James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

The Bill intends to make an amendment to the Housing Finance Agency Acts 1981 to 2024. Section 1 of the Bill amends section 10 of the Housing Finance Agency Act 1981 to increase the agency's statutory borrowing limit from €12 billion to €13.5 billion. Section 2 of the Bill sets out the Short Title, collective citation and construction.

The mission of the Housing Finance Agency, HFA, 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 for this purpose. The borrowing capacity of the agency is set out in primary legislation and the current limit is €12 billion. Having been established in 1981 with a borrowing limit of €200 million, the agency's statutory borrowing limit, SBL, has increased six times since, reflecting the ever-increasing demand on funding for social, affordable and cost-rental housing.

The HFA is the main lender to the AHB sector, which provides almost half of all new social and cost-rental homes. Following Government approval of additional funding for social and cost-rental housing in July of this year, the Housing Finance Agency's flow of borrowing applications increased, with the majority of applications coming from the approved housing body sector. Based on its recent projections, the Housing Finance Agency has advised that its €12 billion statutory borrowing limit will be reached at its 6 November credit committee meeting, at which point no additional lending can be approved. As a consequence, it is proposed to increase the SBL to €13.5 billion with this Bill, enabling the agency to continue to support the ever-increasing delivery of social and cost-rental homes.

On 18 September, the Government approved an increase to the statutory borrowing limit of the Housing Finance Agency from €12 billion to €13.5 billion. Priority drafting of the Bill was also approved and we have sought that pre-legislative scrutiny of the proposed Bill be waived given the urgency associated with the proposal. On 23 September, the Government approved the publication of the Housing Finance Agency (Amendment) Bill 2025 and authorised me, as Minister, to arrange for the presentation of the Bill to Dáil Éireann and for it to be circulated to Deputies at the earliest opportunity. Officials in my Department met with the Oireachtas joint committee on Monday, 6 October. Following this engagement, a pre-legislative scrutiny waiver was granted. The increase to €13.5 billion will provide sufficient headroom for the Housing Finance Agency 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 had time to consider the relevant aspects of the national development plan and the new national housing plan and to develop its own new corporate plan. The HFA's new corporate plan will include reformed forecasts for its future SBL requirements, factoring in delivery partner-specific and scheme-specific funding requirements over the period of the national housing plan.

As the role of the Housing Finance Agency continues to be vital in supporting the Government's ambitious housing delivery plans to 2030 and beyond, it should be noted that this proposed increase to the Housing Finance Agency's statutory borrowing limit from €12 billion to €13.5 billion should be seen as an interim measure. It should also be noted that the Housing Finance Agency is totally self-funding and requires no current expenditure subvention from the Exchequer. The 2024 annual report of the Housing Finance Agency reports that, during 2024, the agency reached its highest level of loan approvals thanks to the continued dedication and hard work of staff, customers and key stakeholders. The HFA provides long-term competitive finance to approved housing bodies, local authorities and higher education institutes and uses its collective financial expertise and resourcing to support customers in the development and implementation of effective housing programmes. There are thousands of people who, because of the financing made available by the HFA, will have a safe and secure roof over their heads, living in supported mixed-tenure communities or modern student accommodation. The HFA continues to demonstrate sound financial management and good corporate governance, both of which are essential to the success of any organisation. With a number of additional staff and new board members appointed in recent months, the Housing Finance Agency is more capable than ever of addressing the challenges ahead.

Approved housing bodies continue to deliver social and cost-rental homes for the State. The sector has built up capacity, knowledge and expertise in the delivery of housing. These capabilities and oversight of the AHB sector are essential to that sector's effective operation. The Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority, AHBRA, will continue to be supported to ensure a robust and effective regulatory regime that continues to support high standards of governance, financial management and tenant management in the sector.

Budget 2026 reinforces the Government's commitment to boosting housing supply. The total Exchequer funding being made available for the delivery of housing programmes in the budget is €7.21 billion, comprising capital funding of €5.19 billion and current funding of €2.02 billion. An increased capital allocation of €2.9 billion has been provided to support local authorities and approved housing bodies in the delivery of newly built social homes. In addition, €1.2 billion has been committed to the affordable purchase and cost-rental schemes, which deliver long-term secure housing at below market rates for thousands of individuals and families across the country. This will support the delivery of 7,500 affordable purchase and cost-rental homes in 2026. The increased level of capital investment secured will support the new housing plan and provide certainty and confidence to citizens and the wider housing market.

Should this Bill pass through these Houses, it is anticipated that it will be signed into law by the end of this month in advance of the Housing Finance Agency's 6 November credit committee meeting, thereby ensuring the continued smooth lending capacity of the Housing Finance Agency.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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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.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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As the Minister knows, Sinn Féin will be supporting this legislation. I thank the officials from his Department for the very detailed briefing they provided to committee members on both the Bill and wider issues around AHB strategy and reform. It is a single-sentence Bill, so there is not an awful lot to discuss in terms of its explicit content. However, given that it is related to the funding of AHBs and, potentially, local authorities, I want to make some general comments on how that funding is used in order to contribute to the wider debate, which I know the Minister and his officials are considering. This relates to the strategic review of the AHB sector and, ultimately, the new housing plan.

The Minister will not be surprised to hear me say we are not spending enough on the direct delivery of social or affordable homes by local authorities, AHBs and the LDA. When we dealt with the Revised Estimates two weeks ago, Deputy Ahern asked how much money was spent last year through Exchequer expenditure, AHB borrowing and the Land Development Agency on delivering social and affordable homes. The figure is approximately €5 billion. About €3 billion of that was Exchequer expenditure and the rest involves about €1.5 billion in AHB borrowing and the remainder last year for the LDA. Overall expenditure will increase somewhat this year. That is simply nowhere near enough to deliver the volume of social or affordable homes required to meet current needs. I refer to the objectively expressed need of those on local housing waiting lists, those in insecure and expensive HAP and RAS tenancies and those in need of affordable homes. Based on the Housing Commission’s own recommendations, we probably need an average of 15,000 new-build social homes per year from now to 2030 to meet that need. My estimation is that we also need an average of 10,000 cost-rental and affordable-purchase homes per year, and they need to be genuinely affordable. Unlike the Government, I also believe there needs to be a significant budget for acquisitions over the next five years. That means direct Exchequer apportionment for social and affordable homes will need to increase by €2 billion to €2.5 billion. AHB borrowing, which is currently around €1.5 billion per year, will probably need to move to about €2 billion. I say this by way of context. This is the only way we are going to meet social and affordable housing need through local authorities and AHBs.

The Taoiseach gets up and talks about €7 billion, but when this is boiled down to what is actually being invested in the forms of tenure in question, it represents a much smaller portion. Whatever way we do this – whether with the inadequate targets the Government has said, with revised targets in a new housing plan, which we await, or with the more ambitious targets that Sinn Féin and others have set – AHB borrowing is going to continue to increase significantly. Therefore, I urge the Minister to engage with the Oireachtas committee at the earliest possible opportunity on the medium-term plan for the HFA. It is not sensible to proceed by periodically having to come in here at the last minute to raise the borrowing cap. If the Minister has visibility on what he is likely to need from the AHB sector between now and 2030, there needs to be a sensible mechanism for incremental increases, obviously checked against whatever milestones are agreed between the relevant Departments.

The Minister stated in response to a question at the Revised Estimates committee meeting two weeks ago that there had been no delays in the delivery of projects funded in part by the HFA. Only a couple of days earlier, at the Construction Industry Federation conference, both the AHB sector and the private residential development sector, which provide many turnkey developments, were making the opposite case, citing significant delays.

I acknowledge that the considerable delays with CALF and CREL stage 1 approvals have been broadly resolved. That is what I am hearing from the AHB and local government sectors and developers engaged in turnkey and Part V developments, but there still seems to be some problem with the capital assistance scheme, CAS. Whatever the Minister’s public position on these matters, we need to ensure, particularly for smaller AHBs, AHBs with smaller stock and AHBs delivering special-needs housing for people exiting homelessness or with mental health challenges or physical or intellectual disability needs, that we unblock whatever delays exist regarding CAS applications. I am hearing from local authorities and AHBs that the pipeline for 2026 and 2027 regarding social and affordable homes has been affected by the delays. Ultimately, we will only know the position for sure when we see completion data throughout next year and the year after.

Local authorities can borrow from the HFA at a lower interest rate than AHBs. The reduction is significant. Particularly for cost-rental tenants, that has a significant knock-on effect on the rent charged. As the Minister knows, at current rents many cost-rental developments exclude a growing portion of those who earn too much to qualify for social housing but not enough to afford the rents in the private rental sector. They are now being excluded from cost rental because the rents are so high that they fail the affordability test.

When Mr. Barry O’Leary, the former chief executive of the HFA, appeared before the Oireachtas committee about a year ago, he said the lower interest rate charged to local authorities would reduce the rent in an average cost-rental tenancy by about €100 per month. That is a significant reduction over the course of a year; yet, because of an arbitrary borrowing cap across the entire local government sector, local authorities generally cannot borrow, whether from the HFA or the European Investment Bank, to fund cost-rental housing. Dublin city has been able to produce one development, in St. Michael’s Estate, but due to the cap it will not be able to produce more.

I am not arguing that local authorities should be able to borrow whatever they want. Of course, they should require sanction from the Department, but the State-wide local authority borrowing cap is antiquated and needs to be removed and replaced by the Department with a better, more flexible mechanism with adequate checks and balances.

On individual schemes, the smaller special-needs AHBs face a challenge because, traditionally, they have accessed the CAS rather than CALF and HFA loans. They are struggling to make schemes stack up for them to be viable. We need to move to a position where those smaller schemes, such as those of the Housing Association for Integrated Living, HAIL, and Focus Ireland, combine CAS with HFA loans and payment-and-availability agreements. Ultimately, that is where we need to go to make the schemes stack up; otherwise, we will struggle to get a sufficient number of what we generally call special-needs AHB units to meet sectoral demand. There should also be far greater integration of those units into general-needs affordable and social housing projects. More flexible use of funding, including HFA funding, would be useful in this regard.

There is a fundamental question to be asked about the CAS. Since it provides no monthly availability payment, the rent raised is simply insufficient to meet ongoing management, maintenance and future structural repair costs. It is essentially the same problem as the poor funding mechanism for local authorities. I realise there is a CALF review and I hope the Oireachtas housing committee gets to participate in it, but ultimately we need to move to a payment-and-availability-type agreement for all AHB properties.

Needless to say, that raises difficulties with historical CAS and capital loan and subsidy scheme properties from two decades ago. Many of the loans are now being paid off in full and, again, the AHBs simply do not have the revenue to maintain what is now ageing stock. I appreciate it is not a straightforward problem to resolve but it needs to be addressed.

On the recent changes to apartment design standards and VAT, we have AHB projects that have been through CALF and HFA approval. If developers come with a revised planning application, there will be a question mark over whether they need to have HFA approval again. Clarity from the Minister, publicly and for the AHB sector, would be useful. Likewise, clarity is needed on whether there will be any attempt to force developers, including those who have signed turnkey or Part V agreements with AHBs, to pass on the VAT reduction announced in the budget last week.

I do not believe there is a legally enforceable mechanism from the Government's point of view, but given those apartments are already under construction or are already viable, why should the State be paying an extra €20,000 per apartment for a VAT reduction simply to increase the profits of those large, viable and profitable developers?

