Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions
1. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the targets for the delivery of cost rental and affordable purchase homes by local authorities, approved housing bodies and the Land Development Agency under the Government's new housing plan from 2025 to 2030. [66119/25]
View answerThere were many omissions in the Minister's ill-fated housing plan launched only a matter of weeks ago but one that was particularly astonishing is the removal of targets, either across the life cycle of the plan or, indeed, on an annual basis, for cost-rental and affordable purchase homes delivered by local authorities, approved housing bodies, AHBs, and the Land Development Agency, LDA. Can the Minister explain why these targets that were in his predecessor's plan were removed and does that mean he has abandoned targets or he is simply not willing to share them with us?
I thank the Deputy for this important question around targets for the delivery of cost-rental and affordable purchase homes by local authorities, approved housing bodies and the LDA under the Government's new housing plan.
Affordability and the chance to own a home is at the heart of Government's housing policy, as embodied within the new housing plan, Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025-2030. Government is investing an unprecedented level of funding to support new housing delivery, which will underpin the new starter homes programme, delivering an average of 15,000 affordable housing supports annually to 2030.
To further drive the delivery of affordable housing under the plan, local authorities will shortly commence the preparation of new housing delivery action plans. It is intended that the plans will set out how the starter homes programme will be implemented in each area, including the full suite of affordable housing supports to be provided and taking account of local and national affordability needs. They should be responsive to the housing system landscape in each area, as it is evident that starter homes supports needs and requirements vary by location.
The preparation of housing delivery action plans for starter homes will be undertaken by local authorities, in close collaboration with their delivery partners, including the LDA, and approved housing bodies. Each local authority's starter homes programme, as outlined in its housing delivery action plan, will be informed by the housing needs and demand assessment framework, which will assist in identifying and quantifying new housing need with affordability constraint within their administrative area. Quarterly housing delivery reports will continue to be published on the Department's website, tracking the progress of affordable delivery output in each local authority area. The delivery of 300,000 homes and 15,000 starter homes supports, over the lifetime of the plan, is ambitious but it is achievable.
I would like the House to note that the Minister, of course, completely avoided the question and instead gave what can only be described as an Orwellian response to a simple question.
There is no new starter home programme. What the Government has done is it has taken a bunch of schemes that existed under the previous Government's plan and, indeed, its predecessor, it has bundled them all up and it has added them into a global figure.
The reason it is important, in particular, that there are targets for the delivery of cost rental and affordable purchase is the Minister funds them. He sets the targets for local authorities, AHBs and the LDA, directly and indirectly, to deliver those homes. Of course, as we know, last year the cost-rental targets were missed by a factor of 15% and the Minister's affordable purchase target was missed by a staggering 61%.
On top of that, of course, increasingly these homes are not affordable. Right across Dublin, for example, the full price of a so-called "affordable home" delivered under the Minister's affordable purchase scheme, if you want to own the home outright, is up to €500,000. In nobody's calculations is that affordable.
Similarly, we are now seeing cost rents coming in as high as €19,000 a month for a three-bedroom house, and €17,000 a month for a two-bedroom unit. A growing number of people who are not eligible for social housing are excluded from the Minister's schemes. Can I ask again why he has not included a specific target for cost rental and affordable purchase? Has he ditched the target or is he just hiding it from us?
We have targets of 300,000 new homes overall, including 15,000 affordable homes annually, and each local authority is now working on their housing delivery action plans. They are looking at and working with their partners as well to ensure they can meet the Government's target of delivering homes. That is what we are doing and that is how we will deliver the homes.
If that is the case, why would the Minister not say he has a target for new-build social homes? Again, this is a scheme that he funds and a scheme that local authorities and approved housing bodies deliver, some in conjunction with the Land Development Agency. It makes no sense to say that we do not need targets for cost rental and affordable purchase but we do for social housing. Again, it is a very simple question. There were clear targets for next year, some of which the Minister shared with us in the committee only a matter of months ago. My question, which the Minister has not answered, is very simple. Why is there no target for cost rental over the six years? Why is there no target for affordable purchase over the six years? Why is the Minister not accepting that in addition to not producing enough of these homes, increasingly they are unaffordable? Targets are important. They are particularly important for Government schemes funded by the Minister's Department. It allows him to plan, to programme and to be held to account. It sounds like the Minister has effectively abandoned the very meagre targets for cost rental and affordable purchase schemes that his predecessor had in his plan because this Minister knows that cannot be met, and rather than be embarrassed by his failure, he is simply ditching the targets altogether. Frankly, that is not good enough.
