Live: Long-awaited housing plan pledges 300,000 new homes by 2030

Main Points

• The Government’s long-awaited housing plan is being unveiled this morning.
• It comes against a backdrop of a fall in new housing commencements and Opposition predictions that the new strategy will not be radical enough to tackle the crisis.
• With the Coalition pledging to deliver more than 300,000 homes by 2030, Minister for Housing James Browne has advised aspiring homeowners to “hang in there”.

Independent Ireland TD Ken O’Flynn has said the Government’s new national housing Plan is “high on political posturing but low on credibility”.

The Cork North-Central TD said the plan’s aim to deliver 12,000 social homes per year will not bring about “meaningful change as there are already 13,000 people on waiting lists with the numbers rising at unprecedented rates”.

“What we will see today is ministers trotted out to laud the new plan as some kind of eureka moment from Government; a sign that they have finally realised they need to get serious about the depth of this crisis,” he said.

“The reality is however that there is no indication from past experience that this new plan will ramp up delivery.”

Taoiseach defends removal of annual housing targets

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has defended the removal of annual housing targets, saying that any time the State met its annual targets it was criticised for setting them too low.

“We will be held accountable for results,” he told reporters at this morning’s launch.

Ellen Coyne reports that when asked about a second legal challenge against the greater Dublin drainage scheme, Mr Martin said it was a project “that cannot wait.”

He said that a “legislative response to critical infrastructure” will come to Cabinet in the coming weeks.

People facing homelessness will judge new plan by results, says Focus Ireland

Focus Ireland has welcomed the Government’s new strategy to tackle homelessness but warned that, “after years of missed targets and rising homelessness, people facing homelessness will judge the plan by results”.

Focus Ireland said that a number of the “evidence-based policies” it has been arguing for over many years are reflected in the new plan.

Pat Dennigan, chief executive of Focus Ireland, said: “Focus Ireland are fully committed to working with the Minister, the Department and local Government to deliver the aspirations that he has set out, but we will remain true to Sr Stan’s legacy by insisting that soft words are followed by decisive action .”

In particular, Focus Ireland noted commitments on child and family homelessness, including a dedicated fund for 2026 of €100 million to move families and children out of long-term homelessness.

Tánaiste Simon Harris has said the €100 million fund to buy properties to help families move out of homelessness for 2026 “is something that will need to be repeated each year during the lifetime of the plan.”

Ellen Coyne reports that the Minister for Housing James Browne is not able to say how many children the Government expects the fund to lift out of homelessness in 2026.

Mr Browne says the number of children in homelessness will be “very clearly reported”.

‘New plan recognises that we are in a housing crisis,’ says Housing Minister

Minister for Housing James Browne has said the plan published today recognises that “we are in a housing crisis,” and it’s a crisis that he treats as an emergency.

Ellen Coyne reports that he wants people to be able to live in their own communities.

Mr Browne says he wants to shift the dial, “so that we not only ramp up supply, but any time spent in emergency accommodation, homelessness, or precarious living conditions are just that, emergency and temporary in nature”.

Elsewhere, People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett has described the Government’s new housing plan as “fantastical”.

Vivienne Clarke reports that he told RTÉ’s Today with David McCullough show that it was the same as previous plans.

“It is fantastical because it’s based on a hope that if you incentivise private speculators and developers, builders enough, you will hope they will build, but the State itself has very little control over what is actually built,” he said.

“That’s even true of the social and affordable housing targets, which are slightly increased. But most of that, certainly going on previous experience, and I suspect will be the same, they’re hoping they will get from private developers a portion of what they build. And if they don’t build, we don’t get it.

“If you actually look at local authority housing and what’s been built, it’s only been about 3,000 houses a year. We have 120,000 people on housing waiting lists and yet for the last eight years there’s been an average of only 3,00 additional local authority houses built. So the State isn’t doing what it should be doing, is building houses itself.

“That’s why we have been calling for several years for the establishment of a State construction company where the State has its own capacity working with local authorities to build social and affordable housing on their own land. Similarly, they need to do something about rents.”

Government needs ‘no-nonsense approach’ to bureaucracy, says Simon Harris

Tánaiste Simon Harris said the Government now needs a “no-nonsense” approach to bureaucracy and that a judicial review “is not just a natural extension of the planning process”.

“The challenge is now speeding up delivery, and therefore we have to have a no-nonsense approach to bureaucracy, red tape, gates, stages, hoops – you don’t have that in a national emergency,” he said.

Taoiseach says it is a time for boldness

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said the housing issue is being felt “across our entire society”.

“From those experiencing it most acutely through homelessness to those who are simply losing hope that they will ever enjoy a home of their own,” he said at this morning’s launch in Dublin 8.

Ellen Coyne reports that Mr Martin said this is a time for “boldness”.

“We have the right measures now in place, combined with the biggest investment in our history, we have a particular opportunity now to address our housing challenge,” he said.

“This combination of reforms and the scale of investment places Ireland at the forefront within Europe and most western economies in tackling an issue which has afflicted many countries over the past 20 years.”

‘It is impossible to go from delivering 20,000 new homes a year to 60,000’ - former housing minister

Minister for Transport, Climate, Environment and Energy Darragh O’Brien has said it was important to ensure that “all the agencies of the State are pointing in the same direction” when it comes to delivering new homes.

Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast, Mr O’Brien, who James Browne succeeded as Minister for Housing, said “deliverability” was key and that it was impossible to go from delivering 20,000 new homes a year to 60,000 new homes per year.

When asked about the different responses from various local authorities, the Minister said: “we need to make sure that all the agencies of the State are pointing in the same direction.”

The Government makes policy, but it was up to the agencies of the State to implement those policies, he added.

Mr O’Brien said he was confident that the new housing plan would accelerate delivery of new homes.

Ahead of the publication of the plan, Minister for Housing James Browne yesterday advised aspiring homeowners to “hang in there”.

He said the aim of the plan was to deliver a “real shift in how we get housing moving in this country”, while also having a strong focus on family and child homelessness.

You can read his comments from the launch of the Simon Communities of Ireland‘s annual report for 2024 here.

Good morning. The Minister for Housing, James Browne, will this morning publish the long-awaited new housing plan, Delivering Homes, Building Communities. It will be the fourth housing plan in 12 years as successive governments have grappled with the housing crisis.

Ministers and the Government’s leaders have assembled at St Theresa’s Gardens, in Dublin’s inner city, to announce the details.

Follow irishtimes.com for updates throughout the day.