John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)

I thank the Deputies very much. I echo many of the comments made by the Minister, Deputy Browne, and take this opportunity to reassert the Government's commitment and determination to tackling the challenges we all know exist in the housing sector.

The Minister and I are very much aware of the difficulties being experienced by some people in accessing secure and affordable accommodation. I say respectfully that I listened to many of the contributions, some of them genuine. Some Members put forward solutions. The contributions of many others just involved grandstanding, false outrage and attempts at creating clips for social media. The Members in those cases offered absolutely no solutions.

The Minister, this Government and I are as aware as anyone else of the difficulties people face. There is no such thing as a monopoly on compassion when it comes to matters to do with the housing sector. For this reason, we are working day in and day out to make substantial changes to increase the supply of social, affordable and private homes throughout our country. While there is still much to do, the Opposition motion this evening does not fairly represent the efforts and progress made to date.

As a Government, we are committed to delivering 300,000 new homes between this year and 2030. We are targeting an average of 50,000 homes annually over the period.

These new targets are ambitious but they provide a pathway to delivering the scale of housing needed. As a reference, these new targets are more than double the output of the last five years. There are no doubt challenges and barriers to addressing these numbers, but I want to reiterate our strong commitment and determination to tackle these. As Minister of State with responsibility for planning and local government, I know the important role of the planning system as a critical piece of the solution to the housing challenges we face. I will outline some of the progress we have made in recent months in that regard shortly.

The Minister, Deputy Browne, has outlined the progress made under Housing for All and referred to the new successor plan, which will incorporate pragmatic actions to boost housing activity in the short term as well as longer-term actions that will implement systemic change and help achieve the sustainable levels of supply needed in the long term. However, we are not waiting for this plan. We are consistently bringing forward a series of policy decisions because we recognise that no single policy approach, decision or silver bullet will solve the housing challenges we face.

The Opposition motion states that there is chronic underfunding of our local authority housing and planning departments, which must be reversed for councils to play a key role in meeting public housing needs. That is simply not the case. On the contrary, the Government continues to support local authorities in the delivery of its housing programmes, with almost €4.8 billion provided to local authorities in 2024. This will increase further in 2025. Local authorities derive income from a variety of sources but my Department has provided funding for more than 250 additional capital posts in local authorities to support social housing delivery. In addition, more than 140 professional, technical and administrative posts dedicated to delivering affordable housing have been funded by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, to strengthen our local authorities' capacity to initiate, design, plan, develop and manage housing projects in their areas.

The Government has also progressed a series of reforms to support a streamlined and well resourced planning system. This includes the consolidation and streamlining of planning legislation under the Planning and Development Act 2024. This Act represents the most comprehensive review of planning since 2000 and will reform and streamline the planning process, reducing delays in housing and strategic infrastructure projects. Furthermore, the ministerial action plan on planning resources will strengthen the planning system and ensure there are timely decisions for critical infrastructure and housing. The national planning framework has been referenced by a number of Deputies. This provides the basis for the review and updating of regional, spatial and economic strategies and local authority development plans. Given the urgent need to ensure that updated housing requirements can be incorporated into the planning system as quickly as possible to address housing need and demand, local authorities will be required to vary their county development plans. This is a key priority of Government. We want to ensure that what has been agreed under the NPF is translated to a local basis as urgently as possible. In that regard, the Minister, Deputy Browne, has written to local authorities. We will update local housing growth requirement figures shortly to the local authorities.

As part of the implementation of the Planning and Development Act 2024, new urban development zones are a new part of the planning system and have the ability to be transformational. The ability for local authorities to start work on that immediately has been commenced and will dovetail with the variation process. Further, the planning and development (amendment) Bill 2025 was approved by Cabinet for priority drafting on 27 May, which will ensure sufficient time is given to activate planning permissions for much-needed housing across our country. It is intended to have that Bill passed before the summer recess.

A number of Deputies referred to exempted development. In this regard, an exempted development regulation review has been undertaken by the Department. It is intended that a four-week public consultation will commence, hopefully by the end of next week. That includes reference to modular homes to the rear of the dwelling, which a number of Deputies have raised and which I know will be helpful for many families in providing housing options. Of course, it will not be suitable in every circumstance but it is about providing options for people. Reference was also made to infrastructure and the ability of the private sector to deliver in terms of developer-provided infrastructure. My view is clear, and on the record, that we need to facilitate this, particularly in smaller settlements, to ensure housing delivery can be unlocked, particularly to a set standard and design that can be taken in charge. Work is ongoing within Government in that respect.

An Coimisiún Pleanála will be formally established tomorrow. This is also a significant reform which will ensure that we have greater certainty on when a decision can be expected within our planning system. Nobody expects a positive decision but they expect certainty on timelines. That is what we are seeking to achieve with the establishment of An Coimisiún Pleanála. Progress has been made. Cases are down from approximately 3,600 two years ago to 1,300 cases on hand. We have statutory timelines in place which we expect the new commission to ensure are adhered to.

The issue of vacancy and dereliction is also a significant focus of Government and a significant focus of mine in my engagement with local authorities around the country. Some local authorities are doing excellent work in respect of compulsory purchase orders. Others like my own in Waterford have done tremendous work using the likes of the repair and lease scheme. However, it is true to say that there is not a standard approach across the country from local authorities, which does have to change. We have put significant money behind this. We have provided a €150 million under call 3 of URDF to provide local authorities with the firepower to be able to use CPOs to their advantage to tackle vacancy and dereliction. We also have the vacant property refurbishment grant, which was mentioned. It provides up to €70,000 if a property is derelict. More than 8,652 grant approvals have been issued already to the end of Q1 of 2025 and €112 million has been paid out to refurbish almost 2,100 homes. We have also extended the local authority home loan to help finance the purchase and renovation of derelict and non-habitable properties. Of course, this will continue to be a focus of Government. If there are proactive measures that the Opposition wishes to bring forward specifically in this area, I am more than willing to take them on board.

In conclusion, social, affordable and private delivery of homes across the country is the number one priority for Government and will remain so. We will not be distracted from doing our job by efforts at sound bites for social media. We will continue to focus on our job, day in, day out.

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