Home builders are “extremely concerned” about the supply of housing in the future due to “significant delays” in many of the housing supply determinants, the Oireachtas has heard.
Representatives from the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), Glenveagh Homes, and John Flanagan Developments were before the Oireachtas committee on infrastructure and National Development Plan delivery on Wednesday.
The different groups told legislators the people of Ireland will continue to struggle to rent or own their own homes unless the supply of zoned land increases and infrastructure to enable those lands to deliver more housing is provided.
CIF chief executive Andrew Brownlee said the supply of zoned land was the issue he was “especially concerned about”. “Unless we zone and service more land housing supply will not increase.”
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He said: “Some local authorities have yet to commence the process of varying their development plans and increase the amount of land zoned for housing.
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“Some are still using outdated population growth projections and adopting local area plans based on outdated data, ignoring the Section 28 guidelines issued last July. Do some local authorities want more housing?”
Mr Brownlee said the construction industry has the capacity to deliver 50,000 houses a year and the scale of infrastructure required to address the “big deficit” in Ireland’s competitiveness.
“But consistent roadblocks mean that for many companies, a reliable pipeline of work is not available in Ireland,” he said.
“The real capacity constraints being experienced and reported by large construction firms are related to planning and legal issues, delays to enabling infrastructure, lack of multiannual funding to support project pipelines and the unattractiveness of public procurement.
“This undermines industry confidence, business continuity and certainty. As a result, companies are shifting their focus toward private clients or redirecting their surplus capacity, including skilled workers, to international markets, simply because there is not enough domestic work to sustain them.”
He said housing supply “does not happen in isolation” and many of the supply determinants are “outside the control or resourcing” of the housebuilder.
“The house building and construction sector builds the necessary infrastructure for Ireland and relies on the State to resource adequately the planning system and in some cases the legal system to provide the planning permissions that will ultimately supply more homes,” he said.
In that context, Mr Brownlee said the delivery of infrastructure was “simply too slow”.
“The greater Dublin drainage project is a perfect example,” he said “Years stuck in planning and legal limbo. Reform is essential across planning, the judicial review process, procurement and financial approval.
“Decision-making time frames need to be quicker and the roles of various agencies need to align to delivery and implementation of infrastructure and housing. Multiannual finding is vital to secure the pipeline needed for the construction industry.”
He said Minister for Housing James Browne should also use his power to create regulations exempting certain types of development from planning permission based on their size, nature, or limited impact.
“For example, create exemptions for larger water and wastewater infrastructure projects by classifying them as a strategic infrastructure development,” he said.
“The Government should develop national policy statements or acts of the Dáil specifically for public energy, water and transport infrastructure. These would set out the national need and priorities, potentially influencing planning decisions in favour of these projects.”
On funding, Mr Brownlee said the annualised capital requirement for housing at an output level of 50,500 is estimated by the Department of Finance to be in the region of €22 billion a year.
“This scale of investment cannot be delivered by the State alone, so it is vital that we attract international investment,” he said.
“We cannot stress enough how vital it is that the provision of infrastructure is co-ordinated by a central body and rapid delivery of enabling infrastructure occurs so that we can build housing.”
