Housing targets expected to be increased next year, says Tánaiste

Housing targets will be reviewed by the Government next year, with the expectation they will be increased, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said.

Mr Varadkar said there is a deficit of between 70,000 and 80,000 homes across the State and that “way more housing” is needed.

The Tánaiste was responding to Sinn Féin deputy leader Pearse Doherty during Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil on Thursday, who said the Government could not meet its “embarrassingly low” housing targets and that the Housing for All strategy was not working and asked would a new plan be brought forward.

Mr Varadkar said the Government wanted to “ramp up” housing supply, with the aim to build 40,000 new units per year.

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Listen | 42:52

“We acknowledge that since those targets were set, the population has increased faster than we thought it would,” he said.

“We’ve welcomed 62,000 Ukrainians to Ireland, many of them will stay and more are going to arrive, and our economy is growing faster than anyone expected that it would. We have new households being formed all the time, particularly smaller households, so yes, absolutely we’re going to review those housing targets with a view to increasing them next year.”

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The Tánaiste said 28,000 new homes would be built this year, exceeding the Government’s target but that there were “constraints” on building more houses.

“There’s no lack of money being put into this, there’s no lack of political will … But we’re dealing with real constraints — the availability of labour, the availability of materials, the availability of service sites, and no matter who is in Government they are going to have to deal with those real constraints,” he said.

Mr Varadkar said there would be more social housing provided this year “than any year in the history of the State”. He said in the last 12 months, 15,000 first-time buyers had bought a home, mostly couples, which was the highest figure in 15 years.

Broken promises

Mr Doherty said Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien had promised 26,000 new build social homes by the end of 2022, and that so far “less than half of those have been delivered”.

The Sinn Féin TD said 4,100 affordable homes had also been promised by the end of the year with only 925 delivered to date.

Mr Doherty said this was why housing prices were “going through the roof”, rents were soaring and homelessness was “at an all-time high”. He said the Government had 12 years to deal with the “constraints” Mr Varadkar had referenced.

He asked the Tánaiste was it “not time to accept” that the Government’s housing plan had failed, with “a whole generation locked out. Is it not time now to stop defending a Minister on his failed plan and actually to come up with a better plan and actually deliver and listen to what we in the Opposition have been putting forward?”