To conclude, any extra money for social and affordable housing is welcome. We will not stand in the way of additional investment. If anybody thinks, though, that the €5 billion or so currently being invested in social and affordable homes is enough, it is not. The report of the Housing Commission makes that very clear. Until this Government accepts that and increases the funding significantly, we are not going to make sufficient headway in tackling this crisis.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Across Waterford city and county, the housing crisis is worsening by the day. We see it on the ground and in the statistics and the figures. We are witnessing the inevitable result of years of Government failure and a lack of political will to deliver homes for ordinary people. I met again in recent days with housing officials in Waterford City and County Council. To be fair, they are working hard within the constraints set by central government. The message is clear: we need a massive upturn in the delivery of social and affordable housing. Without that upturn, the crisis will continue to deepen.

Taking Dungarvan as an example, the rental market there is broken and has been for many years. There is almost no supply, rents are unaffordable and the Government continues to rely on HAP as a substitute for building real social homes. Families and individuals have been on the housing list for ten years or more in some cases and there has been zero delivery of affordable or cost-rental homes in Dungarvan. In Ardmore, not a million miles away from Dungarvan, a beautiful seaside town, a demographic cliff edge is emerging. Young people who want to live and work there cannot afford to buy or build. More than half of the homes in the area are holiday lets or second homes, many of them owned by investment funds. A community-led plan for affordable homes was sidelined a couple of years ago because the Department knows best. Now, because of the so-called competitive dialogue approach, that project remains stuck in limbo while young people move away to begin their lives elsewhere. Similar stories can be told in Dunmore East, Stradbally and right along Waterford's coastline. Local housing for local families is being held back by the Government's failure to invest in basic water and wastewater infrastructure. Apartments in Lismore, for example, have been refused planning permission in the last couple of months because of inadequate water supply. In Bunmahon, planning permission was refused because a lack of investment means its ancient sewage system is simply not fit for purpose. In Cappoquin, Portlaw, Kilmacthomas and Tallow, young people are leaving in their droves. The rural housing crisis is being neglected and ignored by this Government.

Sa Ghaeltacht, tá an ghéarchéim thithíochta chomh dona céanna. Is géarchéim eiseach í. Our Gaeltacht is facing an existential crisis. Ní féidir le teaghlaigh óga, a bhfuil fonn orthu a gcuid páistí a thógáil trí mheán na Gaelainne, a gcuid tithe féin a cheannach nó a thógáil. Idir an dá linn, diúltaíonn an Rialtas cumhachtaí ná acmhainní breise a thabhairt d’Údarás na Gaeltachta agus níl na treoirlínte pleanála Gaeltachta foilsithe ach an oiread.

We need a step change, real and sustained political will and a meaningful upturn in public investment. Anything else is hollow and doomed to fail.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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We need to see a major influx of funding and investment in housing and particularly in affordable, cost-rental and social housing. Right now, thousands of people are without secure, affordable housing and they are crying out for solutions. They are looking for the Minister and this Government to bring forward solutions. Cost rental is a good idea - it is one of the things we can all agree on - but why then has it not been delivered at the scale it needs to be? Last year, only 2,027 cost-rental homes were delivered across the entire State. In Cork alone, 1,200 people applied for 73 cost rentals in one unit. That tells us the demand. The supply being delivered, though, does not meet what is needed.

More than half of those homes were delivered by AHBs. They are telling us they have the capacity to build and deliver more. Why is more not being done with these organisations? The problems they are telling us about include the bureaucracy, the red tape and the barriers. There are also barriers in relation to cost-rental equity funding. It is holding the AHBs back. Additional funding would help them to deliver, but there is a need to get rid of the red tape and the bureaucracy. This is about delivery. Everything should be done to speed things up.

Last week, the Minister announced tax breaks for people building apartments, but some of these are being built and are nearly ready now. We have a lack of funding in some areas, but then the Minister has set aside €640 million over the next two years for tax breaks for building apartments. It is more than double the budget for affordable purchase homes in the next two years. That is €640 million being spent on apartments. These apartments are viable. As a TD and a former councillor and in my position as my party's spokesman on local government, I have met with developers and builders. They do not go into a development unless they know there is a profit at the end of it. Why is the Minister giving them more money to increase their profits? It just does not make sense.

It is costing the local authorities on average €31,000 to renovate a vacant house and that is according to the National Oversight and Audit Commission, NOAC, report. It is estimated it would cost €13 million to renovate and repair every boarded-up and vacant county council property. These are properties owned by the State. That €13 million is a drop in the ocean. This is at a time when councils are crying out for funding. They want to do it, but they are not getting the funding from central government. They are not getting it from the Minister.

Right across the board, we see these issues. Just to let the Minister know, according to an answer we got at a meeting of Cork City Council last night, the council has spent over €250 million boarding up houses and putting up these metal shutters. It is an absolute disgrace. What a waste of money to spend €250 million boarding up houses that families should be living in because the Minister will not give the money to the local authorities. If that is happening in Cork, there are 30 other local authorities doing the same thing. This does not even include every house being boarded up, because sometimes houses are left to look like they are being lived in and they are not.

Families are crying out for housing and somewhere safe to raise their families to live. They are looking around communities where there are boarded-up houses. Who is responsible if the Minister is not responsible?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The local authority is.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I am delighted the Minister said that. This is the pass-the-buck Government, blaming local authorities, which are not being funded. Deputy Browne is the Minister for housing, not the local authority.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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There are houses built.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Deputy Browne is the Minister in charge and the man with the purse strings, but he is blaming everyone else. He is like Pontius Pilate; he is washing his hands. If Deputy Eoin Ó Broin or I was the Minister for housing, we would stand up and be counted. We would accept our responsibility and we would deliver the housing. It would cost €13 million to fix every boarded-up house in the State and the Minister will not give it. Will he commit to giving that money to local authorities?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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No.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister is shaking his head. I do not know if anyone is watching, but the Minister is shaking his head saying no, that he will not give money to repair boarded-up houses, to get families out of emergency accommodation and get families out of-----

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister's responsibility is-----

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister shook his head and said no.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, because it is the local authority.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Ah, Minister.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy, please.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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He is asking me.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I will give the Minister another figure if he wants to burn money instead of building houses. It costs on average €87,500 to keep a family in a hotel in emergency accommodation. That is what we are spending, and it is only €31,000 to repair a boarded-up house. For years I thought the Government was over-smart, saying the market would solve the problem. I am now fully convinced that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael do not want to solve the housing problem because they are more interested in keeping the banks profitable, the rents and mortgages high and keeping everything high. What about ordinary people? What about ordinary people who cannot pay their rents or get mortgages?

I will give the Minister one example. A lady contacted my office on Monday. I have a clinic on Mondays and it is not possible to get in the door of my office for four hours. Afterwards, I have to do a phone clinic for people who cannot come in.

She is a 68-year-old lady who is facing homelessness in February. She is going to be homeless when she is 69 years old. Who is responsible? It is the Government's policy. We are seeing more older people become homeless than we ever did before. She is worried that when she is in her seventies she will be homeless.

Another lady contacted me. She has been living in emergency accommodation since 8 January with a small baby. The Government is putting hundreds of millions into tax breaks and now people with young children and pensioners are effected. I had a couple in with me the other day. They have four children and cannot get a mortgage because every time they go to buy a house, the prices are being driven up. They do not qualify for social housing-----

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Gould to conclude.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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They do not qualify for cost-rental. What is the Minister going to do for them? What is he going to do for families who have nowhere to go and cannot find anywhere to rent or to buy? They are trapped in the middle and the Government let them down in the budget.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Gould, please resume your seat.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Once again, the Government is leaving out ordinary people.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Hear, hear.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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You want to take away the help-the-to-buy scheme from that family to help them buy a home.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Minister, direct your remarks through the Chair, please.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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These are facts. I will send the Minister the details if he wants them.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire agus leis an Rialtas as ucht an Bille seo a chur faoi bhráid na Dála. Aontaím agus aontaíonn Páirtí an Lucht Oibre leis an mBille seo.

This is not a complicated Bill. It makes a simple change to ensure that the Housing Finance Agency can continue to fulfil its mandate in the months ahead. This is something that we in Labour are broadly supportive of. We all know the importance that the Housing Finance Agency plays as a pillar of Ireland's housing policy. By raising the agency's statutory borrowing limit, as this Bill does, we can ensure that it continues to play that role and continues to issue new lending approvals with the headroom it needs to up to the middle of next year. However, I would question why this step is being taken on an interim, piecemeal basis. We all know that bold change is needed to tackle the housing crisis. My own party has repeatedly put forward the bold steps that we believe the Government needs to take. Today we are devoting significant time to a change that, while undoubtedly necessary, will simply paper over one crack in one agency for less than a year. This interim change to the agency's statutory borrowing limit will mean that further legislative change will no doubt be needed in the coming months and years. In a crowded legislative calendar, we might well ask whether devoting repeated primary legislative slots to updating the HFA's statutory borrowing limit will crowd out other important debate. Why is this change being made in this fashion, rather than taking a more bold step to ensure that the HFA is put on the sustainable footing it needs to deliver for years rather than months into the future?

We have all watched on in dismay as the Government has repeatedly failed to deliver on housing over recent years. Its record on housing over the last decade is one of repeated failure. The previous increase to the Housing Finance Agency's statutory borrowing limit came in early 2024 and was a commitment under Housing for All. The fact that less than two years later we are taking the same step again is perhaps yet another small illustration of the failure of the plan and of the Government's wider piecemeal approach. The Government's lack of ambition and its failure to even begin to get to grips with the crisis at hand goes much deeper, of course, but at its heart is the same absence of long-term, joined-up thinking. Now, here we are two years later, again raising the limit once more. This time we are asked to do so in the absence of a plan. The Government's new national housing plan was due for publication in July. It was delayed. Four weeks ago, the Taoiseach said it would be ready in the next month, but we have still not seen sign of it. I expect we will not before the presidential election.

This Bill makes only a small change, but nonetheless, it is incredible that we are being asked to pass primary legislation on housing policy without the Government having spelled out its broader plan. How can we scrutinise the Government's approach, either on the specifics or in the broader sense, without sight of what will be in its new flagship housing plan? The Housing Finance Agency says that this change could facilitate the building of over 5,600 units. That underlines why we need to pass this Bill, piecemeal as it may be. We should be clear: the Government's record on delivering its own unambitious housing targets gives real cause for concern. Its new-build social housing target was missed by more than 1,400 units last year. That number has fallen short by an average of 15% every year since Housing for All was published. Meanwhile, earlier this year, the Government put forward figures that could charitably be described as "misleading" to try to give the impression that it had delivered on its affordable housing targets for 2024. By lumping in vacant property grants and approvals that had yet to be completed, the Government attempted to massage the figures and pull the wool over our eyes. In that context, while Labour supports today's Bill and its aim of resourcing the Housing Finance Agency to better support social and affordable housing delivery, it is difficult to be optimistic when we see this Government's record.

