Land Development Agency
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-23
============================================================

Rory Hearne (SD), Dublin North-West

I appreciate the Minister of State’s response and setting out of the detail, but surely he can see it is completely inadequate. In terms of the numbers I gave earlier, 13,000 adults over the age of 18 are living in their parental home in my constituency alone. There are 50,000 people in that situation across Dublin. Where are young people, and as I said, increasingly those in their 30s and 40s, going to be able to buy a home in Dublin city? It is a disaster that is hitting now and is going to get worse in the coming years. It is a breakdown of the social contract.
The Minister of State said Dublin City Council is talking about 789 starter homes, which is higher than the figure we were given, but it is still a drop in the ocean of what is actually required. I do not see where the change in the plans is. What is going to change? Where is the step change that is going to deliver tens of thousands of affordable purchase homes in Dublin city? That is what is needed, but it is not set out. There is no answer to the question I have asked about actually providing a step change in policy. Surely the Minister of State sees that. I know Fine Gael agrees with affordable purchase, as does Fianna Fáil, but in what has been brought forward in housing plans and policies, I do not see any step change of delivery of actually affordable purchase homes. The main schemes of delivery of affordable purchase homes in Dublin are coming through various market subsidies, including the first home scheme. I am surprised Government TDs such as the Minister of State are not extremely concerned about this. The Government’s own policy, which I do not agree with, is only delivering 93 affordable homes in Dublin city under the first home scheme. It is a tiny number of people being supported to buy a home.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-23