Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Doherty for raising this issue. When it comes to the housing challenge that we face, we can all agree that the best way of making progress is to increase the supply of all types of homes - public homes in the form of social housing, cost rental and affordable purchase, and also private supply. Thankfully, when we look at the overall picture, we are making progress in terms of output. That is because the Government is prioritising investment in housing. Next year, we will provide about €5 billion of capital through direct Exchequer capital, lending by the Housing Finance Agency and also the contribution of the Land Development Agency.

All of that work is contributing to a situation where, by the end of this year, the Government will have delivered about 100,000 homes since 2020. Coming from where we have been in terms of the supply of new homes, we are definitively making progress. Nearly 30,000 new homes were completed last year, which was a 45% increase on the level of output in 2021. We had setbacks during Covid and we had shutdowns of the construction industry but, thankfully, we have recovered strongly from that. Last year's momentum has continued into this year. Over 22,000 homes were completed in the first nine months of 2023, which is a 9% increase year on year. When we look at the data around planning permissions, commencements and completions, we see the continuation of a positive trend. In the 12 months to the end of September, about 31,500 homes were completed, so we will achieve the Housing for All target of 29,000 units in the current year and we will probably come in north of 30,000 units for this year.

The State will be the central actor in terms of delivering the new homes that we need across our country. Of course, we always recognise the need to do more because we have a growing population. Ireland is an attractive country where people want to come to live and work. They see employment opportunities here and they see a very good quality of life as well.

The Croí Cónaithe towns fund and the two schemes the Deputy referred to - the vacant property refurbishment grant and the ready-to-build scheme - have proven to be very popular. When I look at the data so far, I see that over 4,800 applications have been submitted to date and over 2,200 have actually been approved, so there is a lot of activity under way. A lot of applications are in the system or have been approved and the work is under way. Of course, the Minister will be open to any opportunities to improve the operation of the scheme. This is a new scheme. It is definitely proving popular and many people are looking to it as a means of bringing vacant homes back into use or tackling dereliction. The Minister will be engaging with the local authorities and with applicants to get feedback and make sure any issues that have arisen in terms of the operation of the scheme are being addressed over the period ahead. It is important to acknowledge that he has already improved the scheme significantly, for example by changing the eligibility date of vacant and derelict properties from 1993 to include ones built up to and including 2007, and also by increasing the grants from €30,000 to €50,000 in the case of vacancy and from €50,000 to €70,000 in the case of dereliction. This is a good scheme. The Minister will ensure it works properly and has the desired effect of bringing vacant and derelict properties back into use to provide homes for individuals and families into the future.

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