As we consider the sustainability of one pillar of housing policy, I would like to go back again to what I raised with the Minister last week in relation to the LDA and its sustainability and impact. The Department of Finance's recent report made clear that under its current mandate, the LDA will not be able to make a meaningful contribution toward solving the housing crisis that it should be making and that it was set up to do. We know that there is enough public land in the State to go a long way toward building the homes we need, but a lack of vision from this Government has seen the LDA become nothing but a lame duck agency, sitting on lands without powers or the capitalisation to deliver and using turnkey to reach its targets. The Government must fully capitalise the LDA and give it the power it needs to acquire, activate and develop public land. We in Labour have spelled out our plan to transform the LDA so it can finally deliver the radical, State-led solutions we need, but in the interim we simply must ensure that it is able to do the job it needs to do. That is another task that the Government has not done. We are today looking at a change which is one small lever in housing delivery. It is a change that we in Labour will support, but without looking more broadly at the housing landscape and finally delivering the radical change that we have been crying out for for years now, it will be a mere drop in the ocean.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The Minister and Minister of State are both very welcome. I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Housing Finance Agency (Amendment) Bill, which proposes to increase the statutory borrowing limit of the HFA from €12 billion to €13.5 billion. It is a necessary step to ensure that it can continue to do what it was established to do - to finance the delivery of social and affordable homes across our country. It plays a crucial role in our housing system. It is low-cost, long-term finance to our local authorities, AHBs and HEIs, supporting the delivery of thousands of homes each year under Housing for All and the cost-rental model. It is worth noting that it is self-financing. It does not rely on Exchequer convention; it borrows from the NTMA, the European Investment Bank and the Council of Europe Development Bank and adds only a small margin to cover its administrative costs, which makes it one of the most efficient and sustainable arms of our housing delivery system. Why does this matter now? The limit is €12 billion. It increased from €10 billion just last year and is already fully committed. That shows that we are delivering housing. Forecasts showed that this limit would be reached by early November 2025. Without an increase, the HFA would have no legal authority to approve any new loans, meaning that projects currently in planning or procurement would stall. That is not a position that any of us in this House wants to see. It ensures the continuity of funding, allowing social and affordable housing projects to proceed without disruption.

By increasing the limit to €13.5 billion, we are enabling the delivery of an estimated 5,650 additional homes, which is significant progress in tackling our supply challenges. It is also important to note that this increase is an interim measure, bridging the period until mid-2026. Once the national development plan funding allocations and the new housing plan are finalised, the HFA will reassess its longer term borrowings as part of a need for its new corporate plan. The next phase will ensure that the HFA is fully resourced to support its expanded delivery targets that we will set out under the next housing strategy. As chair of the housing committee, I emphasise the need for the housing plan and those figures to be published in the very short term for the term ahead.

In my own constituency of Longford-Westmeath, we are seeing the benefit of this kind of sustained investment. Projects funded through the AHBs and the local authorities are bringing new homes on stream within the towns across the two counties. The communities and people living there can see the progress.

5 o’clock

They want the momentum to continue and that is why this Bill is so important. It keeps the pipeline open, protects delivery capacity and ensures that local authorities and housing bodies can continue to plan with confidence. It is practical, responsible and necessary. It reflects a Government that is serious about delivery. It is not just making commitments but ensuring that the finance is there to back them up. By approving this increase, we are ensuring that thousands more families, older people and individuals across the country will have access to secure and affordable homes in the months and years ahead. Only in the past five minutes, the first home scheme posted interim results. Over 4,100 homes have been purchased in the past three years, with 8,300 approved.

I mentioned affordable homes and in that context, I will take the opportunity to highlight the need in my own home county for additional affordable housing. Only in recent weeks, a scheme for affordable homes was put to the Department and the Housing Agency for approval. Such homes are needed across the county and not just in the county town of Longford. They are required across the regional towns of the county. I ask for support for those projects.

I commend the Minister and his Department on bringing forward this amending Bill and am happy to support it.

Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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The devastating consequences of the housing crisis have seeped into almost every aspect of our lives and are wreaking havoc in almost all aspects of our economy and society. No community has escaped its clutches and barely a family has not felt the brunt of its force. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have proved time and again that they are incapable of turning things around. In fact, the only thing they seem capable of is making things worse.

In 2012, small apartments were available to buy in Tralee town centre for €45,000. It was contrary to Government policy at the time to buy such apartments. The town councils were abolished shortly thereafter, which made things worse. We have still not recovered. The population of the whole of the county is now concentrated in the major towns, which has serious consequences that I will talk about shortly.

The facts are stark. No matter where you turn, the situation is not improving and is, in fact, deteriorating. Housing supply is plummeting and prices have jumped by 36% in the past four years. In some areas, the increase has been as high as 50%. In Kerry, a house that cost €200,000 in 2021 will now set you back approximately €280,000. The average wage of constituents has not increased. In fact, thanks to the Government's budget package last week, real wages will be going down. How are ordinary people supposed to afford to buy a house when average house prices are now eight times higher, on average, than earnings? It is no wonder that so many people feel there is no light at the end of the tunnel. It is difficult to sit in a constituency office when people are coming, time and again, in desperate situations, seeking housing, and you have to tell them that you will make the representation without any real prospect of being able to deliver a house or give them hope of obtaining a house unless they spend a decade on the approved social housing list.

This do-nothing Government is out of touch. Otherwise, it could not justify the skyrocketing rents the length and breadth of the county. Rents are up 60% in Kerry. Time after time, we hear of landlords who have doubled the rent or put it up by 60% of 80%. Rents have increased from €1,000 per month to €1,500 per month. People are being made homeless. Kerry urgently needs proper homeless services in places other than Tralee and Killarney. People also become homeless in Dingle, Kenmare and Cahersiveen. People who have had a relationship break-up and do not have a house to go to are all being sent an hour up or down the road to the major towns in the county. It is unfair on those people that there is no provision. Last week, I spoke to someone who works in Kerry County Council. In the whole of west Kerry, not one three-bedroom house has become available to those waiting on the social housing last in the past two years. We need urgent measures now to address the root causes of the crisis in housing and homelessness.

One property was delivered through the tenant in situ scheme last year. Four other people were waiting. They were all extremely vulnerable people for whom specific provision had been made to address their needs. The sale of each of those houses collapsed and did not go through.

I do not see the urgency coming from the Government. What I outlined in respect of social housing in west Kerry is totally unacceptable. It takes Kerry County Council longer to turn around social housing than anywhere else in the country. Funding, it says, is not there. The Taoiseach at one stage called that a cop-out on the part of Kerry County Council, but that is not the case when the leadership is not coming from the top and the waiting list is as long as ten years. It is outrageous that properties are spending 14 months on the list.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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The Social Democrats are happy to support this increase to the borrowing ceiling for the Housing Finance Agency. It is the correct thing to do, but it is limited. We would like it to be higher. We believe there needs to be a significant increase in the delivery of social and affordable housing beyond what is currently being delivered and financed.

Many questions are being asked at the moment about housing and the Government's housing plan, what has happened to it and where it is. We heard earlier from the Taoiseach that the Government's plans are working and it is a case of doubling down and keeping going. I disagree fundamentally with that approach and the way in which the Government is going about things. I said today that it is out of its depth in the housing task. It is not just the Minister. This Government is entirely out of its depth in taking a response to the housing crisis that will solve it.

Unfortunately, the Government's response appears not to have thought through what is needed and the evidence base that underpins decisions. Its response is being driven by lobbyists from the construction industry, investor funds and developers. They clearly have a revolving door into Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. As I raised last week with the Tánaiste, the Parliamentary Budget Office stated clearly that there was a lack of an evidence base to the decisions being made on housing policy changes. I am still exasperated with the decision to give a VAT cut to developers and investor funds for apartments that are already in the process of being built and that will be built. The Tánaiste said that I was talking about billions of euro but that it would not be billions of euro. If we calculate and go through it, it will be billions of euro. Within three or four years, well over €1 billion will have gone to developers and investor funds in VAT cuts. Based on last year's figures, approximately 8,000 apartments will be completed this year. They will all benefit from the VAT cut even though building started a year or two ago. The following year, it will probably be a similar number. We are heading towards 16,000. It takes two to four years for apartment developments to be completed, from start to finish, so we are going to see in the region of 20,000 apartments or more for which developers will get the VAT cut despite the fact the apartments were already being built. I do not see the logic. It has annoyed me and others. It seems that the developers and investor funds said they needed the money because building would otherwise not be viable. I do not think the Government was addressing the viability of each apartment. I think it was bailing out the developers and investor funds, who have told the Government they do not have sufficient finance, or do not earn sufficient profit, to build more. We are going to funnel money into apartments that are already being built. It was a disgraceful decision, with which I fundamentally disagree. I will keep calling out the Minister and the Government for that decision.

When we look back on it, the lack of evidence for it will be really called out and it will be one more decision that was made for the investor funds and developers. There is the opportunity cost and the missed investment in this.

It is so frustrating to listen to the Taoiseach during Leaders' Questions go on about how we in the Social Democrats are against the private sector and how the State is doing all it can. The State is not doing all it can. There is still a budget surplus. There is still additional funding that could be put in. We have put forward a very clear solution that is about setting up a bank account and savings system whereby Irish people would be able to take the money in their bank accounts, put into this "Homes for Ireland" scheme and the finance would be able to then be channelled into delivering affordable housing. That would be additional private finance so I find it really disingenuous of the Taoiseach to go on about how we are against private finance when we have put forward a very clear solution that would involve bringing private finance in. It is months since we put forward that proposal. Is there any progress on it whatsoever? Will the scheme be implemented? The Taoiseach also said, "Oh, your proposal or that proposal would not build a home next year or the year after." That is not actually true. If we started work on implementing that scheme immediately, within six months or a year there is no reason it would not be financing the building of homes.

It is always the case that any alternative idea is something that will not deliver homes for years so there is no point in doing it but, of course, when it comes to a VAT cut for developers, the Government does it straight away. There is still a market ideological blinker on the Taoiseach and on Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, which limits the idea of what the State can and should be doing on housing and this real fear that if the State goes too far, it might somehow disrupt the market. The State does not want to build the volume of social and affordable housing that would actually bring house prices down. The ambition to bring down house prices and make housing affordable is never set out in the housing plans. I would love to see it in the coming housing plan, whenever we see it. It is completely unsustainable and we have created, once more, the Celtic tiger situation whereby house prices are completely out of whack with incomes and we will see rents continue to rise, as they have been. It is absolutely economically unsustainable. We are pushing ourselves into more economic instability as result of housing and economic policy that is built around continually rising house prices and there is no questioning of that. There is no questioning of how these rents are economically sustainable and socially sustainable. It beggars belief.

I want to raise the issue of homelessness again. I still cannot get my head around the change the Minister made to the tenant in situ scheme. He argued in favour of it and then went back on that. It is still not properly reinstated. Dublin city councillors tell me very clearly, as have other councillors from counties Kildare, Wicklow and Cork, that the councils do not have funding to buy up the homes people are in so as to prevent homelessness, in the same way as before. The change the Minister made did something that changed the way the councils were doing this and created huge uncertainty. Dublin city councillors have told me the scheme has been suspended and the council is not buying additional properties in cases where people are being made homeless. If the Minister genuinely feels this is an emergency, he should reinstate the scheme and go back to the councils and tell them what I understood the previous Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien told them, which is to buy what they need and if someone is facing homelessness, to buy it up. The councils have the money. There is an open chequebook to a certain extent and that is what councils should be told. If there is someone facing homelessness, they should buy the property and say they will cover it. Instead, the Taoiseach inserted his own view, which came from someone who was lobbying him on the idea that if the councils were buying up properties, home buyers could not buy a property and we do not want to be seen as removing properties that could be bought by home buyers. This is a completely flawed argument because when someone is evicted from his or her home and goes into emergency accommodation, the costs are put on the State and it becomes a zero-sum game in terms of what is actually there. The tenant in situ scheme should be reinstated, completely and in full. That is something the Minister could do. I ask him to go back and tell the councils they can do this rather than feeding this situation whereby there is huge uncertainty.

It is similar to the uncertainty in the AHBs. The Minister said there were no issues around delays in projects. There clearly are some delays in some aspects of projects but the fundamental point he made is that he will not agree to every application for affordable housing that comes to him because the funding is not there. There needs to be a sufficient allocation of funding.

I will also raise the issue of affordable housing. In regard to affordable housing delivery schemes, the Minister said 7,500 new affordable purchase and cost-rental homes will be delivered in 2026. He said that would be an increase. Will he answer a question for me? How is an affordable home a vacant property grant given to a landlord who is a multiple property owner? They avail of the vacant property grant. How is that an affordability measure? I would like the Minister to answer that question. Vacant property grants should not be allocated under the affordable purchase and affordable rental schemes. I do not see how it is affordable housing, particularly when a landlord can get and use this vacant property grant. Maybe the Minister can give us the figures on how many multiple property owners are currently in receipt of the vacant property grant.

