2026-04-23

The Land Development Agency, LDA, is building up a great head of steam now in starting to produce homes at scale all around the country, but particularly in the urban areas where they are badly needed. There are two projects in my area, Clongriffin Central and, just this week, Richmond Village. Some projects the Minister of State will be familiar with in his own area or generally in his neighbourhood are Shanganagh and Dundrum. These are big projects. The planners are saying that apartments are what are required now in terms of the use of land, the intensification of land use, transport-oriented planning, etc., and that is welcome. When I look at the LDA, however, and taking Richmond Village as an example, the tenure mix is not yet hammered out on that development of nearly 800 units. The LDA says it will do it over the next while. Affordable purchase, which is where citizens and families get to own their own homes, is a relatively recent thing for the LDA, as I understand it. The point I want to make is that I would like to see the LDA going with affordable purchase first. There should be a lot more emphasis on affordable purchase, giving people a chance to buy the units the LDA is building. I appreciate they would likely be subsidised based on the cost of these in the context of modern-day construction, but it is absolutely vital that we empower the LDA as much as we can to build quality homes that citizens can then buy in whatever way. Affordable purchase first should perhaps be the strategy for the LDA. I will come back to cost rental because issues with that were mentioned. In my experience, and taking Clongriffin Central as an example, the LDA is not necessarily funded or empowered to deliver community facilities. We have that issue out in Clongriffin Central. An area left underdeveloped and unfinished for 15 years after the crash needs community facilities. The LDA is in there, buzzing along and actively delivering phase after phase of residential units, very welcome homes, but community facilities have to be put in as well. They are vital. I ask that we would look to broaden or maybe re-emphasise the strategy of the LDA towards affordable purchase first as a key part of any of its developments and also look at how it will deliver, and be empowered to fund and deliver, vital community facilities, including community centres, pitches, outdoor parks and all the other facilities that make communities in Dublin so great.

I am very grateful to the Deputy for raising this issue. I think Richmond Village is a brilliant name. There should be more of them, needless to say.

Quelle surprise.

More pertinently and directly to the Deputy's point, on behalf of the Minister, we all know why the LDA was set up and the ambition it has. The Deputy is right that it is really ramping up. We can see that in sod turnings, on one hand, such as in Richmond Village, and in site clearings, such as at the former Central Mental Hospital, or Dundrum Central as we know it, but also, crucially, in people moving into homes, as we see in Shanganagh and Shankill. In terms of affordable purchase homes, LDA-sourced or -built affordable purchase homes are delivered in partnership with local authorities, funded by the Department via the affordable housing fund and sold through the local authority affordable purchase scheme. Under this scheme, newly built homes are made available at a reduced price for first-time and other eligible buyers who cannot afford to purchase these homes at the open market value. These homes are made available at a sale price of at least 15% below comparable housing market prices. Since 2022, the LDA has delivered over 400 affordable purchase homes through partnership arrangements with local authorities, on State lands or sourced through Project Tosaigh. This delivery includes the LDA working in partnership with other bodies, such as at Shanganagh. A total of 597 homes were delivered there, of which 91 were affordable purchase, with the remainder being delivered as 306 cost-rental homes and 200 social homes across 2024 and 2025. In addition, the agency has partnered with Kildare County Council to deliver 66 affordable purchase homes last November at Barracksfield West in Naas. More recently, the LDA has launched Priory Fields in partnership with Fingal County Council, as Deputy Boland will be aware, to deliver the first phase, comprising 36 affordable purchase homes of a total of 345 homes at Hackettstown in Skerries. A further phase of 91 affordable purchase homes is planned, with the remainder being delivered as 117 cost-rental homes and 101 social homes. Furthermore, the expanded role and remit of the Land Development Agency, as outlined in Delivering Homes, Building Communities, will help to further accelerate its delivery of affordable homes. Key measures include the expansion of the LDA’s geographical area of operation, which will enable the agency to partner with more regional-based local authorities and bring forward developments on local authority-owned land. I could not agree more with the Deputy, and I think this matter is going to be a precursor to Deputy Hearne's Topical Issue question to the Minister. Prioritising affordable homes first and foremost should be the aim of the LDA, and I will make sure this point is brought directly to the relevant Ministers.

