-bedroom apartment, €1,600 for a two-bedroom apartment, and €1,800 for a three-bedroom apartment. They are actually more expensive than existing renters pay in those areas. The Government is not delivering private homes to buy and it is certainly not delivering affordable homes to rent or buy. This is why homeownership is falling at the rate it is.

My colleagues will outline some of the solutions to this. Last week we set out affordable leasehold purchase. We have set out over and over again our measures for real affordable rental and real social housing. If the Minister of State will not believe us, then he should listen to the Housing Commission. It has said the Government's plan is not working, it has said it is failing, and it has called for a radical reset. On the basis of the speech the Minister of State just gave at the end of the previous debate and, I presume, the mirror copy image he will give now, the Government has no idea how to get us out of this crisis because it created it. That is why we need a change of Government to tackle the affordable housing crisis the Minister of State and his colleagues in government have caused.

Deputy Matt Carthy

If I were to say "systemic failures, ineffective decision making, reactive policymaking, risk aversion, impacting supply, and undermining affordability", someone would think I was taking an excerpt from a speech Deputy Ó Broin had made in this House, but I am not. These are excerpts from the Housing Commission report, the Housing Commission that was set up and established by the current parties in government and which has delivered a damning indictment on what every single Irish family already knows, that this Government is not only not delivering but is actually failing in housing output and is making the housing crisis worse every single year. The most damning line in the report that we have seen accuses the Government of the failure to treat housing as a critical social and economic priority, and so say all of us.

It is a great development that we have caught sight of even part of the Housing Commission report because we all know the Government was going to do its damnedest to ensure people would not get sight of it, especially in advance of the local and European Union elections on 7 June.

However, they have now seen it. They have seen the findings of the Housing Commission outlining that, despite our having one of the highest levels of public expenditure for housing, the Government has one of the poorest outcomes. Virtually every family in the State would say that is absolutely the case. The commission’s report, despite all the spin, rhetoric and bluster from the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, other Ministers and the Taoiseach, sets out very clearly that the housing crisis will not get better under the Government and that it will in fact continue to get much worse.

What needs to happen? The first thing that needs to happen on 7 June is that people need to send the Government a very strong message. I implore them to do so if they want to ensure young people no longer have to go to Sydney, Toronto or Dubai just to use their qualifications and have a decent standard of living. If they want to ensure their kids in their 30s who are living in the family boxroom with their own children have the prospect of a future that any other generation would expect or take for granted, they must send the Government a message. Above all, people must start believing there is a better and fairer way, because there absolutely is. There is no reason a state with such wealth and with a government with such resources should be presiding over continued failure in housing delivery. God, where will we find the solutions? The solutions have been presented but the difficulty is that the Government has turned its face against them.

What are the solutions? We need to see the delivery of the biggest public house-building programme in the history of the State. We need to meet social and affordable housing needs. We need to deliver, in particular, affordable houses at an unprecedented scale. It should not need to be said that we need to deliver houses that teachers, gardaí, factory workers and retail workers can actually afford – houses that people of every generation before us could gain access to. That needs to happen. We need to stop vulture funds from buying up family homes and student housing and support struggling homeowners with proper mortgage interest relief. Then we need to speed up the construction of homes. We have to cut red tape, ensure the necessary resources and finance are available and reform the planning process so we can deliver at speed the houses that are needed. We have to ensure we have the workers to build the homes by intervening so apprentices can complete their training on time and that we encourage all those qualified construction workers with Irish qualifications who are all over the world to come back to Ireland to help us in this task. We need to take the pressure off renters. We need to put a month’s rent back into their pockets so they will have some hope of saving for mortgages to buy the home they want to own.

There is a better and fairer way but this Government is not going to deliver it. It is time for change.

Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh

We have the highest rents ever. The average rent in Dublin now is €2,400 per month. We have the biggest housing list ever, with 134,000 in need of social housing. We have the greatest number of homeless ever, just short of 14,000 at the end of March this year. There were only 8,700 when the Government, including the Minister, entered office. There has been a 60% increase in four years. We have the highest number of children living in homeless shelters or family hubs. Billions of euro are diverted annually from building public houses to subsidise landlordism and vulture funds in this State. These figures are not figures to be proud of but the Government seems to believe they are. We should remember that behind all these figures, these statistics, there are families and individuals. There are young men and women and elderly couples with no place to call home. People are couch-surfing or cramped in boxrooms or attics in their parents’ or relatives’ homes. The statistics include the mother sharing her bed with her 12-year-old son in a room already divided to allow her 20-year-old brother some space to sleep in. There are people nearing retirement who are facing homelessness in the knowledge that their pension will not cover the rent. Tenants are putting up with squalid, damp-infested conditions because they know that if they pipe up, they will have nowhere else and face homelessness. These are not figures that the Minister should be proud of. It is time to go. It is time for us to take over and declare the emergency for what it is.

Deputy Seán Crowe

There was talk of a slowdown in rent rises after the latest Daft report, but new rents in south Dublin still rose by 4.2%. Unfortunately, wages did not go up, which is the big crisis facing many families. An average three-bedroom rented house in Tallaght now goes for over €2,200 per month, which is €27,000 per year. What family or individual can afford this on top of ever-increasing costs like those of childcare and energy? What young teacher, nurse, soldier, garda, bricklayer or factory worker can afford to live close to Dublin when rents are so high? That is before we even begin to think about home ownership. A buyer would need a deposit of at least €30,000 to secure a mortgage for a three-bedroom semi-detached home in Tallaght, which is impossible to save when already paying for rent, childcare, energy and transport and meeting the cost of living. Until we inject massive amounts of new social and affordable properties into the system, there can be no end to the spiralling prices and rents that have been the story of the Irish property market.

The Government’s plan simply is not working. The Minister might not know that but everyone else does. None of the Government’s housing plans has worked and it is safe to say none of its future plans will work unless there is a radical reset of Government housing policy. We need to at least double the number of affordable homes to buy and rent. We need affordable housing that is affordable, not houses attracting the crazy prices Deputy Ó Broin read out, such as those in Dublin Mid-West or my area. Houses need to be affordable to workers and their families.

Sinn Féin has a plan to fix the housing crisis. We have workable, ambitious solutions that would alleviate the pressure on the housing market and allow supply to start meeting demand finally. Put simply, the longer Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are in power, the worse the housing crisis will get. We are asking that people give us a chance to fix the housing market that others clearly cannot fix. That is the big challenge. If people are genuinely concerned about fixing it, there are alternatives.

Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú

I spoke earlier during statements and, not for the first time, I brought up the so-called affordable housing scheme at Cois Farraige, Blackrock, just outside Dundalk. In fairness to Louth County Council, it extended the time to ensure people could actually apply. Of the initial 26 applicants – I do not know how many more applied later – only five were able to meet the criteria. While there were meant to be ten affordable houses offered, only five applicants could meet the criteria and get a house. Therefore, there was a loss even on an attempt by the Government. I would like to reinforce the point that council officials made, namely, that the issues were the thresholds, criteria and difficulty. Forget what we are proposing, which I can easily state is workable and affordable; the fact is that the Government’s own system is absolutely failing the people. It is failing those in Louth County Council and other councils throughout the State that are trying to employ it. When something is broken, that needs to be accepted. The Government needs to examine how the problem is addressed and then move on.

The Government’s own Housing Commission has asked for a radical reset of housing policy. A radical reset of housing policy is not about Ministers coming in here telling us things are getting much better. The fact is that we all deal with people in absolutely drastic circumstances. We do not need to see the Daft.ie report to realise people have unaffordable rents, if lucky enough to have got a property. We all have people who contact us in the hope we will know somebody or have a contact in a rental agency who can provide them with accommodation.

In Louth, €1,661 was the average rent for quarter 1 of 2024. I read out some of these statistics earlier but if one searches on daft.ie for a rental property in Dundalk and its surrounds, one will find only 11 available. For just Dundalk, only nine are available. The cost to rent a three-bedroom house is €1,750. A four-bedroom house would cost €2,450. A three-bedroom apartment would cost €2,200. As I said earlier, I could go on but not for too long because there is not a whole pile of properties available. This is what we need to deal with.