At the moment, we are seeing decorations go up across the country. Our kids are talking about how Hallowe'en is coming up but the scariest thing about this Hallowe'en will not be the ghosts or goblins or even Donald Trump costumes; it will be Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael housing policies that are absolutely terrifying renters and generation locked-out as landlords hike the rents up further under the Government's new measures. Young people are living in fear of never being able to buy their own homes. Of course, the Government's biggest Hallowe'en scare is its phantom housing plan, which has been promised for months but is clearly stuck in the spirit world that is the space between the Department, the Minister, the Taoiseach and the vulture fund lobbyists. At Hallowe'en, will a space open up and the plan appear? Unfortunately, that plan is likely to be one that leaves us all terrified long after the Hallowe'en ghosts have disappeared. We need a radical change in our housing policy. The Minister is not delivering it. This Government is not delivering it. It was elected on a false promise and I will keep calling it out, the false claim that the Government would build 40,000 homes. Had it been known during the election that the Government was nowhere near that and that 30,000 homes would be built last year and not 40,000 homes, it would not have been elected on the basis it did and secured a mandate, and we would have alternative housing plans in place.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I express my full support for the Government's plans to raise the Housing Finance Agency's borrowing limit from €12 billion to €13.5 billion. This is an important and vital investment in Ireland's future. It gives the agency the funding needed to help to deliver more social and affordable houses throughout the country. We are facing a serious housing crisis. To solve, it we need to use every tool available. Making sure the agency has enough money to do its job is one of the most important steps we can take. The agency is a public body that borrows money at low rates from international markets. It then passes those savings to the local councils and housing bodies. This helps them to build homes more affordably and on a larger scale.

I have spoken to Clare County Council's chief executive and staff in the housing department on numerous occasions in recent months. I can without fear of contradiction say the local authority views the lack of available finances as one of the key obstacles to delivering housing. If we limit the agency's funding, we slow down the entire housing effort. Therefore, I encourage all Members of this House to support the Government in what it is seeking to deliver this evening. As Members of Dáil Éireann, it is our collective responsibility to come up with solutions to the housing crisis. It is one of the main issues of our time. I appreciate every party has alternative views on how to tackle the issue but increasing the finances available to the Housing Finance Agency should be no-brainer. The Bill is fundamental. The key reasons this increase matters are to help build more houses, faster and to give housing bodies financial stability especially when costs and interest rates are rising. It supports newer housing models like cost rental which help families who earn too much for social housing but still struggle with high rents.

I recently spoke to the Minister for housing about the pressure on people in coastal communities particularly in my constituency in County Clare in towns and villages like Kilkee, Doolin, Quilty, Carrigaholt, Kilbaha, Fanore, Spanish Point, Lahinch and Ballyvaughan. Many locals are being priced out of their own towns because of demand for second homes. For as long as I have been a public representative, this issue has come up on the doorsteps. If we are truly committed to sustainable rural development and tackling depopulation in places like west and north Clare, we need to take the necessary action when the opportunity allows. The Minister agreed with me that cost-rental housing can help with the issue. Thanks to new rules, housing charities can now give priority to local people when allocating these homes. That means people who live and work in these areas have a better chance of staying in their communities. For this to work, housing bodies need access to affordable long-term loans. The Housing Finance Agency is the best source for that kind of funding. In 2024, housing bodies delivered over 40% of social housing and more than half of all cost-rental homes. That shows how important they are to the system. That they now need more funding is a sign of success. It means they are building more homes and helping more people. In County Clare alone last year, approved housing bodies received €36.1 million in funding from the HFA from which it delivered 146 homes. In County Clare, approved housing bodies are making a real difference. We have seen this in projects like the Moínear co-operative housing development delivered in partnership with Clare County Council and Co-operative Housing Ireland. It is a great example of what can happen when local authorities and housing bodies work together and are supported by affordable financing. Focus Ireland and Clúid also have a strong presence in Clare and are committed to delivering more homes for people who need them. These organisations and others like Kilkee Housing Association are helping families to stay close to where they grew up, where they work and have support, which is vital. When talking about increased funding for the housing Finance Agency, we are talking about giving these groups the backing they need to keep doing what they do best. More funding means more homes, more security and more hope for people across Clare and beyond.

The Government's Housing for All plan sets ambitious targets. To meet those targets, the Housing Finance Agency must have enough money to support the work. The Housing Finance Agency's lending forecast to bodies and local authorities will increase significantly by as much as €6.6 billion up to 2028. Last year, housing charities were approved for over €2 billion in loans from the agency. That shows there is strong demand and a solid pipeline for new homes. If we do not raise the borrowing limit, we risk slowing things down. Housing groups might have to turn to private lenders which could be more expensive and less reliable. That would be bad for the State and families waiting for homes. Some people may worry about the State taking on more debt but the Housing Finance Agency offers better value than private lenders. It saves money in the long run and helps more people to get the homes they need, which is vital and important. A strong Housing Finance Agency means stronger communities and that the people I represent in County Clare, especially the rural communities I referred to earlier, can secure a home in their own area. It provides stable and affordable funding that powers our housing programme. By increasing its lending capacity, we are investing in a future where everyone has access to secure a high quality home.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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This legislation comes in the context of a severe housing crisis across the country not just now but for almost the past decade, people have been trying to find a home with little success, unfortunately. The Housing Finance Agency is about providing money for local authorities and other agencies such as approved housing bodies, etc., to build houses and for higher education authorities. It is a body that is very useful in that context but money is not the only problem when it comes to building houses. It is a serious problem for private developers trying to build houses because they cannot get finance anywhere only at an extremely high cost. Often, it is a big obstacle for a lot of small builders in particular in the west, north west, the midlands and outside major cities. Smaller builds trying to build a smaller number of houses find it difficult to get finance. I recently became aware of an example. A housing estate was built in a town in County Leitrim. I think eight units were left unbuilt. The bases were there. A man was going to buy them and looked to get money to finish them but he could not get it anywhere. He was told they did not feel there was a market for the houses and yet nobody can get a house and every time a house goes on the market, the cost goes through the roof. There is something wrong in the private sector that needs to be corrected quickly.

Delays in planning are also a big issue in housing particularly in rural areas. Infrastructure such as wastewater services are big issue. There are several examples in County Leitrim, Mohill being a clear one. The town was mentioned in an EPA report this week. If an application to build even ten houses came in, it would not get planning permission because the wastewater treatment system is not up to standard. It is the same in Leitrim village, Carrigallen and many towns across the country. It really needs to be looked at.

In the past week or ten days in my constituency, we have dealt with, I think, 15 cases of homelessness. This is quite unusual but it is having an impact. Families with young children, single people and even pensioners are coming in with notices to quit. They have to leave the houses they are renting and they cannot find anywhere else to go. People are ending up sleeping in cars, sharing couches with family and that sort of thing. They are not sleeping in a doorway but they are homeless. There needs to be a distinction. We need to recognise there is a huge problem in that respect. The councils in Sligo and Leitrim do not have emergency accommodation for these people, never mind a house. Even trying to find emergency accommodation for them is a problem. Today, there are eight houses for rent in County Leitrim with an average rent of €1,400. In Sligo, there are 18 properties with an average rent of €1,600. While the rents are not as bad as in Dublin or other places, one has to take into account the majority of people living in the north west are on a much lower income. Many cannot afford those prices or have a chance of affording them. HAP does not come close to meeting the cost of housing at the moment.

We have serious problems as well with planning permission across the country. In County Leitrim 66 houses were granted planning permission in 2024.

Leitrim got €2 million for the tenant in situ scheme and some of that had to be used to buy houses from last year. That scheme is a good one and could work and provide a possibility for people but it simply has not been funded. It is a huge problem to try to alleviate the issue of people who are in houses, get a notice to quit and have nowhere to go. If the council comes in and buys the houses at least it would do something to help them.

There is the issue of higher education. The Atlantic Technological University in Sligo has for years been looking at the possibility of being able to raise capital of its own to build student accommodation and it cannot do it. There is no reason it cannot be given that money. Instead the system is set up so private guys can come in and do this, but they are not doing it either. That needs to be examined and there needs to be something put in place to ensure students can get student accommodation when the university wants to build it and has the land to build it on, but cannot raise the money. That would alleviate the broader housing problem as well.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I wish the Minister of State a good afternoon. This debate offers us a really good opportunity to recognise the really vital role the AHBs play in housing provision and in making housing a reality for so many people who otherwise simply would not have access to housing at all. In particular, we have to recognise that they consistently support marginalised communities, vulnerable people and people with additional needs and they prevent many people from simply being left behind. In a housing crisis where supply is always limited and market forces often move what supply there is towards profitable areas and thereby cater to the better-off, it is these vulnerable communities who are often left feeling the brunt. It falls to the Government to ensure market failures are responded to and not allowed to exacerbate an already difficult situation. That is done through State interventions such as the work of AHBs, as provided for in this Housing Finance Agency (Amendment) Bill. The Green Party supports the broad aim of the Bill, which is to raise the lending power the HFA has.

The role the State plays in the provision of housing is a key splitting point in Ireland’s politics right now. Many of us have long argued that the State must scale up its involvement in ensuring that housing inequalities are addressed and that everybody has a right to a roof over their head. It was that approach and that strong belief in the State’s ability to do more that guided the Green Party when we were in government. We took the policy levers we were able to leverage in terms of bringing new approaches in that would broaden access to housing, especially for those on lower incomes. This was done primarily through the introduction of the cost-rental model – the Vienna model – to Ireland, which was a key priority of the Green Party in the previous Government. Cost rental is now embedded as part of the State’s housing policy and it is providing long-term secure tenancies to renters at rates that are significantly below market ones. Over 4,000 homes were delivered by AHBs for cost rental according to the quarter 2 statistics for this year.

One critical aspect that really underlines the success of the cost-rental model has been the cost-rental tenant in situ scheme. As we know, there are two strands to the tenant in situ scheme and they have been a vital lifeline for people at risk of homelessness. Through them over 3,000 homes have been purchased by the State and moved from the private into the public sector between 2023 and 2024. That represents over 3,000 families who, but for the tenant in situ scheme, would have fallen into homelessness and would have been added to those dreadful monthly lists we see issued from the Department of Housing. Over the course of this year my Green Party colleagues on local authorities around the country have been flagging their concern about the lack of funding for the tenant in situ scheme and how that is slowing the ability of local authorities to make these purchases and interventions and, crucially, prevent people from falling into homelessness. I recognise that in August an extra €50 million was announced by the Department for the scheme. That is good but my understanding is it is once-off and will not be added to the overall base. It will allow catch-up for some of the 2024 waiting list for tenant in situ purchases and make a bigger dent in the 2025 one, but it does not deal with the challenges we will see in 2026 and 2027.

When speaking about State interventions where the market has actually failed, there is no more glaring example than the proliferation of vacancy and dereliction we see around the country. Much of that is fuelled by land hoarding and wider disincentives to develop existing land or abandoned buildings. It has been difficult to resolve. It was something the Greens put significant focus on in the context of the previous Government. One measure I was particularly pleased we were able to get over the line was the land hoarding tax, the RZLT. This has been successful. In the context of a housing crisis, it is not acceptable for people to be hanging on to large amounts of land that is zoned for housing. In its first year it has raised over €40 million for the Exchequer. I was disappointed that in last week's budget, loopholes that allow it to be avoided have been maintained for 2026. That does not allow the land hoarding tax to act to its full potential effect.

