Dee Ryan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is welcome. I thank him for his time in the Chamber to discuss this critical issue. I also thank him for the time he gave last week in Limerick during his visit with the Taoiseach. The extensive, in-depth and candid interview he gave to our local radio station, Live 95 FM, was excellent and is available as a podcast. I also thank him for the time he spent with local councillors to discuss specific issues they raised and for the more than two hours he and the Taoiseach gave to focusing on all matters in Limerick with the new directly elected Mayor, John Moran, at the first Limerick mayoral and Government consultative forum.

During those engagements, the Mayor raised and outlined his innovative plans for meanwhile-use of State-owned lands that are due to be developed at Colbert Quarter in Limerick and highlighted the opportunity to bring forward modular homes for people in advance of the phased development of permanent homes on the same site. I thank him for his engagement on those innovative proposals. I know he is open to receiving all types of new ideas that may help in tackling our housing challenge. I look forward to the Mayor and his team following up with the Minister with more detail on how we may take that project forward.

I also acknowledge the €15 million the Minister announced this week for second-hand homes to be purchased in Limerick. The acquisition of those second-hand social homes, including under the tenant in situ scheme, is crucial. It has been very successful in Limerick and it has allowed us to stem the tide of families being made homeless through engagement with their landlords to purchase the homes, allowing them to continue their residency as council tenants. I thank the Minister for the €15 million of funding going into that in 2025 alone.

It is only a combination of these multiple different strategies to activate housing that will see us emerge from this crisis. I commend and acknowledge the significant efforts being made by the Minister's Department, our local authorities and private sector stakeholders to get homes delivered. I welcome the comments on driving and incentivising private investment he made at the beginning of this debate. It is crucial to raising the level of delivery and achieving the numbers we need that private investors come into the market across the country, not just in Dublin and parts of Cork as we have seen to date. The State alone will not be able to fund or build all the homes we need in Limerick. It is estimated we need more than 2,500 new homes to be built per annum in Limerick. While the numbers are going in the right direction - in 2022 circa 800 new homes were built in Limerick, circa 800 new homes were built in 2023 and in 2024 the number rose to 1,000 new homes being built - the numbers fall short of the 2,500 new homes we require. I thank the Minister for his focus on that with the different stakeholders in Limerick. We estimate that approximately 20,000 adults are living at home with their parents in Limerick city and county and there are approximately 500 individuals living in emergency accommodation in Limerick. This is a pressing issue for us. It is crucial, therefore, that where the State owns land and has responsibility for the delivery of those homes, those projects are fast-tracked and delivered as quickly as possible.

I ask the Minister to make inquiries, as I have done, on the status of a very important project for new home delivery in Limerick, that is, the partnership between the Land Development Agency and Limerick City and County Council to deliver 181 homes in Mungret for affordable purchase. This very welcome and much-needed project is particularly significant because planning has already been granted for the development. In fact, planning has been granted for a total of 253 homes on the site but we have yet to hear what progress has been made on the project since the tender documents were issued last June. A construction company has not been appointed. I ask the Minister to make inquiries and get an update on that crucial project in Raheen.