Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 22 January 2026
166. Deputy Naoise Ó Cearúil asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the steps he will take following recent 2025 data indicating house price rises of 7.9% in Maynooth, 9.15% in Celbridge and 11.8% in Naas; the measures he will take to improve affordability in these areas; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4950/26]
Amharc ar fhreagraContinuing to increase the supply of new homes is critical to alleviating pressures in the housing market, helping to moderate price growth and ease affordability challenges across the country helping those aspiring to own their own home realise this goal.
Government is focused on increasing the national housing stock and ensuring a suitable range of housing, across tenure types, is available to all. The new housing plan Delivering Homes, Building Communities is focused on enabling delivery of a minimum of 300,000 new homes, including record levels of new social homes, an ambitious nationwide Starter Homes Programme and the provision of additional delivery in the areas of Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) and vacant and derelict properties brought back into use.
Official data in respect of property prices is published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on a monthly basis through the Residential Property Price Index. The most recent publication, published yesterday, for November 2025, shows price increases nationally have moderated from a recent peak of 10.1% in August 2024, to a rise of 6.6% in November 2025. This increase is also significantly down on the peak of 15% or so in the year to March 2022.
At the same time, the growth in new home prices has moderated significantly over the last two years. While the annual rate of growth was 5.5% at the end of Q3 2025, an increase from 4.3% at the end of Q2 2025, this is down from a recent peak of 11% at end Q2 2023 and from 6.4% in the year to end Q3 2024.
While the CSO does not publish such price changes at the eircode level, at the regional level, house price growth in the Mid-East region, moderated from 9.2% and 8.3% in September and October 2025 respectively, to 7% in November 2025.
Measures such as the Local Authority Home Loan, the Local Authority Purchase and Renovation Scheme, the Help to Buy Incentive, First Home Scheme and the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant are all available to help make home ownership more affordable.
Since 2021, close to 19,000 affordable housing supports have been delivered nationwide, including 1,680 in Kildare, by the various delivery partners. This number included 49 local authority Starter Purchase homes and nearly 1,100 First Home Approvals.
Kildare County Council has funding approval in place to assist with the delivery of 264 affordable purchase homes under eleven schemes by 2028 with the support of the Affordable Housing Fund (AHF). 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 Kildare County Council in respect of its planned response to affordable housing needs in all key urban locations within its administrative area.
In order to ensure we continue to have a sufficient pipeline of residential development, focus will continue in the short to medium-term on addressing viability issues in relation to apartment developments and measures to activate those planning permissions already in the system.
Budget 2026 included a suite of taxation measures aimed at stimulating the supply of new apartments including a reduced VAT rate on the sale of new apartments and an enhanced Corporation Tax deduction for apartment construction costs. In addition, the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2025 is essential legislation to deal with expiring planning permissions and to encourage activation of housing.
The focus is on continuing to bring forward measures such as these that will bring about a very significant scale up in the delivery of housing over the coming years.
