Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)
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647. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if his Department has updated its estimate of the annual number of new homes required to meet demographic demand and household formation, given CSO projections and the current shortfall in supply; and the measures being introduced to close this gap. [47950/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Programme for Government commits to a new national housing plan to underpin delivery of more than 300,000 houses, including delivery of an average of 12,000 and 15,000 social and starter homes per annum respectively over the period.

The revised National Planning Framework (NPF) sets out the need to plan for approximately 50,000 additional households per annum to 2040, and this reflects Government’s commitment to accelerated growth in new homes as our population changes and further grows.

Further to the approval of the Revised NPF, the NPF Implementation: Housing Growth Requirements Guidelines were issued by the Minister under section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 in July 2025. These guidelines set out the housing demand scenario to 2040 for each local authority by translating the NPF housing requirements into estimated average annual figures. This draws on the range of scenarios presented by the ESRI in 2024 updated research and modelling on population growth and structural housing demand, and assumptions relating to unmet demand.

The Guidelines provide the basis for a consistent approach to be taken by all 31 local authorities in incorporating national and regionally-based population and housing projections of the Revised NPF into their statutory plans and thereby ensure that the Revised NPF takes effect within the planning system in a plan-led manner.

These Section 28 Guidelines support this implementation by identifying the national housing growth requirements for each local authority based on the revised NPF and anticipated housing need.

Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)
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648. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the current percentage of Ireland’s total housing stock that is in public, affordable, or cooperative housing; how this compares with European peers such as Austria, Denmark, and the Netherlands; and whether he intends to adopt best practice models to expand non-market housing options. [47951/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Census 2022 indicated that the total stock of habitable permanent housing was 2,112,121, including 153,192 properties rented from a local authority and 29,880 properties rented from a voluntary housing body.

The National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC) publishes statistics in relation to local authority social housing stock as part of its annual Performance Indicator Report. The most recently published report for 2023 is available on the NOAC website www.noac.ie/noac_publications/report-71-noac-performance-indicator-report-2023/The report states that, at end December 2023, local authorities owned 150,224 social housing units. (NOAC will publish the 2024 Performance Indicator Report in the coming weeks).

The Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority’s Annual Sectoral Analysis for 2024 is available www.ahbregulator.ie/ahbra-publishes-annual-sectoral-analysis-insights-from-the-2024-annual-monitoring-programme/ The AHBRA analysis states that AHBs owned 52,554, leased 6,137 and managed 9,045 dwellings totalling 67,736 dwellings at the end of September 2024.

Regarding comparisons with European peers, it is important to note that there is no shared definition of social or affordable housing in the European Union, with different categorisations of social and affordable housing adopted in individual member states.

Notwithstanding the challenges with comparative analyses across jurisdictions, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published an analysis in 2024 of the relative size of social rental housing as a share of the total stock – available www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/data/datasets/affordable-housing-database/ph4-2-social-rental-housing-stock.pdfThe OECD analysis of the number of social rental dwellings as a share of the total number of dwellings found that Ireland is above the EU and OECD average. Ireland’s social rented stock is estimated at 12.7%, above the EU average of 8% but below some European countries with the highest relative stock, such as the Netherlands (34.1%).

With regard to best practice models, my Department, in conjunction with the Housing Agency, has commissioned various reports drawing on case studies of social, affordable and co-operative housing models in other jurisdictions to aid policy development here. These reports are published on the Housing Agency website www.housingagency.ie/publications

The Affordable Housing Act 2021 introduced a new form of cost rental tenure in Ireland targeted at middle-income households above the eligibility thresholds for social housing supports. The introduction of cost rental in Ireland was informed by consideration of the wider European context of cost-based housing, including the “Vienna Model” in Austria.

Since the launch of Housing for All, over 14,500 affordable housing supports and over 37,000 new social homes have been added to the social housing stock as of Q1 2025, delivered by Local Authorities, Approved Housing Bodies and the Land Development Agency. My Department will continue to liaise with all delivery partners to further the development of social and affordable housing delivery programmes and to ensure that each scheme responds effectively to social and affordable housing needs identified at a local level.