What else did we learn from the leaks from the commission set up by the Government? The report refers to systemic failures, ineffective decision-making, reactive policy-making and risk aversion, all of which impact supply and undermine affordability. It identified a failure to treat housing as a critical social and economic priority. We have one of the highest levels of public expenditure for housing and one of the poorest outcomes. That is damning. What are we going to do about it?

The commission has called for social and affordable housing delivery to increase to 20% of total housing stock. I accept that the Taoiseach said earlier that people need to read this report. That is definitely the case. From what we have already seen, there is a lot of reading for the Government. It must look at the issues of rents and affordability that people are facing. We need some sort of delivery. I would like to think the Government will read and internalise the report. Solutions are being provided and we need to finally see action from the Government rather than the abject failure on housing, which is the cause of many of the issues with which we are all dealing.

Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Deputy Alan Dillon)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"notes:

— that Housing for All - a New Housing Plan for Ireland, now in its third year of implementation, sets out a comprehensive suite of actions aimed at addressing affordability in the housing sector and that supply, which is critical to achieving this, has increased significantly since its publication in September 2021;

— that almost 33,000 new homes were built in 2023 alone, more than 109,000 new homes have been built between 2020 and the end of Q1 2024;

— that in the first quarter of 2024 11,956 new homes commenced, a 63 per cent increase on the same period in 2023 and the highest number of quarter 1 commencements since the data series began in 2015;

— with more than 18,000 new homes commenced in April, some 53,000 homes have started on site in the year to the end of April, with approximately 350 units starting on site every working day so far this year;

— a likelihood that the substantial uplift in delivery in 2022 and 2023 will be sustained this year and that a there is a robust new home supply pipeline for 2025 and 2026, underpinned by rebounding planning permissions in 2023 and an extraordinary surge in commencements between January and April this year on the back of the Government's development levy waiver; and

— that the Government is providing €5.1 billion capital investment in 2024, the highest level of funding for housing in the history of the State, to accelerate the delivery of new homes and increase the supply necessary to reduce homelessness and moderate house and rental prices;

further notes:

— that the number of market purchases of new homes by households has increased year-on-year, from 38,000 in 2020 to more than 53,000 in 2023, with the share of purchases also increasing from 76 per cent to 80 per cent in that period;

— that the number of homes purchased by first-time buyers has increased from 12,644 or 25 per cent of all market purchases in 2020, to 17,435 or 28 per cent in 2023;

— at the same time, the increase in the share of market purchases by households, and in particular first-time buyers, is mirrored by a decrease in the share of such purchases by non-households from 24 per cent to 20 per cent over that timeframe;

— strong first-time buyer activity reflected in mortgage approval and mortgage drawdown activity in 2023 and 2024 to date, with recent Banking and Payment Federation of Ireland data suggesting there were more than 30,400 first-time buyer approvals in 2023, this is an increase of 9 per cent on the previous year;

— more than 6,400 mortgage applications approved for first-time buyers in Q1 2024, with the number of approvals in the 12 months to end-March 2024 showing an 8 per cent increase on the previous year;

— record growth in mortgage drawdowns by first-time buyers in 2023, with some 25,600 mortgages drawdown in the period, the highest annual level since 2007, this represented some 500 first time buyer drawdowns every week in 2023;

— that mortgage drawdowns to year end-March 2024 exceeded 25,000, remaining broadly on a par with drawdowns by first-time buyers in the previous 12-month period;

— the introduction of measures in 2021 to disincentivise the inappropriate bulk purchasing of new homes by investment funds, including a higher 10 per cent stamp rate for certain bulk purchases of residential properties and planning guidelines to restrict the bulk purchase of houses for planning applications lodged following their introduction in May 2021; and

— that between May 2021 and December 2023 planning permissions for some 40,827 new homes had the new 'owner-occupier' guarantee attached, restricting bulk buying by, or multiple sales to, a single purchaser;

recognises that an increased delivery of affordable homes is at the heart of Housing for All - a New Housing Plan for Ireland and welcomes that:

