Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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174. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the discussions he has had, or is planning, with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage in light of the Government acknowledgement, and the recent ESRI report, on the need to significantly increase housing delivery targets over the coming years, and the public expenditure implications of such a revision; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29520/24]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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My Department is currently developing revised housing targets for the period 2025 onwards. This work is being undertaken with regard to, among other things, recently published research by the ESRI on population projections and structural housing demand. I expect it to be completed and revised targets to published later in the Autumn.

The ESRI research presents 12 scenarios of housing demand. Each allows for alternative rates of increase in population growth, household size and stock obsolescence, key determinants of the quantum of housing required. Taking the average of the 12 ESRI scenarios, the research suggests some 42,000 new homes would be required over the next decade to meet new household formation alone. This means, having regard also to pent-up demand, an average of at least 50,000 to 60,000 new homes would be needed per annum over the period.

I believe such an increase, a further step-change in the significant uplift in delivery in recent years, would go a long way to meeting existing and future demand. To this end, discussions are ongoing with the Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform as part of the Budget 2025 process, and I am confident the Exchequer allocation for my Department will reflect the step-change in social, affordable and overall housing delivery anticipated next year.

Public expenditure commitments to support delivery in subsequent years, while having regard to the Government's revised delivery targets, will be decided as part of the Budget process agreed with the Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform in the respective years.

Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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175. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the plans in place to ensure a proportionate number of houses are built in the regions in order to achieve the Government's National Planning Framework numbers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37086/24]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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A cornerstone policy of both the existing and the proposed revised National Planning Framework (NPF) is the achievement of a greater regional balance in population and employment growth. The goal is to see a roughly 50:50 distribution of growth between the Eastern and Midland region, and the respective Southern, and Northern and Western Regions, with 75% of the growth to take place outside of Dublin and its suburbs.

Ministerial Guidelines published under Section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 on ‘Housing Supply Target Methodology for Development Planning’ complement the objectives of the NPF and have introduced a standardised national approach, to be applied by each planning authority in projecting Housing Supply Targets in their Development Plan over the six-year period of each plan.

Specific housing targets for both urban and rural areas in each local authority functional area are currently set out in the respective Core Strategies of the 31 City and County Development Plans (as may be applicable) having regard to the hierarchy of settlements of different scales in each local authority area and informed by the targets contained in the 2018 NPF and reflected in the Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies.

The recent results from Census 2022 shows a national population increase of c.390,000, and c.175,000 of this growth occurred in the two regional areas outside of the EMRA region, a proportional split of 55%/45%.

City-based population and employment growth is an important target for the NPF. NPO2(a) of the strategy sets “A target of half (50%) of future population and employment growth will be focused in the existing five cities and their suburbs” as a means of ensuring cities deliver as ‘accessible centres of scale’. The proportion of national population growth achieved in the period to 2022 in the five cities was 124,543 persons or 32% of overall growth.

In order to achieve the overall increase in city-based population growth, the NPF sets ambitious growth targets to enable the four cities of Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford to each grow by at least 50% to 2040. The draft revised NPF published on July 10^th has undergone a 9-week public consultation process and it is envisaged that the final revised NPF will be published in October 2024, once it has been approved by the Oireachtas. As such, it should be noted that the National Planning Framework, as published in 2018, currently remains in effect.

As part of the broader body of work undertaken to inform the draft First Revision to the NPF, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) was engaged to provide updated population projections to 2040, based on demographic and econometric modelling and having regard to the results of Census 2022 and other factors with potential to influence fertility, mortality and migration trends. Under the baseline scenario, the research projects that the population of the State will increase to approximately 5.7 million people by 2030 and 6.1 million by 2040. This projection forms the central core trajectory of projected population growth and underpins the strategy set out in the draft First Revision to the NPF.

The current incremental, and ongoing, shift to more regionally-balanced growth supported by urban centres of scale will be important in ensuring effective regional development and in supporting competitiveness, economic prosperity and environmental sustainability.