Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 22 January 2026
186. Deputy Séamus McGrath asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to provide an update on the supply of affordable purchase properties and plans to reform the Affordable Purchase Fund. [4549/26]
View answerThe Government is fully committed to delivering housing at scale and continuing to accelerate housing supply across all tenures, including affordable purchase. Affordability and the chance to own a home is at the heart of the Government’s housing policy, as embodied within the new housing plan, Delivering Homes, Building Communities.
Under the new plan, the supports established under the previous plan, Housing for All, will be retained, streamlined and expanded to deliver the new Starter Homes Programme, ensuring that new households continue to be supported by the Government.
The Affordable Housing Fund is open to applications and available to support all local authorities to deliver new housing to meet affordably constrained new housing needs identified in their area. To date, funding of almost €633m has been approved from the Affordable Housing Fund for 23 local authorities to support their delivery of over 6,900 affordable purchase and cost rental homes. By end September last, local authorities had delivered 2,400 of these homes and the pipeline for end 2025 delivery and for 2026 and 2027 was strong.
The local authority starter homes pipeline continues to grow as new schemes are identified, planned and approved and will be enhanced further as the higher Part V requirements introduced in the Affordable Housing Act 2021 begin to bear fruit.
Furthermore, the First Home Scheme, and Help to Buy tax refund scheme, which support first-time buyers in purchasing new houses and apartments in the private market, and the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant to support affordably constrained purchasers of vacant properties to achieve their home ownership ambitions are also available to support purchasers nationwide.
My Department, along with the Housing Agency and the Housing Delivery Coordination Office of the Local Government Management Agency, will continue to advise and support local authorities in planning and delivering their response to affordable housing need in their areas.