Regularly the Taoiseach tells us that when it comes to housing he has an open mind and is happy to listen to ideas the Opposition brings forward. My colleague, Senator Noonan, has brought an idea forward in the Seanad. He came up with legislation that would apply really beneficial new ideas for tackling the issue of vacancy and dereliction and could realise up to 11,000 new homes. Many of them would be for the same cohort that the Housing Finance Agency, which we are discussing, seeks to assist. There are some easy wins in Senator Noonan's Bill for a government that is willing to act. It would broaden the definition of a derelict property, require local authorities to publish their derelict sites register online and compel local authorities to start acquiring sites once they are on the register for more than two years. Unfortunately the Minister of State’s Government has not run with this Bill. It has delayed it for a further two years. Regularly I hear the Taoiseach say he will take on new ideas but the practice when a good idea is brought forward in a constructive way is that it is just delayed in this manner. That is really disappointing. This was, as I said, an easy win for the Government. The budget announced a derelict property tax, which is a positive step. That it is to be based within the Revenue Commissioners is important for its enforcement and its ability to deliver. While local authorities have some arms or levers to deliver on new taxes, the Office of the Revenue Commissioners is the best place to locate this. We will be looking closely at the provisions around this tax when it is introduced through the finance Bill.

I again recognise the work the approved housing bodies are doing to deliver housing to those who really need it - those who have been failed by the market. They are a strong manifestation of the belief I have and the Green Party has of a really strong State role in the delivery of houses. That is not an exclusive role but a strong role in the delivery of houses to those who most need them and the delivery of different houses through long-term tenure in the context of social housing or a new form of rental tenure in the cost-rental model. We will continue to scrutinise this Bill as it goes through these Houses, but we are supportive of the ambition to give our AHBs a greater capacity to expand their work and help more people.

Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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It would be hard to oppose the Housing Finance Agency (Amendment) Bill. It is increasing the finance available, which is needed. The key issue is that it is at low interest rates. I do not know if a portion of it is coming from the European Investment Bank, the private markets or a mixture of both.

The Minister of State might outline that in his reply.

We are in the middle of a housing crisis like we have never seen before. We really need to try to deal with it. The cost and speed of delivery are key issues, along with the need for infrastructure. Water, electricity and wastewater capacity are very important. They are some of the things we need to do.

There are a few areas where we can do something. I have raised a point previously with the Minister of State, which I will raise again here today. It is unfortunate that the Minister for housing, Deputy Browne, and the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, have left the Chamber. I have spoken to both of them before about it, along with the other Minister of State from Waterford. The way local authority housing was built quickly in the past is that we used universal designs, plans and standards. Departmental officials told me previously that we are moving towards having universal design and standards for interiors, but I am talking about the exact same plan being used for various family sizes and settings. In other words, there would be one plan for a two-bedroom, two-storey urban unit so it would be the same in Westmeath where the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, lives, where I live in County Laois or in Donegal or Wexford. The plan for a one-bed or two-bed maisonette for a pensioner or disabled person, again, could be the same throughout the country, and likewise with a three-bed or four-bed house. We must do that.

I am not suggesting that we drop the standard of accommodation. It must be A-rated. This is not about cutting corners. This is about simply cutting out the nonsense and the cost. At the moment, it costs local authorities between 11% and 15% to design plans for each housing estate or housing development that is built. They start with a blank canvas. Pieces of paper then get shuffled between the local authority and the Custom House. That must stop. I acknowledge that it has speeded up a bit in recent years, but it must be cut out altogether.

When we look at the houses that are built in this city, we see the same houses in Sligo, for example. There are also similar houses in Portlaoise. I pass houses every day coming in here that are similar to one I lived in in Portlaoise. That is not a problem. I am not talking about going back to housing from the 1930s. We can have modern housing but we must use the same plans. We do not need to hire architects. We should not start with a blank canvas for every house or every small or large housing scheme. We must have universal drawings, plans and design for the needs of various family sizes in various settings. We must do that to speed up delivery and, crucially, to reduce costs. We talk about it in here every day.

We cannot reduce costs unless we mass produce. Do people around the country really care if the house they are living in might look like one that someone else in Donegal is living in? They do not. Private developers are doing it. They simply change a little bit of fabric on the outside of the front, change the porch a little bit, or slightly change some other feature to make the houses look slightly different. They are all doing it. I see houses that are being built by some of the big building contractors in County Laois that are the very same as houses being built in Dublin. They do not mind doing it but the local authorities are sent off to get new plans each time. We must cut out that nonsense. It must stop. I have raised it with the housing Minister and the two Ministers of State. I would like to see that happen. Somebody might come back and tell me what is happening in that regard. I do not want to hear that they are using the same standards internally and this, that and the other. What we need are the same plans. That is crucial to speeding up delivery.

If we move to the budget for a moment, I have a copy of the document the Minister read out where he outlined that more than €9 billion has been allocated to housing. I welcome that. I wish there was more in it, but it is good to have that much in it. Again, the point is the value that we are getting from it. I will highlight one point to the Minister of State. According to the Minister, some €2 billion is for RAS, housing assistance and leasing. That is a huge sum of money. I understand why there is a need for it. We brought in rent supplements 20 years ago as a short-term measure but now it has become the mainstay of providing housing for 100,000 households. It is dead money that is going down the drain every year. We get short-term housing for it but after paying out money for 50 years the State will not have any tangible asset at the end of it.

I also want to highlight to the Minister of State that out of the €9 billion plus for housing, less than one third is going to local authorities to either build or buy. That is according to the Minister's speech. That shows the shift. More than two thirds of the money we are putting into social and affordable housing is going somewhere else instead of it being the main focus of where it should go. I want to highlight that point. I say that because I am concerned about the cost, the speed of delivery and time wasted on jumping through hoops that do not need to be jumped.

The cost of RAS and HAP is €2 billion, which is a substantial amount. The Committee of Public Accounts did a report on it some years ago. An in-depth investigation found that it was bad value for money. We must change the dial and get the emphasis on getting houses in place. This year, for example, Laois County Council has a spend of €491,000 for HAP alone. If we take leasing and other measures, we are looking at €14 million out of a budget of around €30 million for housing. Half the budget is going on temporary payments to landlords and various other outfits for temporary rental and leasing. That is the effect that it is having. It is money spent whereby we do not finish up with a tangible asset. That is not a good way of doing business. We have become overly dependent on it. The grant schemes are excellent – housing adaptation, the mobility aid scheme, and the housing aid for older persons. There needs to be a little bit of flexibility with the housing aid for older persons and once a person reaches 60 years of age, in certain circumstances they should be able to reduce it downwards a bit, instead of it being 66. It is a very good grant and I hope there will be a second tranche of money for it next year.

I want to mention cost rental. There has only been a trickle of such units outside the Pale. They are needed every bit as badly there because many people in their fifties and sixties who are in private rented accommodation are facing rent increases. Some of them are facing homelessness now because of the changes in the rental accommodation rules. They are being served with notices for vacant possession. This is causing a real problem. The overall issue I am highlighting here is that there is a cohort of people who will not get a loan anywhere because of their age profile and limited income. We need cost-rental homes for those people. In some cases there are single people and in other cases there are families involved.

We need cost rental in towns like Rathdowney, Mountrath, Abbeyleix, Graiguecullen, Portarlington, Stradbally and Mountmellick, not just in Portlaoise. A small few cost-rental units are planned for Portlaoise. They are welcome, but we need more cost-rental units and more affordable-purchase units. We must get back to the idea of allowing people to buy their own home.

The costs can be brought down. One of the things that we can do straight away is shave off the 11% or 15% that is spent on the nonsense of having a new design for every new scheme. I say all this in a constructive way. They are suggestions.

On the issue of finance for building houses, there is a record amount of money on deposit in this country. While we have record debts, there is a record amount of money in savings. A State savings scheme was set up previously. Perhaps we should look at a citizens' bond for housing. It would be a great way of utilising some of that money if people were getting a couple of percent on their investment.

The backstop is the State. I am not talking about offering risky loans and firing money around like we did during the Celtic tiger, not that I did that. Some banks certainly fired money around. I am talking about sound investment of money in sustainable housing schemes and in cost rentals. Citizens' bonds are an untapped source of wealth. There is money there that could be used for that.

I will conclude by asking a question about the unencumbered AHBs. I am in favour of AHBs but there is a problem. Many of them have grown up and come of age. They are out of the encumbered period where they have a finance liability to the State. They have been in existence for 25 years. Some of them are now being managed by private companies. As I have highlighted to the Department previously, I do not know what is happening with the three issues that arise in this context. First, who will own them? Second, how will they be managed? Third, will they be available to the local authorities to rent? In other words, if No. 6 on a certain street becomes available out of the encumbered AHB period, what happens? Does the local authority nominate the tenant to the housing body? Is the housing body free to do what it likes and charge whatever rent it likes? That is happening. The phenomenon of "hello money" is also happening. Will some of the officials come back to me on that?

Ann Graves (Dublin Fingal East, Sinn Fein)
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This Government and consecutive governments have failed the people of Ireland abysmally when it comes to housing. Every report and statistic underlines the abject failure in tackling the housing emergency. The most damning indictment of failed housing policies is the homeless figures. The most recent figures published make very sad reading. In Dublin tonight, 11,782 people are homeless. That is an increase of 1,301 over the past 12 months. In Dublin tonight, 3,813 children have nowhere to call home. Every one of these people, every family and every child should have a home. People are languishing on housing lists for years. Families are living in overcrowded and cramped conditions. In some situations, three generations are living in the one home while thousands of others remain in emergency accommodation. A TD who is far more experienced than I am said:

Despite the fact that these record figures do not even account for the households who have transferred to the HAP scheme, they still expose Fine Gael's deep seated ideological opposition to the delivery of public housing.

These were the words of Deputy Darragh O'Brien of Fianna Fáil in 2018. He went on to be appointed as Minister for housing in 2020. We all know how that turned out. In January 2020, when the Minister took office, there were 7,278 people homeless in Dublin. When he left office in January of this year, that number had increased to 10,912. These are just the figures for Dublin. They are not just statistics; they are all real people. As a TD for Dublin Fingal East, I meet families every day who are deeply affected by this Government's housing policy. For example, a woman who fled domestic violence and is trying to heal and rebuild her life is currently living in a shed in her parents' back garden, which is cold and damp, and it leaks. She is condemned to live in appalling conditions because there is no housing available. Another example is Jack, who has a serious heart condition which requires machines to monitor his wellness. After Jack received a no-fault eviction notice, Fingal County Council did not engage with him until his last day in the house. When he had to leave the home, he was offered accommodation in a bed and breakfast by Fingal County Council but he could not take it because of his medical equipment. What is he supposed to do?

Meanwhile, we have the ongoing issue surrounding HAP. Up to August 2024, the State spent €2 billion on payments under the HAP scheme, whereby tenants continue to rent in the precarious private rental sector and the State foots the bill. Many tenants are living in unacceptable conditions. I met a HAP tenant yesterday who pays €2,700 a month. The house has a leaking roof and mould on the walls, and is unbearably cold. A report compiled by an inspector in 2024 outlined the repairs that are required, but none have been carried out. Many other tenants are simply too nervous to complain about poor and unacceptable housing conditions because they fear they will be evicted, with nowhere to go.

I could go on by mentioning a number of other cases but I am conscious of the time. The Government has no plan to end the housing crisis because it simply does not see it as an emergency. In last week's budget, it had an opportunity to provide enough funding to our local authorities to build social and affordable housing to meet the needs of the city. It could have reinvested in the tenant in situ scheme and other measures to deal with evictions. Instead, it chose to give tax breaks to private developers. It was a wasted opportunity that will only cause further misery for my constituents and families across Dublin.

Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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I welcome the opportunity to speak on this legislation. As others have said, it is a little bit of tweaking to keep us going until next year. As the Minister said, it will allow sufficient headroom to continue lending to mid-2026, after which there could be a new national housing plan and a new national development plan. We know that the €13.5 billion threshold is a holding position. Like the speakers from all the other groupings so far, I will support it - it is extra money - while emphasising that we still need to look at the fundamentals of the housing situation. As this is such a small Bill, this debate gives us a bit more scope to do that. I have six minutes, but if I confine my remarks to the small couple of lines that constitute this legislation I could be finished after one minute. We need to look at the bigger picture. Obviously, the lion's share of this money is going to the AHBs. It is like motherhood and apple pie; nobody can criticise money going to the AHBs because that widens out the funding channels, ostensibly to try to get housing built more quickly. However, I lament the money that used to go to local authorities. More and more, they seem to depend on getting their 10% through Part 8. They are not involved in many major housing projects. My own council, South Dublin County Council, owns a large tract of the Clonburris strategic development zone, SDZ, and is more proactively involved in that. As I said before, any kind of medium-scale housing in the country should be an SDZ because we need to tie in facilities and infrastructure alongside the housing. We cannot look at housing in isolation; we have to look at what sorts of communities we are building.

An issue I have with AHBs concerns the governance side and how they relate to tenants. As the number of AHBs spreads out, as an elected representative it becomes hard to deal with them on behalf of constituents who raise issues. I refer, for example to the stringent no-pets policy that many AHBs seem to have. When a house or an apartment is given as a forever home to someone who has a pet that is staying with a relative while they are in emergency accommodation, and that person is then told that the pet has to go, it is not conducive to family living.

Similarly, and this is not limited to AHBs but is relevant, Government policy in relation to car ownership is ludicrous. We have to get more people out of cars and onto public transport, but many people in SDZs with a lot of social housing, such as the Adamstown and Clonburris SDZs in my local area, have been told that no car parking is available in their apartment blocks. They are parking on footpaths because there is nowhere else to park. They cannot get a bus to where they work. Is it expected that everyone will depend on the State, live off social welfare and walk within a five-minute radius? People must be given the option to get from A to B efficiently. The public transport service is not there. That applies to the local authorities and the AHBs.

I spoke in January about allowing people to build homes in gardens either as starter homes or retirement homes. I am glad to see it was taken up to some degree, although I am still waiting for the finer details. I recall a young lady with a child who has severe autism whose family members are totally occupying the main house.

6 o’clock

The parents work from home. There is nowhere to build other than where they did in the back garden. The building was more than 40 sq. m, so the local authority sent a cease-and-desist letter and told them to tear it down. The situation is that the lady is on the medical priority housing list, which, as everyone knows, is time based. A parent with a severely autistic child who cannot be placed in a lot of emergency accommodation could end up being told to leave their home in the garden and live somewhere else. That does not make sense, so the sooner this legislation comes forward, the better. I am not talking about an opportunity for unscrupulous landlords to make a killing by building houses. There have to be proper rules, but it is one part of the solution, as is, as I mentioned in my budget contribution, the living cities legislation under which buildings can be refurbished. I mentioned the Croí Cónaithe rural towns and villages scheme as well, which does not really cover over-the-shop units but there is a lot of scope.

I reiterate that we should try to get software companies with software localisation jobs to move out of Dublin. Often they have hybrid working systems whereby people can work from home. Although we do not have enough public transport in general and the bus services in Dublin do not have enough drivers, it is good and reassuring to see that places like Thurles will be as close to Dublin city as Greystones if people need to commute to and from work. That will be the case in the next two years, as per recent news reports. There is scope for housing developments and for companies to be located in the countryside, in rural towns and villages, and if they need to access a city centre hub at some stage, it will be within commuting distance. We need to think outside the box and look around.

Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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Independent Ireland welcomes this Bill. It is a short and narrow Bill but it will be an important one if it keeps the wheel turning for social and affordable housing. Independent Ireland will always support a measure that lets councils and housing bodies keep building but, let us be honest, this is a technical fix, not a housing plan.

What is the Minister of State's plan? Today, I do not see anything different from what I have seen in the past nine years. Up to 5,000 children are now homeless and 16,000 people in total are without a home. Where is the long-proposed exemption for detached cabin homes annexed to existing dwellings? Is the proposal that is yet to come before us for approval to increase the floor area to 45 sq. m? I think that is adequate if properly designed. However, the worrying factor is that such a building will have to be at the rear of the existing building. In many cases, the site layout will not allow for this due to boundaries being too close to the rear of the house. Where this is the case, exemptions should extend to either side of the dwelling, provided the cabins are not higher than a single storey and are authorised locally and not by the planning authority. This is where things will get done. If this does not happen, the legislation will favour some but not all. That is the problem with a lot of legislation; it suits some people but it does not suit quite a lot of people.

The housing crisis is a national emergency. I am truly frustrated by the lack of sincere effort made by successive Governments on planning. Of the last two issues I dealt with, one was about planning permission in west Cork and the other was a housing issue in west Cork. Someone has been on a housing list for 18 or 19 years and cannot get a house. That shows the crisis that exists. Week in and week out, people come to my office pleading for planning permission and the reasons for refusal are simply shocking. The Government has to change the planning guidelines that are given to the planners because whatever way they are being read, they are saying, "No. No. No." to the applicants. The Minister of State comes from a rural area, so he must deal with the same problems as I do. Surely be to God it is no different. I expect him to feed into the idea that the planning guidelines need to be completely changed and looked at sincerely.

Genuine people who can build their own houses, pay for their own houses and get a mortgage and have everything going for them are being refused. I have seen situations where there are a load of houses and people are told theirs is too high. There are eight or ten houses behind them, most of which are holiday homes, and they were able to get planning permission. That gives the likes of me a kick in the backside, because people ask how the holiday homes got planning permission when they are living in the locality and are refused. There seems to be one law for one group and another law for another group. Will the Minister of State look at those reasons because people's whole lives are being destroyed by spending a year or two years trying to get planning permission and then being refused?

Am I right that my time is up?

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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Not yet.

Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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I have another minute. Good.

Men and women are trying to get a start in life but are being refused in their first steps. It is nothing short of scandalous and the reasons for the refusals leave me scratching the back of my head. To my sincere embarrassment, I can look at a site and see holiday homes at sky level behind the site where the house is proposed to be built and they are being refused because the new house is too high. They might have 20 acres and are being told to go to the neighbour's ground to get planning permission. They cannot do that. They only have so many acres. They can only do so much.

Couples who want a one-off house are refused by the same council and are looking for zoned land close enough to the same area. The council will refuse a one-off house but allow 100 to be built up or down the road. The whole thing has gone upside down and needs a little common-sense thinking. I would appreciate if the Minister of State showed that and talked to his colleagues.

Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)
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In response to my colleague's last comment about common-sense thinking on planning, I think he will find in Ireland that common sense does not apply to planning agencies and planning permission being granted at the moment. He is 100% correct. It needs an entire overhaul.

I will support this Bill on Second Stage to keep the Housing Finance Agency, HFA, operating without interruption. This is a matter of great importance to families who are waiting for a home. The lifting of statutory borrowing limits is a technical step, but it will avoid a hard stop, similar to the hard stop that happened not so long ago with the tenant in situ scheme, which was an absolute thundering disgrace. It was wrong. There are still people in Cork city and county and across the country who have suffered because of the tenant in situ scheme. They thought they had their forever homes, deals had been done, in some cases contracts had been signed and the people are still left in limbo six and seven months later. People are ringing my office to ask if I have heard anything from the local authority or if I know anything about what is happening in their cases and whether they will be able to stay in the houses. Not just those people, but the people who entered the negotiations for the deal and contract are also ringing. That has to be sorted out.

I have to agree with my colleague in Sinn Féin who mentioned the tenant in situ scheme earlier. We had an opportunity in the recent budget to increase it, fix it and right the wrongs this Government and the Department of housing created. It is the one project that I would have praised to high heaven, that was working well and was actually giving value for money. It might not have been the value for money the Department official looked at on the Excel sheet, but when we work it out, the bang for buck the State was getting, the square footage in the second-hand market and the ability to house people without upsetting them and leaving them in their communities was second-to-none value.

The HFA's clear mission under the 1981 Act lends itself the financial basis for raising funds, through the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, from international partners such as the European Investment Bank and the Council of Europe. I ask the Minister of State to consider adding some additional proposals to the Bill in advance of its passage. First, there should be the publication of a quarterly dashboard showing county level approvals and drawdowns with start and completion dates for the whole country, including my constituency of Cork North Central.

Second, I ask that tighter value for money tests be introduced on large borrowings, including approvals for housing bodies. Most of this is to facilitate the housing bodies. Having said that, and following on from Deputy Gogarty, while housing bodies play a huge role in housing our citizens now, we have to be cautious of them. We seem to be moving further and further, whether by design or lack of accountability, from the local authorities delivering. I see big offices being built all over the country and rents being paid by the approved housing bodies. I found it amazing that not so long ago Focus Ireland, which is, I believe, fully funded by the Government, took out campaigns against the Government. It not unusual for NGOs to do such things. Another group, an environmental body, is spending Government moneys it is drawing down to take out campaigns. Talk about the Government cutting a stick to beat itself with. The Government has no control over the NGOs because it is "splash the cash and throw it around the room, lads". The same is happening with a lot of these bodies.

I find it amazing we have to have a housing body in the centre of Dublin, or in the centre of Cork city, paying exorbitant rents when it could be in the commuter belt and smaller office units. The costs would be far lower. I find it bizarre we are putting it right in the city centre in very expensive office space but, you know, it is handy for people to be able to go for their lunches and swan around the city centre.

Working from home and the problems related to that were mentioned. I see it in my constituency in Cork where companies are telling people they might want to return to Spain, Portugal or Italy and work from home there because they cannot get accommodation. Many American and international companies are now saying they will close down the office and move to a different country.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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I welcome the Housing Finance Agency (Amendment) Bill. The increases it will provide to local authorities and approved housing bodies is very welcome and we will support the Bill. While the HFA funding is a powerful tool in the housing crisis, I want to be clear that it is only as important as the hand which wields it.

Unfortunately, I think this Government is a continuation of the previous one when it comes to housing. The budget was an indication of that. It has really done nothing in housing. It had an opportunity to reduce the cost of construction to address the viability gap which it fully acknowledges when it comes to apartment complexes but not for ordinary families. When I was canvassing over the weekend in Mayo, the people of Mayo who are seeking to build or buy, who are homeless or in rental accommodation, are furious that the Government sought to recognise the viability gap for investment funds, for pension funds and for international investors but not for ordinary families. Every week constituents who are facing eviction, cannot find a home and are terrified of entering homelessness attend my clinic. These are families with children, elderly people and students. Meanwhile, there are almost 9,000 vacant homes in Mayo. It is an absolute disgrace that so little has been done to address this issue. If we analyse those vacant properties, over 4,000 of them have been on the vacant property register since 2016. This long-term vacancy rate is one of the highest in the country. There are hundreds of properties listed on the register. While I acknowledge the work Mayo County Council is doing on this, when I speak to the local authority it tells me it does not have the resources. It is time in this housing crisis that we address the issue of dereliction, beef up the resources in the local authority and seek to work with local property owners up to and including compulsory purchase orders to try to get those properties back into use.

Many months ago, this Government talked about the housing crisis and the emergency. In the Dáil and in the media, it said it would allow for units at the rear of properties. People all across Mayo rang my office. They said this was wonderful and asked if I would support it. I said absolutely; I would 100% support it. I met the Minister in the corridor and told him it was great and let us move on it. What has happened in those six, seven or eight months since then, which was soon after the election? Nothing.

