The Government’s latest plan to fix the housing crisis, published on Thursday, is largely a review and repetition of an earlier plan in 2021, Housing for All.
This is according to Michelle Norris, director of the Geary Institute for Public Policy at University College Dublin and a member of the Housing Commission.
“It contains little that is new,” she says.
But this may not be a bad thing.
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“I think the pace and scale of constant changes to housing policy has become a problem in its own right. So I think the lack of major new initiatives is not necessarily a significant shortcoming,” Ms Norris says.
The new plan is called Delivering Homes, Building Communities: An Action Plan on Housing Supply and Targeting Homelessness, 2025-2030.
The document has a dual focus: the first is on increasing the supply of new homes to at least double the current rate, and the second is on addressing the strains – arising from homelessness, high rents and unaffordable house and apartment prices – that inadequate supply is putting on people’s lives.
The plan envisages at least 300,000 new homes being built between now and 2030, but, unlike the previous plan, does not contain an annual target for new home delivery.
“This may reflect the reduced likelihood of meeting short-term output targets and suggests that the achievement of the 300,000 may be backloaded to the second half of the period,” Dermot O’Leary, chief economist with stockbroking firm Goodbody, says.
The plan represents an “evolution rather than revolution” in housing policy and the more active role the State has played in the sector in recent years, he says.
Welcome aspects of the plan, Ms Norris says, include: the additional funding to be allocated for the energy and water infrastructure needed if more houses are to be built; targeted support for small and medium-sized builders; and the commitment to implement the Housing Commission’s proposals for reform of the social housing sector.
But the new plan fails to mention revising the housing output targets in the National Planning Framework, which are too low, she says.
This failure is “very significant” as it limits the granting of planning permission in local authority areas, including in Dublin.
“The Land Development Agency’s original purpose, to assemble public lands and make these available for development by local authorities, Approved Housing Bodies and, if appropriate, private developers, has not been actioned to date,” she says.
“This is critical to increasing housing output and no other organisation has the capacity to do it. This is not addressed in the plan.”.
Architect and housing policy analyst Mel Reynolds believes the plan’s proposal to streamline the approval process for local authority housing schemes could be a “game-changer” if it involved the Department of Housing changing the current four-stage process to a single-stage one.
“The four-stage process by the department is a significant bureaucratic barrier to direct procurement by local authorities, which can deliver new projects at significant discounts to the market,” he says.
“Local authorities can develop apartments for up to a €160,000 discount compared to private sector on state land, according to Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland.”
The plan envisages 72,000 social homes and 90,000 starter homes being delivered in the years to 2030, with 20,000 derelict homes being brought back into use with the support of vacant property grants.
However, Reynolds thinks the vacant home and over-the-shop provisions – the latter has the potential for about 4,000 apartments over commercial premises between the canals in Dublin alone – are a continued policy weak spot.
“The barriers here are procedural, with a number of statutory processes that have to be navigated by owners. [We can] expect little change here as processes need to be streamlined. Finance is not the problem,” he says.
Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) president Gerard O’Toole says more needs to be done to get the key actors in the housing sector working together.
“We need to breakdown the silos that appear to exist across our government departments and agencies if we are to ensure the efficient and timely delivery of new housing,” he says.
“For example, a more joined-up, cross-agency approach is badly needed to tackle infrastructural bottlenecks, particularly in relation to electricity and water supply and connections.”
He says the SCSI is calling for the urgent appointment of a chief executive to the new Housing Activation Office (HAO) “to ensure these blockages are cleared”.
The office, established in April to co-ordinate stakeholders, identify infrastructure blockages and unlock land for housing development, has yet to have someone appointed to head it. The job was advertised late last month.
“The new plan places more responsibility on local authorities to hit their social housing targets, but the question remains: Do they have the skills and resources to meet that challenge?” O’Toole says.
“In the past people have very often found it difficult to access state-backed schemes which aimed at bringing buildings back to life. This complexity and red tape need to be addressed.”
[ Timelines for big infrastructure projects could be cut by a year under new plans ]
O’Leary says that while the plan represents an important milestone, some of the issues holding back supply, including the planning regime and co-ordination of the output of utility providers, are outside its remit.
In this regard, the Accelerating Infrastructure Taskforce, set up in June, and the HAO will play crucial roles if the plan’s targets are to be achieved, he says.
The new document identifies the departments and public bodies with responsibility for the different aspects of the plan, and says two Cabinet subcommittees, on housing and infrastructure, both chaired by the Taoiseach Micheál Martin, will oversee the progress, or otherwise, being made in each policy area.
“The key now is relentless implementation,” says Aidan Sweeney, head of infrastructure and environmental sustainability with the business representative and lobby group, Ibec.
The plan “needs to be the catalyst for significant movement on delivery”, he says.
“The commitment to deliver 300,000 homes, backed by direct state investment in infrastructure, is the right approach.”
