Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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2. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government to confirm if he intends to review the housing completion target for 2025; the number of new homes his Department estimates will now be completed in 2025; the additional measures he plans to take to increase housing construction; the engagement he has had with the Department of Finance and Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, respectively, on new taxation and expenditure measures to boost delivery; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12698/25]

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Will the Minister confirm whether he intends to review the housing completion target for 2025, how many new homes does his Department estimate will be completed in 2025, what additional measures does he plan to take to increase housing construction, and what engagement has he had with the Departments of Finance and public expenditure on new taxation and expenditure measures to boost delivery?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The programme for Government commits to delivering more than 300,000 houses between 2025 and the end of 2030, an average of over 50,000 per annum. Delivery over the period will need to rise incrementally to 60,000 homes per year by 2030. This target of reaching an annual average of over 50,000 homes is both ambitious and credible. It is drawn from the work done by the ESRI in 2024 on population growth and structural household demand.

We clearly need to significantly scale-up capacity across the construction industry in the coming years and reaching 60,000 new homes by 2030 will be an enormous challenge. This can be facilitated by targeted support to grow the construction industry’s capacity year-on-year, establishing a platform from which housing supply can be ramped up to the higher levels needed. It is intended to revisit these targets in 2027 if, reflecting on demand and growing construction capacity, we need different targets for 2028 and subsequent years.

There is ongoing engagement between my Department and the Departments of Finance and Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform regarding all financing arrangements related to housing. These will continue both in the context of review of the national development plan, the multi-annual funding requirements for the new housing plan committed to in the programme for Government and as part of normal annual Estimates discussions. My Department does not forecast new housing completions in any given year, however.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Regarding targets, there has been a great deal in the news in the past of couple of months, including yesterday, to show that the Government showed will not reach its stated targets for the next three years. We have 250,000 too few homes for the population and the Housing Commission report is very clear.

How does the Minister intend to make sure we reach the housing targets as set out in the programme for Government? I urge him to revisit the targets before 2027. What sort of engagement has he had with the Department of public expenditure? I am hearing that the AIB windfall money that was promised has not actually come down the line yet.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Department never makes projections of what housing delivery will be. We have heard in the past number of weeks everything from 30,000 to 40,000 through different sectors in terms of various projections for completions. The outcome will be what will be. My intention will be to maximise the delivery of housing over the next 12 months and, indeed, over the next number of years. As Minister for housing, I am re-examining every aspect of how we deliver on those targets and what else we can do to ensure that they can be delivered. There are clear challenges in the system to the delivery of housing and we need to look at this from a fresh perspective in terms of how we can reach those targets.

I am in regular contact with the Department of public expenditure and reform, but I would point out that there is record funding for capital delivery of housing for this year.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I did not hear anything specific in the Minister's reply in regard to what the Government is actually going to do to get us out of this quagmire we are in. I want to follow that up by asking about apartment delivery. We have a specific issue with apartments. It was revealed this morning in The Irish Times that the croí cónaithe city scheme had only delivered 17% of its target. It has delivered nothing in Limerick, the city I represent. Rents in Limerick rose by 19% last year and Limerick had the largest increase nationwide in terms of house prices.

How does the Minister propose to make apartment construction, particularly outside of Dublin, viable again? What new measures does the Government intend to introduce? We know that section 23 did not work during the boom, but we clearly need to do something because apartment approvals dropped by nearly 40% last year.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I agree, in that apartment delivery has collapsed. That is very clear. We need to have radical thinking in terms of how we get that supply of apartments moving again. That is where the significant shortfall in reaching our targets has happened, particularly in Dublin city but also in our other cities, including Limerick. Apartments need to be delivered. I intend to take significant action to get those moving. I am waiting for the Housing Agency to publish its report in the next couple of weeks. We will examine its proposals in certain areas and look at what we need to do to ensure we get apartments delivery moving again. We need to take radical action on it.