It is time the Government recognised that it is an emergency situation. We saw how the Government could kick into action when we had the Covid-19 situation. There are people who are facing the same level of emergency in housing. They ask me on a weekly basis about what is happening about the legislation. The truth is that it seems to be put on the long finger. It should be swiftly passed through these Houses and enacted because people are waiting and it would be a tangible measure for many families. Instead it will sit in layers of bureaucracy from Department to Department. It is really important this happens and I urge the Minister of State to move on that legislation, prioritise it and start treating the housing situation in this country as the emergency that it is.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State for facilitating this debate. Obviously, I roundly welcome the Housing Finance Agency (Amendment) Bill 2025. It sets out to do something very simple which is to increase the statutory borrowing limit for the Housing Finance Agency, which is critically important, from €12 billion to €13.5 billion. Last year, in 2024, that limit was increased from €10 billion to €12 billion. This reflects the scale of lending that is taking place by the Housing Finance Agency but also the various initiatives the Government is supporting to try to deliver additional housing across the sectors, through the local authorities and the approved housing bodies and under the remit of the Housing Finance Agency. Higher education institutions are also a very important element.

It must be noted that this increase is an interim measure. It is intended it will go further in the short term as the national development plan is fully teased out and we have the new housing plan with additional housing targets and so on. That is really positive. It shows real intent on the Government’s part in terms of its housing delivery. Of course the Housing Finance Agency is a plc under the aegis of the Minister for public expenditure but it does reflect the scale of activity the Government is undertaking and that is very positive.

The increase in the statutory borrowing limit will allow for an additional 5,650 homes, according to the Housing Finance Agency. That is very welcome. In the first six months of this year alone, it has issued loans to the value of €709 million which also shows the scale of activity. In 2024 €1.3 billion was issued by the Housing Finance Agency, which supported over 4,000 homes. This is critically important work. It is a critically important organisation in this State. What the Bill seeks to do is something that absolutely has to happen and I am glad there is support across the floor for it.

The new housing plan is coming. The budget set aside funding of €2.9 billion to help deliver over 10,200 social units, which is critically important. There is €1.2 billion for starter homes which, as we know, is a combination of affordable purchase, help-to-buy homes, first home schemes and the vacant homes too. There is a significant commitment there by the Government. Over €200 million has been provided for the housing activation office, which was set up to try to unblock some of the key barriers in developments and particularly large-scale developments, which I welcome. I very much welcome that over €300 million is for the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund which will have a focus on housing delivery.

I would like to see local authorities and approved housing bodies play an even greater role in delivering housing. We often hear from the Opposition that what is needed is public housing - social housing, affordable purchase housing, cost-rental housing – and I support that. Many of us would support that. They are working extremely hard. They are doing what they can and are working to capacity. It is our job in government to try to ensure we can increase that capacity and increase their output on State land, land they require to build and so on.

Funding is being made available for the acquisition of that land as well, which is critically important. I had a conversation recently with one of my own local authorities and a new initiative is being undertaken relating to stage payments being made available so that developments can get under way. This will be to a private developer, but ultimately, stage payments are being made available for public housing and that helps with the financial issues that many developers are facing.

We have to have a range of solutions. We all want to increase public housing. That is critically important but nobody can tell us that alone will solve the housing situation. We have to use all levers at our disposal and we have to try to increase housing supply across the board in every way.

I want to focus on affordable purchase housing because I have strongly tried to argue for it since I was elected. There is growing cohort of people who are falling between the stools in terms of the various supports offered from the State. If individuals or families who do not qualify for social housing, many of them are not also in a position to benefit from the affordable housing scheme. It is critically important that we bring as many of those into the net as possible. In some cases, it is because there simply is not enough affordable housing made available and that is an issue across the country. In other cases, however, it is because their borrowing capacity does not allow them to secure a mortgage that will allow them purchase a home under an affordable housing scheme. There is a growing gap and the cohort affected is increasing in number. As a Government, we have to try to address that because we cannot leave a large cohort of people behind us. That is something I will strongly urge Government to focus on increasingly over the coming months, particularly as part of the new housing plan.

This funding that we are approving here in terms of the statutory borrowing limit relates to new properties and new builds, and that is critically important. As Deputy Lawless mentioned earlier, however, the vacancy issue across this country is quite significant. There is still a lot more scope and a lot more work that can be done on vacant and derelict housing across the country. We have a carrot in place in the form of the vacant homes grant. That has been used significantly, with over 10,000 approvals since its inception. They are over 10,000 properties that have been previously vacant for more than two years and they are now being brought back into use. That is very welcome, but we need to do more on that because there is a significant number of vacant properties. Various figures are put out but we know it is a large number. We have to do everything within our power to bring as many of them back into use as possible. We need an all-out campaign on vacant and derelict properties in our towns and villages. Not only would this help with the housing crisis; it would also help in improving the public realm in our towns and villages by removing vacancy and dereliction. There are so many benefits to focus on. From an environmental point of view, restoring an older property where there are currently services and infrastructure in place makes eminent senses so we really have to try and focus on this in every way possible.

I welcome the derelict property tax that was introduced in the budget. I am disappointed that it seems to be taking a long time for it to get implemented. I hope there could be greater urgency on that and that is something that the Government can examine as it is progressing because we have to apply as much urgency as possible to the vacancy issue across the country.

Finally, I want to mention the national development plan. It is a very ambitious plan. It is focusing heavily on housing and that is right and proper. In terms of trying to stimulate housing activity, much of the capital investment will be in areas that are designed to help boost housing supply effectively such as investment in the energy grid, water, and wastewater services, which are critical, transportation linkages and connectivity, which is also vitally important, public transport, active travel links, etc. It is very much focused on delivering additional housing and that is how it should be. With over €275 billion to be allocated between now and 2035 under the revised national development plan, it is very much with a view to getting housing delivered much sooner. Of course, we have record investment in housing itself, which is also very significant. Between now and 2030, over €102 billion will be allocated on the infrastructural front. The budget is heavily focused on capital expenditure, trying to secure our future and trying to put our economy on a sustainable footing going forward so that we can address our most pressing issue, which, as we all agree in this House, is the housing shortage. It is something that we have to do, and use every lever within our power to try to ensure that we make progress on that on a daily basis.

I commend this important Bill. I welcome the fact that it is before us here this evening. I welcome the opportunity to say a few words in relation to it. As I said earlier, this is only an interim measure. The borrowing limit will need to increase in the near future which is a great reflection on the amount of activity that is taking place.

Carol Nolan (Offaly, Independent)
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Tá áthas orm deis a bheith agam labhairt ar an mBille seo anocht.

Housing and the cost-of-living challenges remain to the forefront of people's concerns. It is, unfortunately, gone beyond an emergency. It is a crisis on steroids and one that is locking thousands of children into near-permanent states of homelessness every day of the week as an indictment of ineffective Government policy that stands head and shoulders above all else.

I accept that the Bill seeks to increase the agency's funding to €13.5 billion from €12 billion and that is welcome. We need to throw everything we have at this crisis. We need to make sure that we have every solution possible to alleviate this crisis but I feel compelled to say yet again that no amount in additional funding will properly stem the flood of homelessness until we get to grips with the demand side that is being artificially driven by the arrival of tens of thousands of people into this country who have absolutely no legal right to be here and whom we have no obligation to keep here. We need to look at that side of things or no solution is going to work for us.

If we look at the money spent on modular developments in the likes of Clonmel, County Tipperary at a cost of hundreds of thousands of euro each, practically a new small village was created in jig time. People, be they the homeless in my constituency of Offaly or anywhere else around the country, look at that and quite rightly feel a burning sense of anger and frustration at the direction and inaction of Government to stem the flow of illegal migrants into our country.

Last week we heard yet again that Government is allocating several billion euro over the next few years to International Protection Accommodation Service, IPAS, accommodation. Where will this all end? That is even before we mention the fact that IPAS residents, who are working in this State and provided with accommodation, still do not have to pay a single cent in contributions. Despite my first exposing of this issue in May 2024, no action seems to have been taken on that. They are paying nothing. They are contributing nothing. Free accommodation and working does not seem right. It is discrimination against our own citizens.

The Government can clap itself on the back for allocating an additional €1.5 billion to the agency but until we finally get to grips with the demand issue, we are never going to solve the supply issue. In fact, it can only get worse. There needs to be a robust look at our measures and we need to see more deportations of illegal people who should not be in this country.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I join with other speakers in supporting this Bill mainly because it is further money being committed to providing for houses for the people that are on waiting lists for so long.

I draw the Minister's attention to the work of the local authorities or county councils because it was suggested by Deputy Gould that they should do more and I believe he is correct. They should be asked to do more. They were the housing authorities up to the time that the agencies came in, were able to apply for the money and took over their role. I want to see the councils do an awful lot more, and they can. They are in control of the housing lists, they should be able to access the funding at a lower rate and they should be encouraged to do more, provide more and account for themselves. That is what they are being paid for at that level.

I also want to see small businesses being supported to deliver housing projects. They cannot get money from the banks. They are trying desperately to play a positive role in the provision of various types of social and affordable housing and they are being excluded from the market.

Small builders who have access to a site and who have a track record of delivery should also be supported. We need to expand directly to the councils and directly to those small businesses.

A number of projects in Kilkenny are being held up by water infrastructure and Uisce Éireann. Uisce Éireann is almost reluctant to deal in a proactive way with those who are developing sites and are short of a response from it. We need to take out the red tape and bureaucracy. We need to insist the company also plays its role. I have a similar complaint about ESB Networks. It is simply behind the game in relation to the sites that are coming on. Regarding sites that are ready to be built, there are number of contractors in Kilkenny who are waiting for the plan on the provision of supply to the site from ESB Networks or, indeed, for the upgrade of the supply to the site. Unless somebody brings them in, explains this role to them and gets them working on it, we are going to be in a continued crisis in the provision of houses. It is being held up in these situations by red tape and bureaucracy.

I also want to raise the dezoned land issue. In Thomastown, County Kilkenny a site was zoned for, say, 80 houses. Of these, 40 were delivered. Delivery of these houses included the provision of all the infrastructure for the full 80 houses. The water, roads, sewerage connections and energy supply were all part of the first phase of the development. Then, lo and behold, the council came along and dezoned the land. Even though it was fully serviced and the developer built a road and handed it back to the council as part of the overall planning permission, it was dezoned. The 40 houses there are now beside a derelict site. The builder wants to go ahead and develop it. He should be able to do so. The only agency stopping him is the housing authority, which is Kilkenny County Council. It is absolutely farcical that this would be allowed to continue. Sites such as these should be identified by the Department and the local authorities should be told to deal with them, end of story.

I have also seen cases where older residents of local authority houses living in three-bedroom or, in one case in Kilkenny, a four-bedroom house, who want to downsize or right size for their own needs now, are not being given priority to do this. Among the houses coming on the market, it is difficult to get a one-bedroom or two-bedroom house. When someone who is providing back into the housing stock a three-bedroom or four-bedroom house asks for one, they should be accommodated.

The number of vacant houses in counties Kilkenny and Carlow is significant. I do not know why they are not being put back into use. When we ask the local authorities, they tend to rely on the lack of funding from the Department, and from the Minister as they would say, because they have to take the repair of these houses out of their own budget. We need to deal with this. We need to ensure that the repairs of a house, not in any extravagant way but the basic repairs, are billed back to the Department, to allow houses to go on and not affect the budget of the local authority. I cannot understand why this cannot be done pretty much immediately by way of a ministerial order or bringing the chief executives together and simply laying down rules for them.

