Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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311. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the social housing allocation for County Wicklow and County Wexford for 2026, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62448/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Government is committed to delivering housing at scale across all tenures to meet the needs in Wicklow and Wexford. To help achieve this, last year, Government approved new national housing targets up to the year 2030. 303,000 homes will aim to be delivered in the period from 2025 to 2030, equating to an annual average of 50,500 homes, building up to 60,000 in 2030.

The revised targets were informed by research and modelling by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) on population projections and long-run housing demand. The revised national housing targets will inform the revision to existing social and affordable housing targets at a local authority level, ensuring that allocations reflect both housing need and population growth.

Work is ongoing in this regard and updated targets for each local authority, including Wicklow and Wexford for 2026-2028, will be set out as part of the next phase of planning for social and affordable housing delivery. These revised targets will align with the updated National Planning Framework and with the results of the Housing need and Demand Assessment (HNDA) process. The HNDA provides evidence based insights into the local housing requirements for both Wicklow and Wexford.

To ensure that local authority development plans reflect the requirements of the National Planning Framework in respect of housing as soon as possible, I issued the NPF Implementation: Housing Growth Requirements Guidelines 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 average annual figures and set out the requirement for planning authorities to commence the process of varying their development plan to meet the new housing growth requirements.

The Government remains fully committed to working with all stakeholders to deliver social homes at scale and to continue accelerating housing supply across all tenures. This is demonstrated by the record level of investment which is being provided for the delivery of housing in 2025, with overall capital funding now allocated by Government of almost €7.5 billion. The capital provision for 2025 is supplemented by a further €1.65 billion in current funding.

In general, my Department does not provide specific funding allocations to local authorities, rather funding for housing programmes is made to the local authorities as programmes and projects advance and relevant claims fall due for payment.

A funding allocation is provided to local authorities for the second hand social housing acquisitions programme. Funding for the 2026 second-hand acquisitions programme will be agreed shortly following completion of 2026 Estimates process.

Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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312. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the reason Wexford County Council is not providing ready to build scheme serviced sites; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62449/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Ready to Build Scheme, funded by the Croí Cónaithe Towns Fund, to support addressing vacancy, was launched in September 2022. Under the Scheme, local authorities can make vacant serviced sites in towns and villages available to potential individual purchasers to build a home.

Under the scheme, local authorities identify suitable vacant sites in their ownership or purchase vacant sites in towns and villages and make them available for sale to individual purchasers for the purpose of building a principal private residence. Once serviced, the local authority will make the site available for sale at a discount on the market value of the site. The level of discount to the individual will depend on the level of servicing cost incurred by the local authority before the sale of the site, up to a maximum of €30,000.

The scheme is managed and administered by local authorities on behalf of my Department. To date 32 sites have been made available for sale by 4 local authorities, 5 sites in Wicklow, 16 sites in Laois, 4 sites in Tipperary and 7 sites by Kildare County Council. The relevant local authority assesses the applications they receive based on the framework of priorities contained in the scheme outline.

A further 100+ sites have been identified by various local authorities for possible inclusion in the scheme. These sites are at various stages of consideration to determine the costs involved to service the sites and ascertaining the potential level of interest in site purchase. The Vacant Homes Unit in my Department is continuing to engage with local authorities in relation to these sites.

While there are currently no sites available for sale under the scheme by Wexford County Council, I understand from Wexford County Council that they intend to work to identify sites that may qualify under the scheme.