— over 4,000 affordable housing supports were delivered in 2023 via Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs), local authorities, the Land Development Agency (LDA), through the First Home Scheme, the Cost Rental Tenant-in-Situ Scheme and the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant;

— this represents an increase of 128 per cent on 2022 activity, which saw the first affordable homes delivered in a generation;

— over 1,600 cost rental homes have already been delivered by AHBs, local authorities and the LDA;

— funding is approved to support the delivery of more than 4,000 affordable homes (affordable purchase and cost rental) by 21 local authorities with the support of over €332 million in grant assistance from the Affordable Housing Fund;

— over 4,000 approvals have been issued under the First Home Scheme since launch, assisting first time buyers to purchase a new home in the private market more affordably; and

— over 7,800 Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant applications have been made, with over 4,667 already approved and over 320 grants issued to date; and based on current grant approvals and timelines to complete approved works, the set target of 4,000 by 2025 will be achieved in 2025;

condemns:

— Sinn Féin's opposition to home ownership schemes that have helped over 150,000 people into their first homes to date namely: Help to Buy scheme, First Home Scheme and the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant; and

— the continued failure by Sinn Féin to publish a detailed, fully costed alternative housing plan; and

agrees that the continued implementation of Housing for All - a New Housing Plan for Ireland represents the most appropriate response to deal with the housing challenges which Ireland is now facing."

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Government's countermotion and to outline to the House the progress that has been made by the Government under Housing for All to date. I reassert the Government's commitment to tackling the affordability challenge we face in the housing sector. We recognise that those challenges are having a real impact on people's lives and on the nation as a whole. We understand the urgency and the need to ensure that people have safe, secure and affordable homes. We do not underestimate the scale of the task and this Government agrees that it has to continue the implementation of Housing for All, which represents the most appropriate response to deal with the housing challenges that Ireland is now facing.

This Government has made significant progress towards delivering the commitment under Housing for All. The plan is supported by more than €5.1 billion in capital investment in 2024, the highest level of funding for housing in the history of the State. Since taking office, this Government has delivered unprecedented levels of new homes, including the ramping up of affordable housing delivery. The most important target for this Government is to build new homes and increase housing supply. From 2020 to quarter 1 2024, this Government has overseen the delivery of more than 109,000 new homes. Almost 33,000 new homes were built in 2023 alone. Housing commencements are also demonstrating encouraging trends, with 11,956 homes commenced in quarter 1 2024, which is a 63% increase on the same period in 2023 and the highest number of quarter 1 commencements since the data series began in 2015. That is underpinned by the improved number of planning permissions granted and an unprecedented increase in housing commencements in April, which saw more than 18,000 new homes commence. The substantial uplift in delivery in 2022 and 2023 will be sustained this year and a robust new housing supply pipeline for 2025 and 2026 has been secured.

The record number of commencements, the highest since records began a decade ago, has supported increased activity by first-home buyers in the market while widening the provision of homes for those in need. Since 2020, the numbers of homes purchased by first-time buyers has increased from 12,644, or 25% of market purchases, in 2020 to 17,435, or 28% of market purchases, in 2023. The number of first-time buyers receiving mortgage approvals has also improved, with more than 30,400 first-time buyer approvals in 2023. This is an increase of 9% on the previous year. In addition, 2023 saw the highest annual level of mortgage drawdowns by first-time buyers since 2007, with more than 25,600 mortgages drawn down in this period.

Since the launch of Housing for All, the Government has delivered more than 5,800 affordable housing options, with 4,000 being delivered in 2023 alone. This represents a 128% increase in activity compared with the previous year, more than doubling the supply of affordable purchase and cost-rental homes and demonstrating the very real momentum that Housing for All has generated. It is important to note that 2022 delivery, from a standing start, provided the first affordable homes in a generation. Our ambition is to deliver more and working with the local authorities, approved housing bodies, the Land Development Agency and all other delivery partners, to redouble our efforts to deliver additional affordable homes.