We have not abandoned it. We have our key target of 300,000 new homes and 15,000 affordable homes. What we have learned over the last number of years is that we need to be flexible in figuring out exactly how we are going to manage to deliver the affordable homes that people need across this country. We do have a plan, which is clearly set out and was launched only very recently, with the methods and the means by which we are going to deliver social homes and affordable homes and increase the activity of private homes that also need to be delivered. Without the private investment to deliver private homes, we are never going to solve the housing crisis because we are never going to be able to deliver enough homes. The supply of homes is what is crucial here. We have our target of 15,000 affordable homes annually. This is what we are working towards as we go through each local authority and as we look at the national landscape, for how we can best and most quickly deliver that. Rather than getting obsessed about the minutiae of small targets, we look at how we can unleash the deliverability of homes. My purpose and my aim is to ensure that people can get access to a home.
2. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if outstanding derelict site levies will be collected by Revenue; and whether additional funding will be provided to local authorities for collecting the register. [66120/25]
View answerWill the Minister update the Dáil on whether outstanding derelict sites levies will be collected by Revenue and whether additional funding will be provided to local authorities for the collection of the register?
I thank the Deputy for his question on derelict site levies. The introduction of a derelict property tax was announced in budget 2026 and it is intended to introduce legislation providing for the tax in the Finance Act in 2026. The tax will, when it comes into effect, replace the derelict site levy and be collected by the Revenue Commissioners. Action 4.1 of Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025-2030 addresses the new tax measure.
Local authorities will, however, continue to have a role in the process, as updating and maintaining their derelict sites registers will continue to remain the responsibility of local authorities. Derelict site levies that remain outstanding when the new tax is introduced will remain as a charge on the properties concerned and remain the responsibility of each local authority to collect.
My Department is working on a number of measures to increase staffing levels in the local government planning sector. In this regard, my Department is collaborating with the Local Government Management Agency on the delivery of programme supports to planning authorities. These supports include the provision of staffing resources and expertise to enable planning authorities to perform their functions effectively and efficiently. Resources to ensure a focus on tackling dereliction within the local authorities have also been provided through the funding of dedicated vacant homes officers and town regeneration officers, who are working in relevant dereliction and regeneration teams to ensure a planned and a proactive approach is taken.
My Department has also made funding for staff resources available to local authorities as part of call 3 of the urban regeneration and development fund to support their work tackling vacancy and dereliction, while a total of €150 million has been provided as a revolving fund for local authorities to acquire long-term derelict properties where necessary. Since 2023, the compulsory purchase order, CPO, activation programme has also provided support to local authorities in identifying derelict properties and engaging with owners to bring those properties back into use. It includes the use of compulsory purchase powers under the Derelict Sites Act when engagement with property owners is unsuccessful, and is supported directly by my Department and the Housing Agency.
I can safely say that the Minister has just given a big spiel there, the same as the previous Minister did last year and the year before that. Nothing the Minister has outlined today will tackle dereliction. He talks about CPO activations. Local authorities will not take out CPOs because they are too complicated. They do not have the staffing, the resources or the money. I have looked at the Minister's 105- or 107-page plan. There is a paragraph on CPOs to tackle dereliction, but no funding and no resources. It is the same old, same old from the Minister.
He talks about local government, the local authorities and the planning authorities getting more staff. Why are the local authorities not tackling dereliction? I will tell you why. It is because the Minister is not giving them the staff or the money. The buck stops with him.
I will ask the Minister once more, as I asked his predecessor. I will walk the streets of Dublin with him tonight to look at the dereliction and the blight on the communities. It is not just Dublin but also Cork and towns and villages. The dereliction is everywhere. There is nothing in the Minister's housing plan to tackle it.
I am very familiar with the streets of Dublin and the streets of Cork. The Deputy might have noticed while walking the streets of Cork himself the extraordinary amount of money and regeneration going on in Cork city as a result of Government investment into it.
If it was the case that compulsory purchase orders were that difficult, we would see a consistent problem with them across the State. However, some local authorities are using them to very effective use, while others are not. That tells me that local authorities have different priorities. Some are using their priorities to target compulsory purchase orders to tackle dereliction and some are not. We have decided to now bring in the Revenue Commissioners to target dereliction. As far as I am concerned, dereliction is antisocial behaviour. Anyone who has a derelict property and is not doing anything with it is little more than a rent seeker. I do not care whether you are left wing or right wing; nobody can justify that kind of rent seeking because those properties are going up in value as the State invests money and as people invest money around it. I am determined to tackle dereliction and those who hold onto properties that are derelict. Giving power to the Revenue Commissioners is crucial to that.