As the Minister of State said himself, even the affordable purchase element of the Shanganagh scheme is about 15% of the overall project. We hear about the challenges with cost rental and concerns around mounting maintenance costs. Uncertain costs like that will, of course, upset mandarins in all the various Departments. The benefit of affordable purchase is that whatever discount or subsidy is given, the Government locks it in upfront. It goes to the homeowner, and is crystallised there and then and there is no long-term risk. The Government picks up part of the tab. I do think affordable purchase first should be the direction in which the LDA is headed. Without a doubt, there will be issues with cost rental in the future. They are being raised in the media, with various schemes having challenges with maintenance. In relation to community facilities, local authorities, including Dublin City Council and South Dublin County Council, collect development levies from private development and use those development levy funds to deliver the parks, playgrounds and various community facilities. The LDA does not have that funding stream. It is vital that this is acknowledged by the Government and that the gap is plugged in some way for the LDA. Residential developments are fantastic, but the community facilities have to be provided as well while these projects are being built. I encourage the Minister of State to consider this issue from a Government perspective. I thank him.

I will make two points quite clearly. In relation to affordable homes, that is the sort of prioritisation the LDA should be looking for. I am more than happy to bring this point forward on the Deputy’s behalf to the Minister. Perhaps there will be scope for further discussion at the next round of oral parliamentary questions. The Deputy has raised a point that is not being raised enough in relation to the collection of development levies and the ability to use those funds for community facilities. The part of Dublin where I lived was very much a project of the Celtic tiger era where land that was once rural was rezoned rapidly, and housing of all forms – apartments, duplexes and three-, four- and five-bedroom houses - were built at pace, but it took approximately ten years for the schools to open, for roads to be finished off and even for the basic, more commercial entities such as supermarkets and shops to come on stream. We see where development has got this right, such as in Cherrywood, just up the road from me, where the roads and parks are already in. It is only now that we are starting to see the large-scale housing accommodation provided. The three school sites have not only been identified but groundwork has started, and they will be open for the children of that area to be educated in. It is similar with Clonburris in South Dublin County Council's locality. I would argue that many of the mistakes made before have been learned from, but there are a heck of lot more that need to be learned from, and that requires our diligence to make sure those mistakes are not repeated. We need to make sure that, absolutely, we crack on and massively ramp up the delivery of new homes, but that those communities and, indeed, the scope for commercial facilities that goes with that are prioritised as well. Again, these are points I will be more than happy to make to the Minister on the Deputy’s behalf.

