Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)

I thank Senator McCarthy for raising this Commencement matter on the plans of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to address the homelessness and housing crisis. The Minister and this Government are absolutely determined to meet the needs of people who need us to respond at pace to the housing challenges we face.The programme for Government commits to delivering 300,000 new homes by 2030. To drive this delivery, the Government has committed to a new national housing plan to follow Housing for All, which will be underpinned by the required funding in the national development plan. This new national housing plan will be published early next month. This plan will focus on building social and affordable housing, delivering infrastructure and activating land, securing finance and addressing viability challenges, boosting the capacity of the construction sector, promoting affordability, and continuing to reduce vacancy by bringing much-needed stock back into use as we seek to secure a long-term pipeline of delivery and funding to 2030 and beyond.

In July, the Government published the revised national development plan, the largest ever capital injection in our economy in the history of the State. Of the €102 billion to be invested over the next five years, over €40 billion will be provided for housing and related water services in the period to 2030. The Government is already investing record levels in the delivery of housing this year, with overall capital funding of almost €7.5 billion available.

Addressing homelessness, and in particular homeless families and children, is a key priority for the Minister and for this Government. Ireland signed the Lisbon Declaration in June 2021, which committed all signatories to work towards ending homelessness by 2030. The Minister will continue to work with the National Homeless Action Committee to ensure an all-of-government approach to drive the ambition of the Lisbon Declaration.

Critical to supporting households to exit homelessness is our continued investment in the social housing programme. Budget 2026 has continued the record level of investment in social housing, with €2.9 billion in capital funding allocated to support the delivery of social homes by local authorities. This continued investment in the social housing programme will increase the supply of stock available to allocate to households on the social housing waiting list, including households in emergency accommodation.

A key focus for the Minister is to reduce the time that families are spending in emergency accommodation. In September, the Minister wrote to 21 local authorities that have families in emergency accommodation for more than 12 months and asked them to use all available housing schemes to exit these families from emergency accommodation. He has ring-fenced an additional €50 million, under the national development plan process, to exit the households longest in homeless accommodation with a focus in the first instance on larger families with children and housing first clients. Ensuring that families and children experiencing homelessness are provided with accommodation and supports is critical.

Budget 2026 provides an allocation of €513.5 million to provide homeless emergency accommodation and supports. Capital funding of €50 million has been allocated to support the provision and maintenance of quality emergency and transitional accommodation. The new housing plan will ensure all possible measures are being taken across government to prevent homelessness.