The tenant in situ scheme was great. I cannot understand why it is not fully funded to the extent that it meets the needs of every local authority. I know of cases, again in Carlow and Kilkenny, where the tenant in situ scheme would work and would provide an ongoing tenancy in a house, yet the local authority does not engage. It just is not good enough. All of these may sound like small matters but if we begin to pull them out of the system, we will see that people will react more and deliver more and money will be spent in an efficient and safe way for the purpose of providing someone with a roof over their head.

At the end of the day the cost-rental scheme provides a house but it does so at the market value. I believed it was to be the market value less a certain percentage but, for example, a house in Kilkenny costs €1,200. The person going into a cost rental is not able to afford this kind of rent. We need to do more on this.

The case of women fleeing domestic violence is very serious. Local authorities dismiss it, to the extent that if the person fleeing domestic violence comes from a local authority house or a private house the they seem to stand back and expect the woman to live in this set of circumstances without the intervention of the local housing authority, which is the county council. I ask that the regulations on this be examined, along with the regulations on income limits, to ensure that people are given the opportunity to go on the housing list, be it for HAP or other supports, and eventually for their own house. The income limits have to be examined. There has to be flexibility allowed to the local authority to judge for itself. After all, it is a local authority. It is responsible for delivering the houses. Please let someone speak to the local authorities and unblock the various pieces of red tape I have spoken about.

I know for sure that Kilkenny County Council will have a huge number of approvals for the adaptation grant applied for between now and Christmas. However, it has run out of money. It does not have the money. It knows what it has allocated for and it does not have the money to fulfil the allocations. I ask that the Minister makes a special effort with all of the local authorities throughout the country which provide these housing adaptation grants, and which have at list of approvals with no money to match them. They should be given the money between now and Christmas. They should ensure that all of the approvals are dealt with between now and Christmas, and that the allocations for next year are based on the amount spent this year.

There is a lot of work that can be done without any legislation and without getting anyone into bother. I ask that this be considered. Deputy Gould made a great contribution, typical of someone who is on the ground working and who understands the experiences of the people he represents. Please take those views on board.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am glad to have a chance to mention a few issues this. Housing, as we all know, is so important. There is so much talk about it and so many people are not able to be housed. I understand the Bill is to borrow more money to build more houses and to provide more housing. If this is the case, I welcome it. I have stated here in recent weeks that many people are leaving our shores because when they are between the ages of 25 and 32, they realise they cannot buy or build a house for themselves. They are at a stage when they have to decide. When they were younger, they were happy and carefree but when they intend to settle down, what they need the most is a house. While the budget addressed many things, it did not help the working-class people who are trying to come up to the mark of buying or building a house.

There are many things preventing them from doing so. People who want to build a house for themselves should be applauded and helped in every way in the world but we are preventing them.

As I have highlighted before, there are two planning stipulations preventing a lot of people from building houses in Kerry. One is the urban-generated pressure clause. This is meant to stop people coming out of a town or other urban setting to build out in the country. However, that same clause is affecting people who never moved into a town, who live outside of one and who want to build a house near their father and mother. I am not talking about farmers’ sons and daughters. They are being catered for. By and large, they are being seen after. This category of people could be living next door to many of those, however. They might have a site or be able to buy one that is very local to them but they are prevented from building. I have asked the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and other Ministers to address that issue and to do something about it because it is very unfair. They are asking for nothing but planning permission. We should do our best to help them.

In Kerry, we have over 100 km of national primary and secondary roads. You cannot build a house where the exit leads out on to such a road. That stipulation has been in place since 2012, 13 years ago. Many people's plans have fallen by the wayside because they could not get permission even where there was an existing entrance. I ask the Government to deal with that.

Where people want to get on the housing list because they see they cannot build or buy a house, a couple's income must be below a cap of €37,000 or they cannot get on the housing list. I know of a man and a wife with ten children who are failing to rent a house and his income is over the threshold to get on the housing list. He cannot get any housing support at all. I have asked the Minister for housing to deal with that and whether he has any discretion to allow a man, his wife and their ten children on the list. It is not often we hear of that size of family now but they are to be applauded. They have reared the children so far. They have to hand over the house they are in because the man needs it back to put in his own son. It was to be vacated by the end of September but he got an extra couple of months. That is all he will get, however. That cap is totally wrong. A cap of €37,000 is not high enough. It should be something like €57,000 or €60,000 considering what it costs to build a house in today's world and what rent costs in Kerry. In the surrounds of Killarney, you are talking about €1,600 to €2,400 a month for a house. That is serious money. People need help to do the basic thing of keeping a roof over their heads. I ask the Government to look at that threshold.

There are a few other things we need. When the country was going good enough, 20 or 30 years ago, when the local authorities were building houses, they bought sites in different places like Gneeveguilla. I appeal for sites to be bought in the likes of Gneeveguilla, Currow and Brosna where the council could build four, five or ten houses every couple of years. That is not happening at all now. I have heard the Government say that it is has allocated money to the local authorities to buy or build houses but it is not happening. I ask the Minister of State to get after the local authority. At that time, people were getting rural cottages. Those rural cottages are not being built at all now.

People were so glad for the councils to build a house for them on their own site. When they got their legs under them, the first thing they wanted to do was to purchase that house so that they would own it. That is not allowed at all now. No house built by our local authority in Kerry since 2016, whether a rural cottage or a home in a housing estate, can be purchased. People need and want this. Owning your own house is something we have prided ourselves on for generations. I ask the Government to look at that. I cannot understand the logic behind it. The local authority got the money back for the house it built, which then went towards building more houses. For a long time in Kerry, it was used to deal with voids. There was no delay in voids being brought back into use. That has stopped and I ask the Minister of State to look at that because it is very important. We were going well when we were able to do things like that. That is not happening now. People have a need. In the intervening time, they were happy to live in the house they rented from the council but their ambition was to keep it well and to eventually own it when they could. That was always their ambition. I ask the Minister of State to please look at that because it is very important.

If there is extra money now, the Government should look at new ways. For the most part, it is a case of voluntary housing bodies buying up the estates being built or building estates. These homes can never be purchased. People understand that. That is not what everyone wants. Some people are happy to rent but most of the people I know want to eventually be able to buy out their house. However, that is not allowable with the rules we have now. I ask the Government to get the local authorities building because they did it very effectively in the past. They spread the people out around the different parishes.

In places like Scartaglin or Currow, we do not even have a treatment plant. No more housing estates can be built in Moyvane, which is very near Tralee, because the treatment system is not up to standard. I hear that the Department has got more money or is in the process of getting it. I ask the Government to do those things. There has been no private estate built in Kenmare for 20 years. Imagine that. They were held up because of the sewage treatment plant. Some €40 million has now been spent. There are two current planning permissions for housing developments comprising a total of 169 houses. Permission is being refused because there is not enough water in Kenmare. Even though we are surrounded by water, lakes and everything and it is raining most of the time down our way, we do not have adequate water for new estates. I ask the Government to address this. The Government has given more money and more ammunition to Irish Water in recent times. I ask the Government to deal with this urgently because people are leaving Kenmare, Kilgarvan and Sneem because they cannot buy a house anywhere. I ask the Government to deal with this urgently. Further information is being sought on these applications. I ask the Government, whether the Government as a unit, the Taoiseach, the Minister for housing or whoever it takes, to get down there and get it sorted out.

Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all the Deputies who have made contributions in the House over the last while. A lot of them summarised some of the challenges we face, including the need to urgently ramp up supply, quite well. There is clearly a common theme among Deputies' contributions, that is, a desire to make housing affordable, to increase supply and to reduce and eventually end homelessness. That has come through quite clearly. All of that will feed into the new housing plan, which is imminent. Many of those themes will certainly be covered. Obviously, a lot of those issues are not necessarily dealt with in this Bill. It is about enabling local authorities and approved housing bodies to access increased amounts of finance to deliver homes.

As mentioned at the outset, this Government is committed to ensuring that housing continues to be a priority. To truly meet the scale of housing demand, we must deliver more homes across all types of tenure.

To truly meet the scale of housing demand, we must deliver more homes across all tenures. The programme for Government commits to introducing a new national housing plan to follow Housing for All, and this will be published in the coming weeks. While that work is being undertaken, the measures detailed in the existing plan continue to be progressed.

Budget 2026 reinforces the Government’s commitment to boosting housing supply. The total Exchequer funding being made available in the budget for the delivery of housing programmes is €7.21 billion, comprising capital funding of €5.19 billion and current funding of €2.02 billion. An increased capital allocation of €2.9 billion has been provided to support local authorities and approved housing bodies in delivering 10,200 newly built social homes.

Additionally, €1.2 billion has been committed to the affordable-purchase and cost-rental schemes, which deliver long-term secure housing below market rates for thousands of individuals and families across the country. This will support the delivery of 7,500 affordable-purchase and cost-rental homes in 2026.

The capital provision of €5.19 billion will be complemented by investment through the LDA and lending from the HFA, bringing total capital funding for housing in 2026 to over €9 billion. Securing this increased level of capital investment will support the achievement of our programme for Government commitments and provide certainty and confidence to the public and to the wider housing market.

The targeted delivery for 2026 builds on the very significant progress already achieved in delivering social, affordable and cost-rental homes. This has made a huge difference in the lives of individuals and families, providing good-quality homes and contributing to sustainable communities across the country.

The HFA continues to be a vital funding provider for social and affordable housing in Ireland by providing loan funding at attractive rates to local authorities and AHBs. The agency has a recognised body of expertise and a 40-year track record in raising finance and providing long-term, competitive-rate loans for housing in a cost-effective manner. It has made a critical contribution to enabling the progress to date.

The Bill before the House is important. It will enable the HFA to continue to meet its increasing lending requirements for this transitionary period, supporting continued momentum in the delivery of more social and cost-rental homes at a time when they are required more than ever. The increase to €13.5 billion will provide sufficient headroom for the HFA to continue lending until mid-2026, by which time it will have funded more than 5,000 additional social and affordable homes. As the role of the HFA evolves in supporting the Government’s ambitious housing delivery plans to 2030, the agency will use the period to May 2026 to develop its new corporate plan, which will outline its future statutory borrowing limit requirements, factoring in delivery-partner and scheme-specific funding requirements. It will also set out how the organisation must evolve its own capacity and capabilities to meet this demand in a well-managed way.

This Bill is very much about increasing the statutory borrowing limit. As many have alluded to, local authorities right across Ireland need to do more. Some have been excellent in meeting their social and affordable housing targets and others less so, but this increase in access to finance will enable all local authorities to do that, in addition to the AHBs, which also play such an important role.

I have noted many of the positive comments from right across the floor. There is clearly a lot of support for this legislation and recognition that local authorities and AHBs and other agencies need increased access to finance. That is very much appreciated and noted. We look forward to the Committee Stage discussions.

I have noted many of the suggestions made by Deputies on how we can accelerate housing supply, provide more homes for people, ensure more people have security of tenure and make significant dents in homelessness figures. This is all very valid and will feed into the housing plan. We have heard about the need to address the number of vacant properties, the role of croí cónaithe in doing so and the need to reduce much of the red tape and bureaucracy associated with this type of measure. We have heard about the merits of modern methods of construction and the urgent need to accelerate the delivery of social and affordable housing and enable local authorities. We have also heard about the need not only for more investment in infrastructure but also for an acceleration of the rate at which we improve it.

We now have the main body of the NDP and the NPF. These will inform our targets. The new housing plan is imminent and many of the suggestions will fit into that. However, this legislation is very much about increasing the statutory borrowing limit and being a key enabler of local authorities, AHBs and agencies right across the board so they may deliver housing at scale. We look forward to the Committee Stage discussions tomorrow.