Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 25 November 2025
65. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the new measures contained in the housing plan to activate the SME builder developer sector to build more good quality homes for people to buy. [65688/25]
View answerDelivering Homes, Building Communities, is Ireland’s new national housing plan. It is a wide-ranging action plan focused on housing supply and targeting homelessness. The Plan aims to create the conditions needed to increase private investment and development to support the delivery of 300,000 homes. This includes the provision of more zoned land, providing more housing-related infrastructure, reforming the planning system, measures to address viability and improving access to finance to support the residential construction sector. The Plan also encourages and supports the development of the SME homebuilder sector directly in a number of ways.
To improve access to equity finance, the Plan commits to a new €400 million equity risk capital investment programme for homebuilding over the next three years.
To ensure that Home Building Finance Ireland has the capacity to provide finance to homebuilders across the country, particularly SME homebuilders, Government has committed a further €200 million of additional external funding.
To increase SME participation and competition in public procurement, a new national procurement strategy will be introduced.
To support the growth of SME homebuilders, the Land Development Agency will actively seek to engage the sector in the roll out of its regional programme of work.
Enterprise Ireland will also double overall investment in SME firms in the residential construction sector, under its Built to Innovate programme, to drive adoption of efficient construction practices and the use of MMC.
They will also introduce a tailored training and mentorship programme on Strategic Financial Leadership to assist with financial management in ambitious SMEs.
Additionally, I will establish a contractor-led renewal programme which will afford opportunities for local trades-persons and contractors to work with local authorities and AHBs to tackle vacancy and dereliction and I intend to expand the Ready to Build Scheme, opening it up to SME homebuilders.
Taken together, this action will create the conditions for the expansion of private sector activity, particularly SMEs.
