Seanad debates
Tuesday, 21 October 2025
Housing Finance Agency (Amendment) Bill 2025: Second Stage
2:00 am
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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The debate will proceed in the normal manner. The Minister of State will have ten minutes, group spokespeople will have ten minutes and all other Senators will have five minutes.
Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Chair. It is an absolute pleasure to be here to introduce this legislation, the Housing Finance Agency (Amendment) Bill 2025. All Stages of this Bill were passed last week in the Dáil. Its purpose is to amend section 10 of the Housing Finance Agency Acts 1981 to 2024. The amendment, through section 1, will increase the statutory borrowing limit, SBL, of the Housing Finance Agency, HFA, from €12 billion to €13.5 billion. Section 2 sets out the Short Title, collective citation and construction.
The mission of the HFA is to facilitate the delivery of social and affordable housing in Ireland and to advance funds to local authorities, approved housing bodies, AHBs, and higher education institutes, HEIs, for this purpose. Since its establishment in 1981 with a borrowing limit of €200 million, the HFA's statutory borrowing limit has increased six times, reflecting the ever-increasing demand on funding for social and affordable housing and highlighting the Government’s support and commitment in its pursuit of meeting the country's housing demands.
The HFA is the main lender to the AHB sector, a sector that provides almost half of all new social and cost-rental homes. The agency continues to interact with local authorities on their financing needs and also has regular engagement with the HEIs and technological universities to support initiatives and funding requirements that aim to increase the supply of student housing. This diligent work by the HFA team clearly shows tangible results and creates a hugely positive impact on the lives of thousands of people across the country.
The Government can also point to strong actions and results, with budget 2026 clearly reinforcing its 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 €5.19 billion in capital funding and €2.02 billion in current funding. An increased capital allocation, of €2.9 billion, has been provided to support local authorities and AHBs in the delivery of 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. This will support the delivery of 7,500 affordable-purchase and cost-rental homes in 2026.
Looking to 2030 and beyond, this Government will set out a clear pathway for housing supports and delivery. We now have the main body of the national development plan and the national planning framework in place. The publication of the new housing plan is imminent, and this will underpin the role that will be required on the part of the HFA to support the delivery of housing targets. The Bill before the House today is important and its progress will enable the HFA to continue to meet its increasing lending requirements during this transitionary period, which will result in the delivery of more social and cost-rental homes over the coming months. The HFA has advised that, based on its recent projections, the current €12 billion statutory borrowing limit will be reached at its 6 November credit committee, at which point no additional lending can be approved. This is as a consequence of the Government's approval of additional funding for social and cost-rental housing in July this year, following which the HFA's flow of borrowing applications increased. It is imperative that the current borrowing limit is increased without delay.
On 17 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 and seeking a waiver of pre-legislative scrutiny of the proposed Bill given the urgency associated with the proposal. On 23 September the Government subsequently approved the publication of the Housing Finance Agency (Amendment) Bill 2025 and authorised the Minister, Deputy Browne, to arrange for the presentation of the Bill to Dáil Éireann and to have it circulated to Deputies at the earliest opportunity. Officials in the Department met with the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage on Monday, 6 October and following this engagement a pre-legislative scrutiny waiver was granted.
As the role of the HFA continues to be vital in supporting the Government's ambitious housing delivery plans to 2030 and beyond, it should be noted that the proposed statutory borrowing limit increase from €12 billion to €13.5 billion should be seen as an interim measure. The increase to €13.5 billion at this time will provide sufficient headroom for the HFA to continue lending until mid-2026 and will enable the delivery of over 5,000 new social and cost-rental homes in the coming years. By mid-2026, the HFA will have had the time to consider the relevant aspects of the national development plan and the new national housing plan, enabling it to develop its new corporate plan. The new corporate plan will include informed forecasts for its future borrowing requirements, factoring in delivery partner and scheme-specific funding requirements over the period of the national housing plan.
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 supportive mixed tenure communities or modern student accommodation. By increasing the statutory borrowing limit at this time, the HFA can continue to lend to support the delivery of more social and cost-rental homes throughout the country without interruption. Should the 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 HFA's 6 November credit committee, thereby ensuring the continued smooth lending capacity of the Housing Finance Agency. I look forward to the contributions from Senators in discussing and debating this Bill today and I commend the Bill to the House.
Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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I commend the Minister of State on a very detailed overview of what we have this evening. The significance of the Bill speaks to the enormity of the challenge we have in housing at present. It remains the foremost challenge for us as a country and as a society. It also speaks volumes in terms of the Government's commitment to addressing the issue. I commend the Minister, Ministers of State, staff and officials in the Department on the efficiency and speed at which they have moved on this critical legislation.