The Minister has said he is giving power to the Revenue Commissioners, but when will they start collecting levies? He said he is going to keep local authorities involved. The local authorities have been keeping derelict site registers since 1990. That is 35 years. Why are we not putting a levy on today? Why are we letting land hoarders and speculators get away with destroying communities and towns by leaving spots derelict?
I had a meeting tonight with Sinn Féin members in Tipperary. They outlined to me the blight of dereliction in their communities. They have said to me that we are all talk up here and that we are not seeing it on the ground. That is what I was told today in Tipperary. I see that in Cork and I see it all around the State, and we are told we are all talk up here on the war on dereliction. Does the Minister have any grasp on reality? He says that he knows Cork and that he knows Dublin. He should hang his head in shame to walk the streets of Cork, Dublin or Limerick, or any town, and look at all the dereliction. His party has been in government for over a decade. They are the problem.
I thank the Deputy. I think he needs to work on his maths. Fianna Fáil has only been back in government since 2020, so they are-----
No, it was 2016.
Yes, since 2016. Confidence and supply.
Name me a Fianna Fáil Minister from that period. The Deputy cannot.
The Minister can rub it in but-----
The Deputy can have his spin and his guff - that is fine - but the reality is that we are taking very real action to challenge derelict sites across this country. They are a blight and they are antisocial behaviour. There is no more powerful statement to say we are tackling it than bringing in the Revenue Commissioners to ensure that anybody with a derelict property is going to face very real and serious charges. We have the 7% but the problem is that it is not being applied to derelict sites by local authorities across the country. I accept there are local authorities that are under pressure for staffing.
That is not a criticism of local authorities although you can see the significant variation between different local authorities and they are making their own priorities in terms of what they are doing. From my perspective this is a serious statement.
3. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the reason no analysis was conducted by his Department on the impact of his proposed changes to rent pressure zones on rents in the private rental sector. [66121/25]
View answerThe Minister has published legislation that is going to make the most profound changes to the regulation of rents in the private rental sector in over a decade. From March of next year, tens of thousands of renters, progressively, quarter on quarter, are going to lose the meagre protections of the rent pressure zones and over time see their rents reset to market rents. Astonishingly, the Minister's Department conducted no analysis of the impacts of these changes on the rents that renters actually pay. Why did he not conduct that analysis and how can he stand over a Bill when even he does not know the full impact it will have on hard-pressed renters paying rip-off rents?
Following on from a review of the private rental sector published by my Department in July 2024, the Housing Agency was commissioned to undertake a comprehensive review of the current system of rent controls using RPZs. The key focus of the review was to assess the operation of RPZs since their introduction and consider their impact on the market and relevant stakeholders, including the retention of landlords and new investment. It considered whether RPZs should continue without change or be removed, modified or replaced. The review, which was extensive and detailed, also included options and recommendations in relation to potential amendments to rent control.
On 10 June 2025, the Government approved policy measures including modifications to rent controls to come into effect on 1 March 2026 in order to boost investment in the supply of homes available for rent and keep existing landlords in the market. The modifications to rent controls have been informed by the findings of the Housing Agency review. The policy measures announced by the Government also include significant improvements in security of tenure for renters. The Government has provided additional resources to the Residential Tenancies Board to support the efficient regulation of the rental market. Multiple expert reports, including those from the Housing Agency, the Department of Finance, the ESRI, the OECD and the IMF agree that the current RPZ system is a major obstacle to increasing rental supply. These changes are being introduced in order to attract increased investment in the rental market and thereby increase the supply of properties available for renters. My Department has consulted extensively with the Office of the Attorney General in relation to the proposed legislation. On 14 October 2025, the Government approved the general scheme of the residential tenancies (amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2025. This legislation is now subject to priority legal drafting and pre-legislative scrutiny is currently under way.
