Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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1699. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he is aware of reports regarding the lack of transparency and culture of bidding wars that has emerged in the Irish housing market (details supplied), if he is concerned by these trends; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44272/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Matters in relation to the regulation and conduct of the property services sector in Ireland are the responsibility of the Property Services Regulatory Authority (PRSA). The PSRA was established on 3 April 2012 pursuant to the Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011. The PSRA, has a number of key functions including; the administration of a system of investigation and adjudication of complaints against Property Services Providers and promotion of increased consumer protection and public awareness in the provision of property services. At present, the Minister for Justice and his Department continue to have responsibility for property services and estate agents.

Under the Programme for Government my Department will take responsibility for the PSRA. The date for this transfer of functions from the Department of Justice has been agreed for 1 August 2025.

Continuing to increase the supply of new homes is key to meeting need and addressing many of the challenges currently facing the housing market. Supply has increased significantly in recent years. Some 148,500 new homes have been delivered since the beginning of 2020, with 92,400 of these delivered between 2022 and 2024 inclusive, exceeding the combined target for the period by 5,400 or so.

The focus is on ensuring everyone has a range of housing options, whether they want to buy a house, rent one, or need social housing. An adequate supply and mix of housing across housing types and tenures is critical to addressing the current imbalance between supply and demand in the housing market, including home ownership, social housing and private rental.

Increased supply will help moderate price increases, address affordability in the market, and help those aspiring to own their own home to realise this goal. The May CSO RPPI shows the increase in prices paid for homes has moderated from a recent high of 10.1% in August last year to 7.9% in May. At the same time, the rate of growth for new homes has fallen for seven consecutive quarters, down from 11% in Q2 2023 to 4.1% in Q1 2025.

In this context, household buyers and particularly first-time buyer activity remains robust, with recent data showing the number of new homes purchased by first-time buyers increased 22% year-on-year in the 12-months to end May 2025 alongside the highest levels of mortgage drawdowns by first-time buyers since 2008 in the first half of this year, up almost 6% year-on-year.

The Programme for Government commits to building on the successes of Housing for All and ramping up supply further to deliver 300,000 homes between 2025 and 2030. A roadmap for hitting this target will be set out in a new housing plan to be published in the coming months. In the meantime, Government is already bringing forward actions to boost delivery. The recently revised National Planning Framework is a major step forward in this regard, and will help increase capacity and accelerate home building across the country, while new Housing Activation Office will work to address barriers to the delivery of infrastructure projects needed to enable housing development.

Further measures to stimulate development activity will be considered in the context of the new national housing plan, which Government aims to publish in the coming months.