Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I know from our time shared on Cork County Council the delivery of affordable housing was something on which the Deputy was insistent and I am glad that much of this is coming to fruition. The Government is fully committed to working with all stakeholders to deliver affordable housing at scale and to continue accelerating housing supply across all tenures. The Government’s ambition is to build on progress to date under Housing for All and deliver more than 300,000 homes in the period from 2025 to 2030 with an annual average of more than 50,000 homes per year building up to 60,000 in 2030. These revised national housing targets will inform the revision to existing social and affordable housing targets at a local authority level and work is ongoing in this regard.

Since 2021, more than 10,000 affordable housing supports have now been delivered from a standing start via our delivery partners and schemes such as the affordable housing fund, the first home scheme and the vacant property refurbishment grant are making it affordable for many to purchase a home. To date, nearly 1,300 local authority affordable purchase homes have been delivered and a substantial pipeline is in place to deliver affordable purchase homes. This is being supported with resourcing for the local authorities, with more than 140 additional staff assigned to work on their affordable housing programmes, ensuring we will see delivery ramped up.

My Department publishes programme-level statistics on affordable and social housing delivery activity by local authorities and delivery partners in each local authority area. Data up to quarter 3 2024 is published on the statistics page of my Department’s website. Affordable housing schemes are operating at scale and this momentum will continue as the pipeline is developed by local authorities alongside AHBs and the Land Development Agency.

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