Homeownership is clearly positioned in Housing for All as the heart of the Government's housing policy. The plan includes a comprehensive suite of measures, which are legislatively underpinned and fully funded, to better support first-time buyers to purchase homes on the private market more affordably, including the help-to-buy scheme and the first home shared equity scheme. The latter scheme, in particular, has proven to be a key support for first-time buyers nationwide. It is continuing to assist first-time buyers and other eligible home-buyers to purchase new homes and apartments in the private market. Delivery figures for quarter 1 of 2024 were recently published by the first home scheme. They show that more than 4,000 approvals have issued since the scheme was launched, with 75% of all approvals issued in Dublin, Cork, Kildare, Meath and Wicklow. Furthermore, this Government approved an additional €40 million State commitment to the scheme on 23 April, continuing the drive for affordable homeownership for our citizens.

With regard to the help-to-buy scheme, to date 47,596 claims have been made, of which 46,599 have been approved. These supports are helping first-time buyers to purchase their own homes and there has been substantial growth in the number of home purchases by first-time buyers in the year to the end of March 2024. As evidenced in the Central Statistics Office, CSO, residential property price index, some 17,275 homes, including 5,384 new homes, have been purchased by first-time buyers in this period, accounting for one third of all homes purchased by households in the period.

Local authorities are delivering affordable housing, with funding approved of more than €332 million for the affordable housing fund to support the delivery of more than 4,000 affordable purchase and cost-rental homes by 21 local authorities. Such homes have been advertised in areas such as Cork city and county, Dublin, Limerick, Waterford city and other areas in the wider and greater Dublin area. In addition, with the advent of cost rental and new tenure under Housing for All, a significant number of affordable homes to rent at a cost at least 25% below the prevailing market rate have been made available nationally.

In light of the challenging environment for cost rental delivery due to rising costs, the Government has increased the financial support for the delivery of cost-rental homes by approved housing bodies to the revised cost-rental equity loan. Since these changes were made, there has been a rapid increase in the number of cost-rental homes approved, with over 3,500 cost-rental homes approved for funding to date.

This Government also introduced the secure tenancy and affordable rental investment scheme, otherwise known as STAR, which is designed to enable the delivery of cost-rental homes for the private market, with more than €750 million committed to support the affordable delivery of more cost-rental homes by 2027. Notwithstanding delivery challenges associated with the significant increase in construction costs, higher interest rates and supply chain issues, which are combining to have a real impact on the cost of housing provision, a very ambitious programme of affordable housing is now in place. Through the implementation of Housing for All, the passing of the Affordable Housing Act in 2021 and the injection of record levels of investment, we have securely laid the foundation that will allow us to continue to ramp up delivery for the coming years as the pipeline of affordable housing delivery is developed and expanded by local authorities, approved housing bodies and the Land Development Agency.

In anticipation of the review of the national planning framework and the updating of the housing needs and demands assessment by the ESRI, based on the updates of population and housing projections using census 2022 data, the Government is committed to the delivery later this year of a revised affordable housing strategy which will update pathway 1 of Housing for All.

Recognising the importance of having homes available to buy, the Government introduced measures in May 2021 to discourage the inappropriate bulk purchase of homes, including taxation, planning and other measures. These include a higher 10% stamp duty levy on the cumulative purchase of ten or more residential properties, excluding apartments, in a 12-month period. At the same time, section 28 guidelines for planning authorities - regulation of commercial institutional investment in housing ensures new own-door houses and duplex units in housing developments can no longer be bulk purchased in a way that displaces individual purchasers of social and affordable housing. This effectively requires homes and duplexes to be available for sale and first-time occupation by separate individual households for a period of years after completion. The planning measures have been particularly effective in prohibiting the bulk purchase of almost 41,000 homes between May 2021 and December 2023.

The Government is dedicated to ensuring the success of Housing for All, a plan that is delivering on its commitments to address the affordability challenges we face in the housing sector. In the countermotion the Government highlights the substantial progress that been made to date, illustrating that affordability and the chance to own a home is at the heart of the Government's housing policy. The Government will continue to implement Housing for All, which is a fully funded and legislatively underpinned plan that is already up and running and working with the intent of increasing housing supply into the future and addressing the affordability challenges that we face.

Debate adjourned.