The HFA is still very much in its infancy but it is already proving itself to be a very important arm in the delivery of housing throughout the country. While its full advantages and impact are only being felt in large cities and large urban areas, we cannot underestimate the huge role it has played in the delivery of social and cost-rental houses and student accommodation throughout the country. The latest reports show just over 25,000 social homes are at various stages of design and construction. This includes 11,500 social homes on site at the end of March 2025, with an additional 13,953 homes at design and tender stages. In quarter 1 of this year alone, 50 new construction schemes, or 875 houses, were added to the pipeline.
The quarter 2 report on social housing activity was published yesterday. The scale and extent of development across the country were very impressive. We have to pay tribute also to the people working in local authorities who are driving many of these projects and are the catalysts for the momentum and growth we need to see in the housing market. I also commend the many small developers in particular who have reached out to the agency, have been able to secure funding where this had been difficult, and have been able to get their projects up and running.
The Bill is very important and timely and it is critical we get it through the House. The numbers involved are surely eye-watering. We are increasing the HFA's statutory borrowing limit from €12 billion to €13.5 billion. The upshot is that if we did not take this initiative, it would simply run out of the opportunity to give any more funding after 6 November. As the Minister of State rightly said, this safeguards funding for the agency right through until the middle of next year. It is very important.
As eye-watering as the figures are, I will use the rest of my time to bug the ear of the Minister of State on an issue that arose today at the meeting of the housing committee where we were dealing with vacancy. The figures involved are not quite as significant as what we are looking at here but it was disappointing that while officials from the Department came to discuss vacancy, none of them were working in the area of vacancy. This is no disrespect to the officials who did come to the meeting. I wanted to highlight in particular the case of Longford County Council which, a number of years ago, was a laggard on vacancy. It was the worst performing local authority in terms of its vacancy rate, which was at 7%, primarily caused by a lot of socioeconomic issues in the county and there were a lot of cultural aspects. There were many estates that basically had been let go derelict in large parts, with five or six houses together.
The local authority got its act together and, between 2020 and 2024, it brought 250 houses back into stock. As Members of the House know, the going rate for a local authority bringing a house back into stock is €11,000, even though the Croí Cónaithe grant is €50,000 or up to €70,000 if the property is derelict. To make a long story short, Longford County Council has spent in the order of €11 million to bring 250 houses back into stock. This is an average of approximately €40,000 per house. Anybody who can deliver 250 B2 standard houses at €40,000 a pop is giving pretty good value in my book. Unfortunately, the upshot is the local authority is out of pocket to the tune of €8 million. It is a huge encumbrance on its balance sheet and is restricting further growth and development throughout the community and enterprise in Longford.
I was hopeful and enthused that somebody from the Department might have been at the committee meeting to address this particular issue. I hope the Minister of State can take my concerns and disappointment that the issue has not been addressed over the past four years. It is a critical issue for Longford. Everybody in the local authority and the Department of housing realises the single biggest challenge we face in this country is housing and the delivery of housing. It is on everybody's mind, whether you are a grandparent, a parent or someone finishing college. The first and immediate thought and concern for most people is housing. This is a big issue for us in Longford and I hope the Minister of State can take it up with the Minister, Deputy Browne, as I will do. I ask the Minister of State to relay my disappointment about the committee meeting today and my disappointment that this issue has been allowed to fester for so long. We need to get it addressed.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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Senator Murphy is sharing time with Senator Kelleher. Is that agreed? Agreed.
PJ Murphy (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for the detailed and concise way he has laid out the Bill to us. As Fine Gael spokesperson on housing in the Seanad, I must say I am fully supportive of the Bill. Currently, a cap of €12 billion on borrowing is applicable to the Housing Finance Agency. What we have here is a proposal to increase this by €1.5 billion to €13.5 billion. If we do not make this increase imminently, it is envisaged that the agency's statutory borrowing limit will be reached by the first week of November. This funding source provides advance funds to local authorities and approved housing bodies for the delivery of housing for the people in our society who are most in need of housing. Critically, this funding source also provides essential funding to the higher education sector for the development of student accommodation. Higher education institutions currently require 50% in grant funding in order to make the development of student accommodation viable.We all know that the provision of student accommodation is the quickest, most effective and efficient way to take pressure off the private home rental market in our university cities. However, technological universities cannot currently borrow from this source for student accommodation due to their specific borrowing frameworks. I urge the Minister of State to ensure that this anomaly is rectified as a matter of urgency.
