The delivery of Housing is at the centre of the updated National Development Plan (NDP) which provides for unprecedented levels of investment for housing. In 2025, Government has allocated almost €7.5 billion in capital investment for Housing, inclusive of Land Development Agency investment and Housing Finance Agency (HFA) lending. The 2025 capital funding is supplemented by €1.65 billion in current funding to address housing needs.
The record level of investment for the delivery of housing will continue in 2026 with €5.2bn in Exchequer capital funding complemented by investment through the Land Development Agency (LDA) and lending from the Housing Finance Agency (HFA), bringing the total capital funding for housing in 2026 to over €9 billion. This record level of funding is supporting the delivery of social, affordable and cost rental homes. The 2026 capital funding will be supplemented by over €2 billion in current funding to address housing needs.
The Revised National Planning Framework (NPF) was finalised and approved by Government and the Oireachtas in April 2025. The Revised NPF identifies the need to plan for approximately 50,000 additional households per annum to 2040.
The Revised NPF provides the basis for the review and updating of Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies (RSESs) and local authority development plans to reflect such critical matters such as updated housing figures or projected jobs growth, including through the zoning of land for residential, employment and a range of other purposes.
To ensure that local authority development plans reflect the requirements of the NPF in respect of housing as soon as possible, I issued the NPF Implementation: Housing Growth Requirements Guidelines under section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 in July 2025. These Guidelines set out the housing demand scenario to 2040 for each local authority, by translating the NPF housing requirements into average annual figures and set out the requirement for planning authorities to commence the process of varying their development plan to meet the new housing growth requirements.
In addition to the baseline housing growth requirement, planning authorities have also been requested to address the scope for additional provision of up to 50% in excess of the baseline housing growth requirement, in light of the urgent need to increase housing delivery and to optimise the ability to deliver on the housing requirements of the Revised NPF. This approach recognises the fact that, for a variety of reasons, a relatively significant proportion of zoned lands are not activated over the period of a development plan.
Planning authorities are currently assessing their current development plan and undertaking a review of the adequacy of existing zoned lands to cater for the new Housing Growth Requirement figures and the potential for ‘additional provision’.
The zoning of land for particular purposes, including housing, is an exercise undertaken by planning authorities as part of their overall statutory plan function generally as part of a development plan under sections 9 to 13 of the Planning and Development Act, 2000 (as amended), but can at present also be carried out as part of a local area plan (LAP) process. The making of a development plan or an LAP is a reserved function of the elected members of each authority.
The management and maintenance of local authority housing stock, including pre-letting repairs to vacant properties, the implementation of a planned maintenance programme and carrying out of responsive repairs, are matters for each individual local authority under Section 58 of the Housing Act 1966.
Since 2014, Exchequer funding has also been provided through my Department's Voids Programme to support local authorities in preparing vacant units for re-letting. This funding was introduced originally to tackle long-term vacant units and is now increasingly targeted to support authority's to ensure minimal turnaround and re-let times for vacant stock.
From 2014 to 2024, expenditure of some €360 million was recouped to local authorities under the Voids Programme which funded the return to productive use of 25,672 properties nationwide. Local authorities also provide significant funding from their own resources to address the level of vacancy within the social housing stock.
Since 2014 Cork County Council has received funding of €21,136,510 million to support the return to productive use of 1,407 properties under this programme.
There has been extensive funding provided under the Voids programme which not only catered for standard relets but also for vacant properties requiring more extensive works prior to relet. It is up to each local authority to submit a programme of works based on their individual allocation or targets. Where a local authority chooses to do works over and above those which are necessary to comply with the rental standards it can impact re-let times and result in additional costs for the local authority.
It is also of note that Local authorities will always have a level of vacancy in their housing stock. This will fluctuate over time as tenancy surrender and re-letting of dwellings is an ongoing process. Details in relation to the number of voids are not collated by my Department, however, statistics in relation to social housing stock, at a point in time, are published by the National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC) in their Annual Reports on Performance Indicators in Local Authorities. These reports provide a range of information in relation to social housing stock, including levels of vacancy in local authority owned properties.
The most recent report, relating to 2024, is available on the NOAC website at the following link: www.noac.ie/noac_publications/report-77-noac-performance-indicator-report-2024/.
Furthermore, my intention, in accordance with the Programme for Government, is to introduce a new Voids programme which will have a renewed focus on prompt turnaround and re-letting of vacant units by focusing only on those works necessary to ensure compliance with the Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations 2019. Works identified which are not immediately necessary to address should be carried out under the local authority’s planned maintenance programme informed by stock condition surveys, whereby all housing components are on an inspection, repair and replacement cycle.
