Martin Daly (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)
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618. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the steps being taken to increase commencement and completion rates of housing developments specifically in Roscommon-Galway; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [61481/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Government is focused on increasing the national housing stock and ensuring a suitable range of housing, across tenure types, is available to all. The Programme for Government commits to building on the successes of Housing for All and ramping up supply to deliver over 300,000 homes between 2025 and 2030.

Supply has increased significantly in recent years. Almost 150,000 new homes have been delivered since July 2020, with 92,300 of these delivered between 2022 and 2024 inclusive, exceeding the combined target for the period by 5,300 or so. This is mirrored at the local level with a 63% increase in new home completions in Roscommon in the five years to end Q3 2025, compared with the previous five year period. Similarly, delivery in Galway City and County is up 115% and 64% respectively for the same periods.

I am focused on continuing to bring forward measures that will continue to increase the supply of new homes across all tenures to make sure that everyone has a range of housing options available to them, whether they want to buy a house, rent one, or are in need social housing.

The recently revised National Planning Framework is a major step forward, and will help increase capacity and accelerate home building across the country, while the new Housing Activation Office will work to address barriers to the delivery of infrastructure projects needed to enable housing development.

The new Planning Design Standards for Apartments will allow greater flexibility vis-à-vis the size and mix of apartment types to help increase apartment viability, facilitate increased supply, and address affordability challenges.

The Croí Cónaithe Cities scheme, launched in 2022, supports the building of apartments for owner-occupiers in our cities by providing funding to bridge the gap between the delivery cost and the market price. A fourth call for expressions of interest under the Croí Cónaithe Cities scheme was issued over the summer with submitted schemes now currently being assessed– the scheme will help activate the thousands of planning permissions for apartments in our cities.

Government also agreed to amend the rent pressure zone framework, which among other things will help stimulate increased development of apartments over the longer-term.

The Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2025 was approved, published and enacted before the summer recess to deal with expiring planning permissions and to encourage activation of housing.

Budget 2026 included a suite of taxation measures aimed at stimulating the supply of new apartments including a reduced VAT rate on the sale of new apartments and an enhanced Corporation Tax deduction for apartment construction costs.

An enhanced LDA is working to deliver more private housing as well as social, affordable and cost rental.

Further measures to stimulate development activity will be considered in the forthcoming new national housing plan.