It is important to note that the HFA is a self-financing body and the cost of this increase is not being met by the Exchequer. On behalf of the Fine Gael group, I express my support for this Bill.
Garret Kelleher (Fine Gael)
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Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit, an Teachta O'Sullivan, agus gabhaim buíochas leis as teacht isteach inniu. Tugaim mo tacaíocht don leasú tábhachtach atá os ár gcomhair anocht. As the Minister of State outlined in his opening remarks, what we are doing here is legislating for an increase in the statutory borrowing limit. If we do so, it will be the seventh occasion on which this has been done since 1981. My colleague, Senator Murphy, has already outlined the urgency behind this, given the potential shortfall that could arise in early November. In that context, it is the right and prudent thing to do to ensure the increased provision of social, affordable and cost-rental housing across the country. I agree with Senator Murphy on the importance of addressing the anomaly of the non-inclusion of the technological universities in the provision to ensure the viability of the development of student accommodation. On the whole, I am very supportive of this and thank the Minister of State for his time and for clearly outlining what is being put before us today. I am very happy to support the Bill.
Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the Minister of State to the House. The Bill is fairly straightforward and I thank the Department for the helpful briefing note that was provided to everybody. The financing of houses, social housing in particular, via the local authorities and the funding of approved housing bodies, AHBs, is most definitely of huge importance. There is a dire need for people on housing lists to be homed more quickly, for people who are working to be able to get a mortgage before they are too old to qualify for one and for more affordable rental units to be available for younger workers and families before we end up losing thousands more to emigration. As of June 2024, 103,080 people who were born in Ireland were living in Australia. For the first time since the 19th century that figure has exceeded 100,000. Emigrants are telling us before they go that they are leaving because of the housing crisis. They just cannot afford to live here.
The biggest problem for many young workers is that the Government's vision for affordable housing is not actually affordable. Rents in many cost-rental developments still exclude those who earn too much to qualify for social housing but not enough to afford to rent in the private sector. They are excluded from the cost-rental market because rents are too high and they fail the affordability test. A sense of urgency on the part of the Government to tackle the housing crisis just seems to be missing. While we have seen more housing delivered in recent years, the housing disaster still continues because the Government is lacking in ambition. The problem lies with the targets, which are too low. The Government can keep throwing money at the problem - and Sinn Féin completely agrees with increasing the borrowing limit, as set out in the Bill - but unless the Government increases its targets, it is going to keep failing. Of the 10,000 new-build social homes that were promised for this year, just 1,804 were completed in the first six months. Of the 2,350 cost-rental homes to be delivered this year by the local authorities, approved housing bodies and the Land Development Agency, only 640 were built in the first six months, and of the 2,100 affordable purchase homes that are targeted for delivery this year, only 358 were completed by June 2025. I know June is only halfway through the year and while those numbers do tend to increase in the second half of the year, it does seem like we are going to miss the targets again this year. People have been screaming for years that there is too much red tape, duplication and delay in the process of delivering social and affordable homes through the local authorities and approved housing bodies.
The Government can keep throwing money at the problem but it must also look at the infrastructure underpinning housing. I am blue in the face talking about County Limerick and Newcastle West, where we have a water treatment plant that cannot take any more houses on board until 2031. That is six more years of no housing in the only tier 2 county town in County Limerick. We must look at this in the round but, as it stands, Sinn Féin agrees with increasing the budget on this. That said, the Government will have to look at all sides of this problem. Affordable houses are not currently affordable, the infrastructure needed to build more houses is not in place and the targets need to be increased.
Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State for bringing this legislation to the House. I also thank the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage for taking the sensible approach of waiving pre-legislative scrutiny to allow this Bill to progress quickly so that funding for housing can be increased to over €13 billion, which is critically important. This Government has made housing a top priority, as did the previous Government. While we can all quote statistics, one statistic that is really important is that, since Fianna Fáil took over in 2020, in partnership and coalition with Fine Gael, more than 140,000 new homes have been built and tens of thousands of vacant and derelict properties have been brought back into use. There might be 120,000 people in Australia claiming Irish heritage but there are more than 30 million in the US making the same claim. I am someone who had to leave this country when we were economically depressed and on our knees, but our country has come a long way since then.
