Cabinet Committees

1. Deputy Séamus McGrath asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet Committee on Housing will meet next. [64344/26]

2. Deputy Ryan O'Meara asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet Committee on Housing will next meet. [64294/26]

3. Deputy Paul McAuliffe asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet Committee on Housing will next meet. [64265/26]

4. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet Committee on Housing will next meet. [64827/26]

5. Deputy Paul Lawless asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet Committee on Housing will next meet. [64905/26]

6. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [65085/26]

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.

I thank the Taoiseach for the update on the progress made on housing. I will raise one specific issue relating to the qualifying income limits for social housing. It is the intention of the Government to increase these limits. I want to raise the issue to ensure that happens as quickly as possible. As the Taoiseach knows, the limits were last changed in 2023, which was three years ago. There are currently three bands ranging from €30,000, €35,000 and €40,000 in terms of qualifying limits. In the past three years, wage growth has increased cumulatively by 15%. Even if we were to stand still, we need to increase those limits by 15%. I would strongly argue that we need to be more decisive than that. We need a seismic shift to help to narrow the gap between those who fall just outside the social housing limits and those who are in a position to afford accommodation in their own right. That gap is growing. One of the measures available to the Government is to increase the qualifying limits for social housing. We must ensure that social housing is available to working people on modest incomes. At present, that is not necessarily the case. The Government must ensure that happens. We cannot have a situation whereby the qualifying limits act as a disincentive to work, as is the situation at present. Each Member of this House is aware of discussions he or she has had with constituents, who spoke about cutting back their working hours in order to keep their incomes under the limits. I ask the Taoiseach to ensure this happens quickly. It is important. We need to narrow the gap in terms of the affordability of housing for individuals and families across the country.

I raise the concerns and annoyance of the thousands of people whom I represent in Newport, Ballina and Birdhill and who faced a disastrous summer in the context of water quality, a lack of drinking water and boil water notices as a result of Uisce Éireann's ill-handling of communications and a lack of clarity from Uisce Éireann on exactly what was happening. We are talking about thousands of households, or customers, as Uisce Éireann calls them. These are thousands of people whom I represent. On numerous occasions, the water was cut off and stopped in two large towns and a village. There has been boil water notice after boil water notice. The most recent update I got from Uisce Éireann was that the last boil water notice was because of heavy rainfall. As we go into winter in Ireland, I am worried if that is what Uisce Éireann thinks is causing a boil water notice for thousands of people. My main criticism and critique is of the communication and the information provided. All of us in this House struggle to get accurate information from Uisce Éireann. I cannot advise my constituents or even keep them safe under boil water notices if the accurate information is not coming from Uisce Éireann. What are the Government's plans to make Uisce Éireann more accountable to this House and more accountable to us, as public representatives, when we ask it direct questions to ensure we get answers that are accurate in a timely manner? Uisce Éireann will get more than €12 billion from this Government between now and 2030 for infrastructure investment. The very least that we deserve from that, outside of an adequate water and wastewater network, are proper responses, timely updates and accurate information.

For years, Aontú has been in this Chamber arguing about the fact that Ireland has the slowest planning, procurement, licensing, tendering and judicial review processes in the whole of Europe. This housing crisis has dragged on for nearly ten years at this stage. One of the main contributing factors has been that what the Government controlled was absolutely dysfunctional and was not working. We were singular in making that critique of the Government. The Central Bank today issued a report which confirms the concerns that we in Aontú have raised repeatedly in this Chamber. The time it takes to build a house in this country has doubled in ten years. It used to take two years to build a house in this country but it now takes four years. It stands to reason that that action alone reduces the capacity of the Government and the country to build houses. How come this Government has tied up the whole process in red tape and bureaucracy, with the effect of making it more difficult to build homes in those periods? Why has the Government allowed the situation to become so dysfunctional? It is so frustrating. The aspect of building homes that the Government controls has been made more difficult and longer to achieve by the Government itself. That has led to people being homeless. It has led to people not being able to buy homes. It has led to increases in the prices of those homes. Will the Government go further to ensure that we again reduce the length of time it takes to build a home in this country by making its end of the responsibility more efficient?

