The Government’s long-awaited housing plan will be unveiled on Thursday against a backdrop of a fall in new housing commencements and Opposition predictions that the new strategy will not be radical enough to tackle the crisis.
With the Coalition pledging to deliver more than 300,000 homes by 2030, Minister for Housing James Browne has advised aspiring homeowners to “hang in there”.
The Irish Times understands that one measure aimed at helping developers, including smaller builders, to deliver more housing are plans for an additional €400 million in equity investment support from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF).
Mr Browne said the plan, called Delivering Homes, Building Communities, will aim to deliver a “real shift in how we get housing moving in this country”, while also having a strong focus on family and child homelessness.
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Housing activation and homelessness reduction and prevention are said by Mr Browne to be the “two key pillars” of the plan.
On Wednesday, Cabinet considered a series of memos related to boosting the delivery of housing, including plans to invest billions of euro in Ireland’s electricity and water infrastructure under the National Development Plan.
[ What is wrong with Ireland’s housing and planning system?Opens in new window ]
An extra €2.5 billion in equity investment for the Land Development Agency was also confirmed, bringing its total allocation to €8.75 billion.
There was also a decision to extend the Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund – aimed at delivering infrastructure to open up sites for building homes – for another three years until the end of 2028.
However, the launch of the housing plan comes as new housing commencements fell to their lowest level since the Covid-19 lockdowns in the third quarter of 2025, raising fresh doubts about the Government’s housing commitments.
Figures from Construction Information Services (CIS) detail a significant slowdown in construction activity with new housing starts down 49 per cent year-on-year between July and September.
The decline came despite planning approvals reaching a record high and reveals what CIS described as a “significant disconnect between approved developments and actual construction activity”.
“The widening gap raises important questions about Ireland’s capacity to deliver on housing targets,” it said.
The Irish Times previously reported the housing plan is to include delivery of 90,000 “starter homes” over five years.
As many as 12,000 social homes and 15,000 affordable housing units could be delivered per year, on average, under the funding available for the plan.
Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin said his party will comment in detail on the plan after it is published today.
However, he argued that what has emerged so far appears to be “more of the same failed housing policy”. He suggested there would be “no increase in social or affordable homes, no increased protection for renters from rip-off rents and evictions, no clear action plan to end long-term homelessness by 2030”. He said this was “not the radical reset that the Government’s own Housing Commission recommended”.
[ Rental crisis to intensify as ‘starved of supply’ housing stock dips below 2,000Opens in new window ]
Social Democrats housing spokesman Rory Hearne said: “The kites that have been flown [about the plan] are deeply disappointing” adding: “it looks like it will be just tinkering around the edges rather than that radical transformation in housing that we really need.”
In the Dáil, Labour TD Marie Sherlock criticised the Government’s approach to investment in housing which she argued favours developers and “squeezes out home buyers”.
She also called on Taoiseach Micheál Martin to “reverse course”, focus on direct building on State-owned land and to introduce an eviction ban.
Mr Martin ruled out an eviction ban saying it “will not deal with the housing crisis”. He stressed the need for “significant activity from the private sector to complement the work of the public sector. All of those strands are required to deal with the housing crisis.”
Earlier, Mr Martin pushed back on suggestions the housing plan would not be radical, telling reporters: “This is the most unprecedented investment in housing ever.”