I commend everybody who is working in the construction sector, doing all they can to renovate, regenerate and build new homes for all of our citizens. It is critically important, and for my party it is a top priority. This funding will enable local authorities and AHBs to directly deliver critically needed social and affordable homes to ensure that people can have access to a home. I also commend Dublin City Council for passing three new policy initiatives this week, and it will, in turn, avail of this funding. One such initiative involves the development in Glasnevin, in my own constituency, of over 8,000 new homes at Ballyboggin. The council also has plans to turn vacant, city-centre properties on North Frederick Street and Abbey Street into affordable cost-rental homes for key workers. I commend the Minister of State and departmental officials on bringing forward this legislation and I hope we can pass it swiftly this evening.
Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all of the Senators who contributed to the debate this evening. It is great to see that there is widespread support for the legislation here, as there was in the Dáil, and for good reason. There is a general acknowledgement of the need for local authorities and approved housing bodies to get access to this extra finance in order to ramp up supply and deliver much-needed homes.
Some very valid points were made during the course of the debate. Senator Flaherty referred to vacancy, an issue that is very close to his heart. Longford County Council has certainly shown that it can get bang for its buck and that is something I will bring back to the Minister, Deputy Browne, in the context of making extra funding available. I thank Senators Murphy and Kelleher for highlighting what appears to be an anomaly with regard to the exclusion of the technological universities. However, I am assured that this issue is being looked at and a feasibility study will be carried out to determine whether the technological universities can be brought into the fold. If they were so allowed, I can imagine the great work they would do in terms of delivering student accommodation on the ground.
I appreciate the support expressed by Senator Collins from her side of the House for this legislation. In terms of housing solutions, as I have always said and as I repeated in the Dáil recently, we will take on board any ideas in the context of formulating the new housing plan, which is imminent. We know that people are leaving our shores. The Senator alluded to the numbers in Australia and I am sure that housing affordability is contributing to that.However, it should be acknowledged that people are returning in quite significant numbers, certainly those of my generation and those who are a little younger. I cannot speak of being younger anymore but I do see younger people coming back. That has to be acknowledged because it implies Ireland is seen as an exciting and really good place to live and, in particular, raise a family.
In fairness to Senator Fitzpatrick, her contribution to housing policy has been immense over recent years. She knows it back to front and inside out. It is worth reminding people about the number of houses that have been delivered and the acceleration of housing delivery in recent times. This legislation will help in that regard.
As outlined in my opening remarks, the singular purpose of the Bill is to increase the HFA statutory borrowing limit from €12 billion to €13.5 billion. By doing so, AHBs, local authorities and higher education institutions will continue to be supported by the HFA in its work to deliver more housing. The HFA has a proven body of expertise and an established record of accomplishment in raising and providing long-term competitive rate finance for housing purposes in a cost-effective manner, built up over 20 years. This Bill will enable the agency to continue to meet its increasing lending requirements.
The Government remains fully committed to delivering more homes across the various tenures to truly meet the scale of housing demand. Since I came into office, I have noted many of the suggestions made by Senators on how we can accelerate housing supply, provide more homes for people, ensure people have security of tenure and make significant dents in homelessness figures. While work on the new national housing plan nears completion, we will continue to progress critical reforms that will make a difference. Following the publication of the new national housing plan, the HFA will assess its long-term strategy and statutory borrowing limit requirements while at the same time evolving its own capacity and ability to meet the growing demand for its services in a well-managed way.
As mentioned in my opening statement, budget 2026 reinforces the Government's commitment to boosting housing supply, with total Exchequer funding of over €7.21 billion being made available for the delivery of housing programmes. The targeted delivery in 2026 builds on the very significant progress already achieved in the delivery of social, affordable and cost-rental homes, and this has made a huge difference to the lives of individuals and families through providing good-quality homes and contributing to sustainable communities across the country. Having secured the increased level of investment will support the achievement of our programme for Government commitments and offer confidence in meeting our ambitious targets.
The Bill before the House is important. It will enable the HFA to continue to meet its increasing lending requirements in this transitional period, thereby supporting continued momentum in the delivery of more social and cost-rental homes at a time when they are required more than ever. As the role of the HFA evolves in supporting the Government's ambitious housing delivery plans for the period to 2030, its new corporate plan will outline its future statutory borrowing limit requirements and set out how the organisation must evolve its capacity and ability to meet this demand in a well-managed way. The Bill ensures the continued operation of the HFA, a body that will continue to make a tangible difference to the lives of tens of thousands of people by providing good-quality homes and sustainable communities across the country.
I have listened carefully and with genuine interest to the contributions made by Senators during this Second Stage discussion. I thank them for those contributions and their support in general for the Bill. I commend the Bill to the House.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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When is it proposed to take Committee Stage?