The House should note for the second time tonight that the Minister has studiously avoided the question. What do we know about tenancies? The Residential Tenancies Board tells us that the average length of a tenancy is three and a half years long. In the past 12 months, 70,000 fresh first-time tenancies were created. That is 28% of the total number of private rental tenancies. If those trends continue - trends that have been in train for a number of years - then within four years, the overwhelming majority of renters will be captured by this legislation. Many tens of thousands of them will have their rents reset to market rent at the start and all of them will have the market rent reset at the end of six years. I accept there is a viability problem. I accept there is a lack of investment, particularly in social, cost-rental and affordable for purchase homes. However, renters should not be the ones to pay the bill. What the Minister is proposing, in addition to inadequate and possibly illegal apartment design standards for smaller and darker apartments and huge VAT reductions for developers who are building apartments that are already viable, is to essentially allow landlords to reset the rent to almost double what it is for many tenants. He has not even done an analysis. Why not and why is he making renters pay for viability challenges the Minister and his failing housing policy created in the first place?
When the Deputy was quoting the statistics from the RTB he left out the fact that in the situation that prevailed in the country at the time around rent pressure zones, it was temporary and partial around the country. We have now created a national rent pressure zone with a view to a national rental control situation. Also, the reason I am bringing in these changes is to bring in, for the first time in this State, security of tenure for tenants. That does not exist in this State. Theoretically, there are tenancies with no end of duration but it is too easy to end those tenancies. We are severely restricting how tenancies can be ended by landlords. That is to ensure there is that security of tenure. I believe that you will see far less frequent notices to quit as a result of this security of tenure being brought in for tenants. That is going to be the crucial difference here.
With the greatest of respect, security of tenure is no use if you simply cannot afford the rent. The family homelessness crisis started in 2014, not because landlords were selling but because landlords were hitting tenants with double digit rent increases. Over the space of three to four years, the number of children in homelessness went from 800 to over 3,000. As for the so-called security of tenure measures, the Minister is going to create three different types of security of tenure; for existing tenants in existing tenancies, for new tenancies in existing properties of small landlords and new tenancies in properties of large landlords. That is a level of complexity that will be impossible to understand and virtually impossible to enforce. The only reason he has done this is to try to hide behind that while he guts the rent pressure zones and forces renters to pay levels of rent that are simply unacceptable. The Minister has no idea if notices of termination will increase or decrease. Neither he nor his Department have done any analysis on the impact on rents or security of tenure. Landlords are unhappy. Tenants are unhappy. This will not work and who is going to pay the price? Renters. Because Fianna Fáil does not give a damn about them.
What is crucial is that those who are currently renting and those who are living at home who need somewhere to rent have somewhere to rent. That means increasing supply. That is what-----
Cost-rental supply, social supply, affordable purchase supply.
An increased supply of all tenures, including social, affordable and private houses and apartments.
It is not apartments costing €3,000 per month. Get your head out of the sand.
We have to drive supply. That will in turn bring about the end of homelessness, so we have the properties that people will live in. It will also drive down rents by increasing supply.
Utter nonsense.
We have seen that in the past when the supply increases.
How will apartments for €3,000 per month lower homelessness and lower prices?
That is what is crucial from my perspective, delivering the homes that are needed. While the Deputy has endless criticisms of everything that is being done across here-----
Affordable homes are needed and the Minister is not delivering them.
You have to have solutions as well, Deputy. This is the usual from Sinn Féin. When you are saying something-----
Sit down, you are embarrassing yourself at this stage, really.
The Deputy is the only person embarrassing himself.
Homelessness will increase month on month as a result of these failed policies.
It is the usual tactic from Sinn Féin in the lifetime of this Government. When somebody is saying something and you do not want it heard-----
I do not want to hear it, but I would like an answer to the question that you will not answer, repeatedly, over and over.
-----you talk them down and shout over them. You shout over them because you do not want anybody to hear. It is a really underhanded tactic.
Minister, time is up.
People can see your housing policy failures writ large.
You should respect people's democratic right to speak in this Chamber. I am elected the same as you.
Homeless figures are out on Friday. Are they going to be down? No, they will not.
I am elected the same as you and I have a right to speak.
Deputy Ó Broin, through the Chair please. Minister, time is up.
I apologise.
You have to respect people's right. You do not have to like what I have to say but you should allow me to say it.
I do not like homelessness rising and that is your responsibility.
We are moving on. Deputy Ó Broin, we are not going to have a conversation across the floor.
I do not like rents and house prices rising and that is your responsibility. That is what I do not like, Minister, not your refusal to answer questions.
Respect the Chair, please.
I apologise.
