James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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107. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will provide an update on the owner occupier guarantee; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3710/23]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Under the “Supporting Homeownership and Increasing Affordability” pillar of “Housing for All”, the Government committed to introducing a form of ‘owner-occupier guarantee’, which would enable Local Authorities to specify the proportion of houses and duplexes in a development for owner-occupiers.

In support of this commitment the Government introduced a series of measures in May 2021 designed to prohibit the bulk buying of houses and duplexes. This included the Section 28 Guidelines for Planning Authorities “Regulation of Commercial Institutional Investment in Housing” which aimed to prevent multiple units being sold to a single buyer.

The Section 28 Guidelines provide an ‘owner-occupier’ guarantee by ensuring that new ‘own-door’ houses and duplex units in housing developments can no longer be bulk-purchased by institutional investors in a manner that causes the displacement of individual purchasers or social and affordable housing, including cost-rental. The Guidelines included requirements that a new form of condition be inserted in applicable new planning permissions, to the effect that:

(1) all houses would have to be made available for sale and for first occupation by separate, individual households for a period of years after completion of the home. (In the case of mixed developments, the provision only applies to the houses and duplex units and not apartments.);(2) exempts housing to be provided for social or affordable purposes from this requirement; and(3) if, after a period of two years, the local authority is satisfied that despite reasonable efforts, a market has not emerged, the condition will lapse.

On 9 June 2022, Minister O’Brien published a 12 month progress update on the Section 28 planning measures introduced in May 2021 to increase home ownership and restrict the practice of bulk purchasing by institutional investors. It demonstrated that almost 16,000 residential units had been ring-fenced for individual buyers and restricted from bulk buying or multiple sales to a single purchaser. As of December 2022, this estimate had increased further to over 23,000 residential units.