Just half the required housing will be developed this year, minister warns
Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien is bringing the Affordable Housing Bill to Cabinet.
Some 30,000 homes are needed each year - but the Covid-19 construction shutdown is likely to see less than half that number completed, Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien has admitted.
Just 12,000 to 14,000 homes are expected to be completed this year, the minister said, speaking ahead of him bringing new legislation on affordable housing to Cabinet.
The Affordable Housing Bill will provide for the direct building of affordable homes by the State. It also includes plans for a cost rental scheme and a new shared equity scheme, which has been the subject of some criticism from the Opposition and the ESRI.
The legislation will require 10% social homes and 10% affordable homes in housing developments in every local authority area.
Speaking on RTÉ radio, Mr O'Brien said the new bill will deliver up to 6,000 affordable homes on State lands within four years.
He said that the first housing scheme under the Bill will open for applications today in Lusk, North County Dublin with houses priced from between €165,000 to €265,000.
The minister said there will be 414 new cost rental tenancies in place this year.
Mr O’Brien said the scheme would deliver approximately 2,000 units a year over a three-to-four-year period, insisting it is properly targeted.
"We need supply increase," he said.
"And this cannot be achieved by sitting back and doing nothing, or by pursuing the same policies of previous years."
Meanwhile, Mr O'Brien also said a 'whole of Government' buy-in is needed to block hedge funds from bulk-buying new housing estates at the expense of first-time buyers.
The minister has said he does not approve of the practice of international investors snapping up homes en masse, such as a recent case in Maynooth, where just 22 homes in a 174-house estate were available for first-time buyers.
The rest of the houses at Mullen Park in Maynooth were snapped up by Round Hill Capital.
Mr O'Brien has called for a “whole of Government” approach to stop such practices from happening again.
“Frankly this isn't just a housing issue," he said, speaking on RTÉ radio.
"We need to see a whole of Government approach on this to see why would it be so lucrative for funds like this to bulk purchase properties like this.
The minister said he had raised the issue some weeks ago before the situation in Maynooth came up.
“Just to be very straight, I don't approve of international investors buying housing estates in bulk like has happened here. Do investors have a role here, in housing in Ireland? Yes, they do as they do in most western European countries, but what I would say is that where funds are coming in and taking homes away from families, is a concern of mine."
Mr O'Brien said work is underway to overhaul the current system of housing in terms of development allocations, including a potential increase in the Part 5 provision, which allocates a certain amount of homes for social housing in a new development.
This would be a mix of social and affordable housing, he explained.
The minister warned about the consequences of banning any type of investment coming into the country.
“That would be a pretty radical move and might have unintended consequences — while it might be a good sound bite for people to throw out there and may be populist in that sense, it would have potentially very serious ramifications for investment in general.”
