Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister, Deputy Browne. The Government's commitment to housing continues to be its top priority. Budget 2026 reinforces this commitment with unprecedented levels of funding allocated to housing. The Government is committed to delivering more affordable homes to buy and to rent. The capital funding being provided under budget 2026, coupled with LDA investment and HFA lending, will finance a range of affordability schemes and measures to delivery 7,500 new affordable purchase and cost-rental homes and to make it affordable to return vacant and derelict properties to use. Unprecedented levels of capital investment will support the delivery of new homes for households on social housing waiting lists and for those who cannot afford market rents. The funding being made available in budget 2026 will ensure that the social housing needs of almost 21,500 additional households will be met in 2026 through new builds and additional HAP supports.

Under Housing for All, the AHB sector has played an important role in the delivery of social and affordable housing. The AHB sector is a valued partner in delivering housing and in meeting our national housing objectives, working in collaboration with the Housing Finance Agency. The funding extended by the Housing Finance Agency is an important element in the delivery of social and cost-rental housing. The Government continues to support the AHB sector's delivery of social and cost-rental housing through schemes such as the capital advance leasing facility, CALF, and the cost-rental equity loan, CREL, with the remainder of funding being provided by low-cost loans from the Housing Finance Agency. To date in 2025, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has provided more than €400 million in funding to approved housing bodies to support cost rental delivery, with over 3,000 cost-rental units approved through 41 projects for delivery out to 2029. This ongoing and continuing resourcing underpins the Government's commitment to the sector.

The programme for Government commits to introducing a new national housing plan to follow Housing for All. This will be published in the coming weeks. As noted in the programme for Government, this plan will be underpinned by the required funding in the national development plan, NDP. The Housing Finance Agency plays an important role in meeting Government delivery commitments and the Department will work with stakeholders in the coming months to finalise and agree social and affordable housing delivery partner-specific and scheme-specific funding allocations within the NDP envelope. This will determine the role the Housing Finance Agency will be asked to play in supporting social and affordable housing delivery over the coming years.

This Bill is just one of a number of measures to address the delivery of housing in Ireland. By way of summary, the Housing Finance Agency (Amendment) Bill 2025 is being presented to the Houses to legislate for an increase to the SBL of the Housing Finance Agency from €12 billion to €13.5 billion. The Bill will amend section 10 of the Housing Finance Agency Acts 1981 to 2024 to legislate for the statutory borrowing limit increase. The mission of the Housing Finance Agency is to facilitate the delivery of social and affordable housing in Ireland and to advance funds to local authorities, approved housing bodies and higher education institutes. The majority of the Housing Finance Agency's lending is to AHBs, which utilise HGA funding for the provision of social and cost-rental homes.

I reiterate that the increase to the Housing Finance Agency's statutory borrowing limit from €12 billion to €13.5 billion should be seen as an interim measure. Increasing the agency's statutory borrowing limit at this time will provide sufficient headroom for it to continue lending until mid-2026 and will enable the delivery of 5,650 new social and cost-rental homes in the coming three years. By mid-2026, the Housing Finance Agency will have assessed its future statutory borrowing limit requirements based on the relevant allocations from the national development plan and the ambitions within the new national housing plan.

The Government continues to look to the future and intends to further scale up delivery of social and affordable housing. This Bill is a key building block. I thank colleagues for their engagement on it and look forward to discussing it further on Committee Stage tomorrow.

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