Housing for All sets out the range of actions intended to increase the overall supply of housing to 33,000 new homes on average per year over the next decade. Under the strategy, 54,000 affordable home interventions will be delivered between now and 2030 to be facilitated by local authorities, Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs), the Land Development Agency (LDA) and through a strategic partnership between the State and retail banks. This includes 36,000 affordable homes for purchase and 18,000 for cost rental.
To allow the development of these homes, I introduced the Affordable Housing Act 2021 , which provided for two new Affordable Purchase schemes (the Local Authority Affordable Purchase Scheme and the First Home shared equity scheme), as well as a new form of tenure in Cost Rental.
To implement the key objectives under Housing for All, each local authority has prepared and published a Housing Delivery Action Plan in respect of local authority supported delivery from 2022 to 2026. These plans were published on the local authorities’ respective websites in July 2022.
The first Cost Rental homes were delivered in 2021 and 2022 saw significant delivery of further Cost Rental homes by Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) and the first Cost Rental homes delivered by the Land Development Agency (LDA).
Separately, the LDA has an immediate focus on managing the State’s own lands to develop new homes, and regenerate under-utilised sites. In the longer-term, it will assemble strategic land-banks from a mix of public and private lands making these available for housing, which is expected to bring more long-term stability to the Irish housing market.
In the shorter-term, the LDA is also tasked with unlocking stalled private planning-consented developments through its market engagement initiative - Project Tosaigh. The initial expressions of interest process was launched at the end of 2021, with a renewed expressions of interest process launched in October last year. Work is underway in assessing the recent proposals submitted to supplement the pipeline of affordable housing already in place.
The First Home shared equity scheme was launched last July to support affordability-constrained First Time Buyers purchasing newly constructed homes on the private market. In its first six months of operation to the end of 2022, it received over 1,000 applications and issued 750 approvals. Full details of the Scheme, including eligibility criteria, are available on the website: www.firsthomescheme.ie.
The new Local Authority Home Loan commenced on 4 January 2022 and is a Government backed mortgage scheme for those on modest or low incomes who cannot get sufficient funding from commercial banks to purchase or build a home. The loan can be used by first-time buyers for both for new and second-hand properties, or for self-builds. I have recently, along with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Minister Pascal Donohoe TD, signed amendment regulations to increase the house price limits in all local authority areas, as well as increasing the income limits for all applicants, with these changes effective from 1st March 2023. More information on the Local Authority Home Loan can be found on the following website localauthorityhomeloan.ie/.
Finally, the Help-to-Buy incentive scheme has also been extended to the end of 2024. Since being introduced in 2017, this scheme has helped over 37,000 first-time buyers secure a newly constructed home.
