Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

I thank the Deputies. This financial resolution provides for the reduction of the VAT rate applied to the sale of new apartments to 9% from 8 October 2025. It will apply to the 31 December 2030, that is, for the next five years. Its estimated cost for the first year is €250 million.

The Government is committed to the delivery of more than 300,000 new homes by 2023. It is, of course, apparent that apartments need to be a significant part of that delivery. This is about ensuring that we have a greater delivery of not just apartments but cost-rental, affordable and private homes. To say that nothing is being spent or that there has been no focus on housing in this budget other than this specific measure simply is not correct.

I will outline matters again. There is an allocation of €11.3 billion to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage for 2026. A total of €7.2 billion of that allocation is in capital funding, which will include €2.9 billion to support the delivery of thousands of new build social homes and second-hand acquisitions; €1.2 billion for the starter homes programme to deliver thousands of starter homes through a range of affordability supports, alongside the help-to-buy initiative; €300 million to support the regeneration of our towns and urban areas through the urban regeneration development fund; €205 million for a new housing activation infrastructure fund to support the work of the new housing activation office; €140 million to retrofit further homes; and €130 million to fund up to 17,000 grants to adapt the homes of older people and people with disabilities, which is in addition to the significant €628 million increase in disability funding this year. On top of those measures, there is then €2 billion to support 100,000 households through the existing different schemes, such as the rental accommodation and social housing current expenditure schemes. It is important to continue those schemes.

We need to increase our focus on building apartment complexes. A total of 50% of our employment or growth is going to happen across five cities, namely, Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Limerick and Galway. A total of 40% of our development will happen in brownfield sites in the coming years. We need to ensure that we are doing more when it comes to apartment complexes. Construction in this area is not moving so we have to ensure we are putting in place measures that will actually move and ensure we have delivery.

Looking solely at Dublin, of the last 44,500 units with planning permission, 90% of those, or approximately 40,000, are apartments that have not yet commenced. Overall, some 70,000 apartments with planning permission have not gone anywhere. That is not just in the past five or six months. Rather, it goes back as far as 2022 and before. We need to ensure that we are doing – and this is just one measure – what we can to activate. It is very clear there is a viability gap between apartments and houses in Ireland. That is something that has been said time and again. The purpose of this measure, therefore, is to reduce that gap to achieve wider policy goals as we have outlined, many of which are the national planning framework, such as increasing density and recognising demographic and societal changes. All of this can be delivered through more housing and apartment delivery.

In terms of the guidelines and how they will be implemented, Revenue is working to develop and implement the different guidelines. Essentially, this is aimed at incentivising builders to build additional apartments. This will stretch over a number of different years.

With regard to the types of apartments, this measure will apply where a property is at least two storeys high and has least three units. It will not extend to duplexes or single-storey developments. It will extend to student accommodation as long as it meets the criteria for apartments, that is, multistorey accommodation with at least three units. It will not apply to apartments built over a business or apartments constructed as part of a hotel. Overall, it will fall within the definition from high-value accommodation to apartments built for social housing purposes and will cover all sizes of apartments.

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All the detail is being worked through. The guidelines to implement this are being developed by Revenue. This can be applied to by and can be sold on to any individual or group, be it a housing body, private or otherwise. This is about making sure we construct more apartments. In the past number of years, that has not been happening. There is a viability gap there and the aim behind this is to address it. It is one measure among a number we are introducing to increase the overall construction of affordable, social and private apartments and homes for people across the country.

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