I was very saddened this morning to hear of the very sad and untimely passing of Eamonn Langton. Eamonn was a very successful businessman, a staunch Kilkenny man and a passionate GAA supporter. The Langton name and the Langton establishment are synonymous with everything that is good about Kilkenny. Recently he was made a freeman of the city. It was such a fitting tribute that he was able to be there with all his family and friends. A great Gael passed away this morning. We are thinking of him and all his family at this very sad time. I acknowledge that the Taoiseach wrote him a letter after he was made a freeman of the city. That was the last time I spoke to him and he was so appreciative of that formal acknowledgement of his contribution from the Taoiseach and leader of the country. I will raise the issue of the vacant and derelict property grant. It is a very successful grant, which provides between €50,000 and €70,000 every year. There have been 20,000 applications nationally, with about €346 million paid out, so it is a really effective scheme we have going. About €3 million has been paid out in full in Carlow for 184 applications and for about 440 applications in Kilkenny with €9 million paid out. I have two asks here, which would be great. When it was originally introduced in 2022, the scheme paid €30,000 for a vacant property and €50,000 for a derelict one. This was increased in 2023 to €50,000 for a vacant property and €70,000 for a derelict property. Will the Government consider increasing that in the upcoming budget to significantly higher levels, considering the increased expenses and costs in construction at the moment? Also, is it possible from a technical perspective to introduce a partial drawdown stage? At the moment, people can only draw down the funding once the works are completed in full. Given the amount of funding involved, it would be appropriate if, for example, there were a possibility halfway through that people could draw down a certain portion of the funding to ease the challenges that many families and individuals are facing when availing of these grants.

I have asked the Taoiseach repeatedly about the social housing income thresholds. We have had promise after promise that something is going to be done about them. Every single week, pretty much, people are coming to me who find that they have been on a housing list for five, ten or 15 years, all that time waiting, and then because their pay marginally increases, they go over the threshold and all the time is gone. They are left in limbo but their income is not enough to be able to get cost-rental or affordable housing. It is so unfair. At the beginning of 2023, when the Government last raised the limits - it had to be pushed on that as well - the average industrial wage allowed a person to qualify for social housing. Now, with the average industrial wage, a person is over the threshold. It is absolutely unfair. It looks to me like a strategy to get people off the list and maybe even to do away with social housing as we know it and replace it with a higher rent scheme. If it is not, let us see the Government raise the limits. Will it be done before the budget? When will it be done? By how much will it be raised? What will the Government do about the time lost by people who have been thrown off the list over the past three years and have been left in limbo? I would like the Taoiseach to answer those questions. I would also like to ask the Taoiseach about the three- and four-bedroom issue in social housing developments. One of the major reasons family homelessness and child homelessness are rising, which is absolutely unacceptable, child homelessness in particular, even though there is an uptick in social housing delivery - mostly, it has to be said, through private developers, not through direct construction - is because local authorities are not building three- and four-bedroom houses. In my area, there are no four-bedroom houses planned in future developments over the next number of years and the percentage of three-bedroom houses is abysmal. Something has to be done about delivering three- and four-bedroom local authority houses in order to address child and family homelessness.

At this very moment, council tenants from Mac Uilliam are outside South Dublin County Council offices, together with activists from the local Community Action Tenants Union, CATU, branch, protesting because they are at their wits' end about the maintenance issues and the serious problems of disrepair in their homes. They do not want to be at this point. They have tried everything in terms of engaging with the council, including individually doing representations. I have been inside their homes and the conditions are utterly unacceptable for anyone to have to live in 2026. We are talking about massive amounts of mould and damp and kids being brought up in this scenario. We are talking about windows and doors being broken all over the place, which obviously creates an inconvenience for people but also a serious fire hazard for people being able to get out in the event of a fire. We are talking about lighting inside and outside the blocks being broken and heating being a repeated problem. We are talking about a big problem with rats, in terms of public health, and in certain areas of the estate there are big problems with a smell of sewage coming from the ground, which is an ongoing problem that we have been raising for years. They are now outside the council offices, forced to protest because they have been let down and have not even been given clear timelines by the council about when these issues will be repaired. Does the Taoiseach think it is acceptable that council tenants who are now being asked to pay a big increase in rent have accommodation like this in 2026? Does he agree that the council needs to have meaningful engagement with these tenants and needs to provide a clear, short timeline to repair all the key issues they are raising?

When I last raised the issue of Carrignavar the Ceann Comhairle was in the Chair as well, so I do appreciate the time. Like Deputy O'Meara, I want to talk about Irish Water and its inability to deliver infrastructure at the rate that is needed. I point consistently to Glenville, Carrignavar and Knockraha in my constituency. The story is kind of the same. We are providing record investment in Irish Water and we are seeing very little return. Of the 37 projects identified by Cork County Council, about four years ago at this stage, six were allocated funding. The vast majority of them have not even been initiated and, as I said, this malaise continues. I got excited when I found out that we were reintroducing developer-led infrastructure. I said, "Jesus, we might have a chance at getting a house in Carrignavar some time in the next decade." Unfortunately, like the announcement about Glenville a couple of weeks ago, the only thing that is happening is that because the existing plants are so deficient, and in the case of Carrignavar three times overloaded, the plan is to introduce a modular wastewater treatment plant, which will essentially make them compliant with the existing waste they are treating at the moment. From what I have been told, it will not, in all likelihood, allow for any expansion. These communities, which are small villages within ten minutes of the city centre, are facing being locked out of development at any meaningful level for next decade. Irish Water is telling us it takes on average seven years to deliver a new treatment plant by the time it goes through all the necessary procurement, environmental assessments and so on. We need to get real with ourselves and have a reality check. We need to ask ourselves whether that is acceptable in this day and age. I have not even got on to Knockraha because I am out of time but I would appreciate some glimmer of hope that those villages will be able to progress and develop in the future.