People across the city who are looking to buy a home are despairing. The prices of houses and rents are way beyond what they can afford. They are looking to the Government for hope to be able to buy a home. We have reached the point where no ordinary people can afford to buy a home in our capital city. It costs €500,000 for the average home in the city. That is ten times the average salary. In the main, new supply being built is investor fund apartments being rented out at €3,000 and €4,000 a month. A shocking 50,000 adults over the age of 18 are stuck living in their parents’ home in Dublin city. They need the State to build genuinely affordable homes they can buy to allow them to start their lives and families. In Dublin city last year, however, not one affordable purchase home was delivered by the State - not one. In my constituency of Dublin North-West, over 7,000 adults are stuck living in their parental home in Finglas and Ballymun, and there are over 6,500 in Artane and Whitehall. How many affordable purchase homes does Dublin City Council plan to build for these 13,000 adults? Just 291 between now and 2030. Fianna Fáil's and Fine Gael’s plans for affordable housing for sale will only meet the need of 2% of the adults living in my constituency between now and 2030. That is not to mention the thousands of renters stuck looking to try to buy a home as well. Why is affordable housing so inadequate? It is because the starter home programme is not about delivering actually affordable homes but keeping house prices inflated for developers and investor funds. The Government does not want to undercut market prices. It refuses to set up a State construction company that could build tens of thousands of genuinely affordable homes for sale and rent. Will the Government take radical action? We need to see radical action for a generation of young people in their 20s, and increasingly their 30s and 40s, who cannot start their lives. They cannot buy a home in our capital city. Workers, young people and families cannot buy a home in this city. What is the Government going to do to change this and ensure there are affordable houses that people can buy in our capital city? It is beyond a crisis or a disaster. We need to see a significant change beyond what is planned. I can go through the figures for the Minister of State. They are terrifying in terms of the low numbers of planned delivery of affordable purchase homes in Dublin city. In my own area of north central Dublin, zero affordable purchase homes were delivered last year, and 73 are planned for 2026. There are zero planned for 2027, 95 for 2028, zero for 2029, and zero for 2030. If the houses are not planned to be built and are not in the city council’s plans, where are they going to come from? I am absolutely terrified. Not only is there poor delivery of affordable purchase now, but there is no sign of it coming.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue and giving me the opportunity to reply on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Browne, who unfortunately is not here today. Affordability and the chance to own a home is at the heart of the Government’s housing policy, as embodied in the new housing plan, Delivering Homes, Building Communities. The Government is continuing to invest an unprecedented level of funding to support housing delivery, which will underpin the new starter homes programme, delivering an average of 15,000 starter home supports annually to 2030. In terms of starter home delivery, over 22,000 starter home supports have been delivered since the launch of the previous housing plan, Housing for All, including nearly 1,000 in Dublin City. Dublin City Council has established a significant pipeline of starter home delivery and continues to work proactively with all delivery partners to ensure the successful delivery of these homes. Dublin City Council currently has an affordable housing delivery programme that includes a total of 789 new starter homes, which will be available for affordable purchase by eligible, approved housing candidates by 2028. These homes will be located at Ballymun, Montpelier, Oscar Traynor Road and Cherry Orchard. Twelve homes have been delivered at Ballymun to date, with the schemes at Montpelier and Oscar Traynor Road at an advanced stage. We will see significant delivery during the year. The delivery programme continues to be expanded and accelerated. Two additional schemes with the potential to deliver a further 240 affordable homes are under assessment. The first home scheme, which supports first-time buyers in purchasing new houses and apartments in the private market through the use of an equity share model, is also available to support eligible new home purchasers. It has been availed of by 93 affordable home buyers in Dublin city up to the fourth quarter of 2025, the latest period for which statistics have been published. The Department of housing is funding 12.5 dedicated administrative and technical staffing posts in Dublin City Council to support the resourcing and development of these starter homes schemes. In addition to this, we look at cost-rental delivery, the croí cónaithe scheme and, crucially, the vacant property refurbishment grant and other available opportunities. In conclusion, in order to further drive the required delivery of 90,000 starter homes under Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025-2030, local authorities including Dublin City Council will shortly commence the preparation of new housing delivery action plans for review by the Department, setting out how the starter home programme will be implemented within their area. These plans, replacing those previously drawn up under Housing for All, will be informed by affordable housing need within the local authority area and will involve collaboration with the delivery partners, including the Land Development Agency, approved housing bodies and the wider development sector, as applicable. The plans will be published on each local authority's website following engagement with the relevant Department.

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.

I greatly appreciate Deputy Hearne’s contribution. Delivering Homes, Building Communities is a clear priority for Government and we are committed to delivering on the targets across all pillars of the plan. The strategy delivers on the programme for Government commitment to increase housing supply and tackle homelessness with an ambitious target to deliver 15,000 starter homes annually to 2033 via local authorities, approved housing bodies, the Land Development Agency, the first home scheme, the vacant properties refurbishment grant and the help to buy scheme. The next iteration of the local authority housing delivery action plan will shortly commence outlining local authorities plans to deliver in their areas over the next five years. The LDA has also been tasked with taking over State lands in addition to unlocking stalled private planning consented developments in the shorter term through its market engagement initiative, Project Tosaigh, to facilitate additional starter home delivery. We will continue to work closely with local authorities, approved housing bodies, the LDA and other key stakeholders to support delivery of the starter homes programme and I will undertake to bring the points made eloquently by Deputy Hearne to the Minister in due course.