Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 60, 80, 91, 93 and 116 together.

Increased supply is key to meeting our housing need and addressing the challenges in the housing market. At its core, Housing for All seeks to significantly increase the supply of quality affordable homes. The plan comprises a suite of priority measures to transform our housing system, seeking to secure its sustainability into the future and support the delivery of more than 300,000 new homes by 2030. This would see an average build of 33,000 new homes for each year of the plan. In the first two years of the plan, we have exceeded the housing targets we set. The targets have been the floor, not the ceiling.

We see this as a significant year in housing delivery. We have commenced in the past 12 months 50,000 new homes, both public and private. We have secured the level of investment required to support this delivery of those homes. This year we are making record funding available of €5.1 billion, the highest in the history of the State. The Government has introduced a range of measures to ensure balanced delivery of homes for private ownership, social housing and private rental. The Government supports home ownership and first-time buyers are buying homes at a rate not seen since 2006, over 500 first-time buyers buying their homes per week, many of them using the help-to-buy grant and first homes scheme. We have more than 4,000 affordable homes approved through our local authorities and 5,000 homes will be delivered through the Land Development Agency across the country.

Supply is increasing year-on-year, with a substantial uplift in the amount of new homes delivered since the launch of Housing for All in 2021. The most recent completions data from the Central Statistics Office show more than 29,700 and 32,600 new homes were completed in 2022 and 2023 respectively, the first two full years of Housing for All. New home delivery last year was at its highest level in 15 years, 10% higher than the previous year and 13% higher than the target of 29,000. While housing supply continues to be impacted by external factors, including construction cost inflation, high interest rates, which we hope to see reduce shortly, and challenges in the labour market, the outlook for this year and next is equally promising.

Planning permission was granted for more than 41,000 new homes in 2023, an increase of 21% on the previous year. Some 11,200 permissions were granted in quarter 4 alone, an increase of 47% on the same period in 2022. At the same time, commencement activity increased significantly, with more than 32,800 new homes commenced, the highest annual figure for any calendar year in the past decade. This momentum has continued into 2024, and we are starting 1,000 new homes per week at the moment, which is really significant and up more than 60% on quarter 1 last year.

This robust first quarter activity was followed by an extraordinary surge in April to more than 18,100 housing starts. That is likely in anticipation of the end to the development levy waiver, which we have extended for the rest of the year, and the Uisce Éireann connection charge rebate, which will continue to 1 October. They were measures the Government took to reduce costs and make sure schemes on the cusp of viability could start. My friends opposite railed against that. It is important people know they were opposed to the development levy waiver and the Uisce Éireann connection charge, yet a Private Members' motion was tabled the following week where they wanted to reinstate it. It is interesting to note regarding many of the measures we have brought in to support first-time buyers, like the first homes scheme, the help-to-buy grant and the vacant property grant, that, even though the main Opposition party's spokesperson on housing has said he would abolish them all, I receive regular parliamentary questions from the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach and others looking for me to expand and revise the schemes Sinn Féin says it would abolish. I think its housing spokesperson is in conflict with many of its members, who actually see what is happening and the supports people are using.

I have written to 12 Sinn Féin TDs, including the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach, asking them to engage with their party spokesperson and try to get a consistent and coherent position from Sinn Féin. Strangely enough, I did not receive one response.

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