The number of apartments being built in Dublin is going in the “completely wrong direction” and needs to “drastically” improve if the Government is to meet its overall housing targets, Minister for Housing James Browne has said.
Mr Browne said “only time will tell” if recent reports indicating the Government could miss its housing targets this year and next year by several thousand homes are “right are wrong”.
He said it is “a challenging situation”.
“I think the collapse in apartment-building in Dublin city very much is driving those challenges around reaching those targets.” the Minister told This Week on RTÉ Radio 1 on Sunday.
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He said housing delivery outside of Dublin is “relatively speaking on target”.
“At the moment the housing financial market in Dublin for apartments is broken. That is just obvious from the fact that nobody wants to build apartments. They are building apartments across Europe but not in Dublin,” he said.
“So we have to examine that taxation regulatory regime,” he said.
The Minister said private finance is needed to help tackle the housing crisis, and “unfortunately profit is part of that”.
“International finance and Irish finance are not investing in apartment-building in Dublin because it is costly and they do not see any opportunity for a profit out of it.”
On Thursday, The Irish Times reported that the State is on track to deliver less than 20 per cent of the apartments it aimed for under a scheme designed to deliver more homes for owner-occupiers in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford.
Mr Browne said “something quite radical” needs to be done to stimulate apartment-building in the capital in particular, noting tax breaks for developers must be among the options considered.
“Everything has to be on the table,” he said.
The Business Post reported on Sunday that there was a 67 per cent increase in legal challenges taken against An Bord Pleanála decisions on housing and other infrastructure projects last year.
Mr Browne said the Planning and Development Act 2024, which is due to be fully implemented later this year, will deal with some of these issues.
He said it is “essential” that people can raise valid concerns about certain developments, but the process “has become a cottage industry in this country”.
“In a lot of cases, I think the courts have been weaponised, not with a view to somebody actually succeeding legally and stopping a development, but that if you can delay it long enough, in effect, you get the outcome you want, which is to stop the development.”
Mr Browne said the new legislation will change “who can object to apartments being built” and will streamline judicial review cases.
“Those with a legitimate concern will always be able to object but I think this kind of wholesale objection with the pure purpose of delaying, that has to come to an end.”