4. Deputy Séamus McGrath asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the key measures he will be taking to support first-time buyers under Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025-2030; if he will be reviewing the terms and qualifying criteria of existing schemes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [66122/25]
View answerI ask the Minister to outline the key measures he will be undertaking to support first-time buyers under the delivering homes, delivering communities plan. In particular, does the Minister intend to review the terms and qualifying criteria of existing schemes and will he make a statement on the matter? I hope he appreciates -I know he does - that many first-time buyers find themselves falling outside the criteria at present. This certainly needs to be reviewed so I welcome his answer.
I thank Deputy McGrath for raising this important question about the key measures I and the Government will be taking to support first-time buyers under Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025-2030. I thank the Deputy for his regular engagement on this important issue for his constituents. The Government’s new housing plan, Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025-2030 sets out a broad range of measures which will activate and accelerate new homes delivery and provide affordable housing supports. The new plan, which has a strong focus on deliverability, removes structural barriers to homebuilding, unlocking land, reforming planning, delivering infrastructure and creating conditions for investment. The Government is investing an unprecedented level of funding to support housing supply, which will underpin, inter alia, the new starter homes programme, delivering an average of 15,000 affordable housing supports annually to 2030. We are making homes accessible and affordable, increasing social and affordable housing output and improving rental security. The plan supports homeownership while revitalising villages, towns and cities. In addition to a keen focus on tackling vacancy and dereliction, the plan provides for an expanded remit for the Land Development Agency, working to extend the first home and help to buy schemes to 2030, an increase in affordable cost-rental tenancies, an expanded local authority delivered starter homes for purchase programme that will see an increase in affordable homes for purchase nationwide and a new support for those creating living over the shop homes.
The Government has introduced several schemes to help first-time home seekers to buy or rent homes. Since 2021, close to 16,900 affordable housing supports have been provided via these measures nationwide. These supports will be retained, streamlined and expanded under the umbrella of a new starter homes programme to further tackle the issues of supply and affordability and ensure that first-time buyers and renters all over the country in need of assistance are supported by the Government.
I appreciate the Minister's answer and the measures in the housing plan that will be there to support first-time buyers, in particular the 15,000 starter homes per annum, which will include affordable purchase, first home scheme properties, help to buy and the vacant refurbishment grant. They are all very welcome. The point I really want to drive home - I know the Minister is aware of this and is looking at it - is that the qualifying criteria at the moment mean that many first-time buyers are falling outside of them. Under the help-to-buy scheme, which I appreciate is a Department of Finance scheme, the price ceiling for a property is €500,000. In many areas of the country now, first-time buyers find themselves not able to secure a new property for €500,000, so the help-to-buy scheme is no longer available to them. Equally, the price ceiling in relation to the first home scheme is actually less. In Cork, for example, in Cork city it is €475,000 and in Cork county it is €450,000. Again, many first-time buyers find themselves outside this. It needs to be looked at, and I would appreciate if the Minister could look at this as a matter of urgency.
Scheme criteria and support levels for affordable purchase schemes are kept under regular review, taking account of developments in the housing market. It is a complex and dynamic situation to ensure that we can provide the necessary affordable supports for people to be able to purchase their homes without affecting the market and driving up the cost of delivery and affordability on people. I hear the Deputy's concerns and will continue to engage with him to keep these affordability measures under review.
I appreciate this is a complex matter, and I know the last thing the Government wants to do is have schemes in place that will only lead to further price inflation. That is obviously a huge concern, and the Minister has to balance those concerns. For me, the reality is, as I said, that many first-time buyers are no longer able to avail of these schemes simply because of those qualifying criteria, particularly around the house value and the ceiling that is in place in relation to affordable purchase. I know this is on the Minister's radar. That needs to be reviewed as well in terms of the income qualification criteria. It is quite complicated and it needs to be simplified. Again, I know he is aware of that. The overall starter home package in the new plan is very welcome, but we have to refine some of the schemes to ensure they allow the vast majority of first-time buyers to qualify because that is, I know, the intention of the Government.
Again, I thank Deputy Séamus McGrath for raising the concerns around affordability, in particular around Cork city and Cork county. As I said, these schemes will continue to be kept under review to ensure that there are those affordability mechanisms in place and that people in Cork can afford to access the starter homes programme on an equal and equitable level with the rest of the country.
It is hard lines when you will not give us an answer, but not to give your own man an answer? Jesus. I know less now than before you started to talk.
You do not want to listen to the answer.
