Cabinet Committees Dail Éireann — 2026-09-16 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 6, inclusive, together. The Cabinet committee on housing last met on Monday, 14 September. The committee will next meet on Thursday, 22 October. The committee works to ensure a cross-government approach to the implementation of our commitments regarding housing policy. Housing supply has increased significantly over the past number of years, with recent home completions data showing almost 17,000 new homes built in the first half of 2026. This is a rise of 11% on the same period in 2025 and the highest number of half-year completions since the series began 15 years ago. We are also seeing the highest number of people buying their first home in well over a decade, with almost 12,600 first-time buyer mortgages drawn down in the first half of this year. Many of these households were supported by Government-backed measures, such as the first home and help-to-buy schemes. Clearly, the measures we have implemented, backed by unprecedented State investment, are working. The housing activation office is now established. A core team of civil servants and experts seconded from Uisce Éireann, ESB Networks, the National Transport Authority, Transport Infrastructure Ireland and the local government sector have been brought together to progress the work of the office. It is headed by a deputy secretary general for housing activation. The office actively engages with key stakeholders, including all 31 local authorities, utility and infrastructure providers, industry and others to ensure that barriers to the delivery of public infrastructure projects required to enable housing development are addressed in a co-ordinated way. The Government has made available the highest ever commitment of Exchequer funding for housing of €28 billion up to 2030, along with additional funding through State vehicles including the Land Development Agency, LDA, the Housing Finance Agency, Home Building Finance Ireland, the first home scheme and the Irish Strategic Investment Fund. Under the national housing plan, the role and remit of the LDA has been expanded. This includes a wider geographical remit and a focus on starter homes, mixed tenure of more social and private housing delivery, and infrastructure-led delivery. Through various delivery channels, the LDA has delivered almost 3,000 homes and is working on a pipeline of a further 25,000 homes on over 40 sites, with projects at every stage from design through to construction. All 31 local authorities across the country have been tasked with ensuring that more than enough land is zoned to meet the needs of our citizens. The process is well under way, with the majority of local authorities having either fully or partially concluded the process. To ensure that this land is activated for housing quickly, we are co-ordinating wider infrastructure investment through the housing activation office, which is now managing a multi-annual €1 billion housing investment fund. This is the largest ever investment in housing-enabling infrastructure. Over 80 infrastructure projects have been funded under the programme to directly enable the delivery of 86,000 new homes and provide the potential for a further 113,000 homes. Our commitment to large-scale projects, such as MetroLink, has housing delivery as a core priority. Earlier today, we approved the next phase of work on this generational project, with main tendering due to kick off shortly. This project will enable tens of thousands of extra homes along its route. Additional information not given on the floor of the House Government's response to the viability challenge in Delivering Homes, Building Communities is multifaceted. It involves measures to decrease the delivery costs, such as the VAT reduction on the sale of new apartments and introducing greater flexibility to the size and mix of apartment developments through the ongoing development of new design standards for apartments. It involves the new rent framework which will help to boost investment in the supply of homes for rent and provide greater certainty to the wider residential market. The actions to support the delivery of apartments in Delivering Homes, Building Communities have the potential to result in significant cost savings in the range of €88,000 to €160,000 per apartment. Last July, reforms to planning exemptions regulations took effect, giving homeowners the freedom to adapt their homes to changing needs and make decisions in relation to their own living space. We now have the highest social housing build per annum on record and have also allocated over €370 million to the second-hand social housing acquisition programme, which includes much-needed funding to support households to exit long-term homeless accommodation. We are working to reform our housing system so that it delivers sustainably over the long term. This means effective State investment across a broad range of schemes and agencies, alongside large-scale private sector investment. Only by getting this balance right will we be able to deliver at the scale and ambition needed. Private investment alongside public investment is the only way to deliver the scale of housing needed. It is, therefore, critical that Ireland achieves a stable and predictable policy environment to attract and retain private capital, in line with the programme for Government commitment, including from international sources. Our plan is working and we are seeing the results. I am confident that we can build on our success to date by continuing to focus on delivery, making sure it is both scaled and sustainable into the future. --- 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/2026-09-16/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-16