In the first instance, Deputy Séamus McGrath raised the issue of qualifying income thresholds for social housing. To make the point more generally, we built 9,000 social houses last year and we will go higher this year. Deputy Boyd Barrett suggests that we want to get rid of social housing but we are building record levels of it. We are building more per annum now than we have done since the State was founded. Let us at least accept that. You can give out about the methodology if you want all-State construction, but we are getting it done. In any event, I would say to Deputy McGrath that one of the issues is that, legislatively, eligibility for social housing has been coupled with the housing assistance payment, HAP. That is an issue but we can deal with that too. I believe we need to increase the income thresholds. There are many working people who cannot avail of social housing right now, who should be able to. The gap between a certain cohort and those who can afford to get mortgages to buy is significant. There is a cohort of people who should have the option of being entitled to social housing. Deputy O'Meara referred to the wastewater treatment plants in Newport, Birdhill and Ballina and the issue of boil water notices and poor quality water. We had Irish Water in. We said to it, at a Cabinet subcommittee, that Deputies in the House are not happy with the level of communication. It said it created a unit within its structure, allegedly, to deal with Oireachtas Members and public representatives. We will go back to Irish Water again following today's session but we made it very clear to it that, up to now, it has not been what is required. It is a fundamental duty of Irish Water to communicate proactively with people with regard to shortages, boil water notices and so on. It has established a unit for communications. I will go back to it in respect of what the Deputy said to me. In regard to Deputy Tóibín's comment about the Central Bank report, I will make the point that Ireland's homebuilding is the fastest in Europe. We have 7.2 completions per 1,000 people, whereas the European average sits at just three. The United Kingdom is behind that again at 2.4 per 1,000 people. Housing completions rose by 40% between 2022 and 2026 and we are one of only five European countries where building rose, while in the rest of the Continent it declined. Ireland has the highest direct spending in Europe on housing by a wide margin when scaled for GDP or GNI. Some €9 billion in capital funding is committed to finance social and affordable homes. Twenty-one thousand mortgages were drawn down in the first half of 2026, up 5% on the same period last year. Nine thousand new-build social homes were completed, the highest number in any given year since the foundation of the State. Employment in the residential construction sector is up 14%. Notices of termination are down 49% from quarter 1 of 2026. Registered tenancies have increased. I could go on. Notwithstanding the Central Bank report, I will say to everyone in the House that we would appreciate their support. Deputy Tóibín may have supported the rural planning guidelines that we introduced to reduce the planning burden; others did not. The apartment guidelines were amended. Lots in the House opposed that, and the exemptions to back gardens and so on to facilitate the building of modular units. That is all designed to deal with what the Central Bank has reported. Accelerated delivery of infrastructure by the Minister, Deputy Jack Chambers, and the critical infrastructure legislation are all designed to prioritise the delivery of infrastructure that can lead to house completions. We want to accelerate planning. We have maybe not doubled but substantially increased resources to An Coimisiún Pleanála and other regulatory bodies to get decisions faster. We will continue to do that. I join with Deputy 'Chap' Cleere, first of all, in extending sympathies on the death of Eamonn Langton. It is particularly sad news. He was a freeman of the Deputy's city. I know the Deputy and he were very close. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis. On the Deputy's ambitions for the budget, I will say two things. We had a substantial increase to grants at that time, as the Deputy said, from €30,000 to €50,000 and €50,000 to €70,000, in respect of vacancy and dereliction.

I take the Deputy's point about the partial drawdown of the grant and I will go back to the Minister in respect of that. I will take on board what the Deputy is saying in regard to the budget more generally. Can I deal with the others?

There is Deputy Boyd Barrett. I dealt with that, I think, with regard to social housing.

When? Can the Taoiseach tell us when?

When what?

When is the Government going to bring up the limits?

I just dealt with it.

The Taoiseach did not tell us a date.

The Minister is working on it. It is not that simple.

We got that answer the last time.

The Deputy did not acknowledge that we built 9,000 houses and we are building-----

The Minister is not working very hard at it.

In response to Deputy Paul Murphy, again, I do not have the full background to that issue. It is obviously a matter for South Dublin County Council and those conditions are not satisfactory. The council should deal with it. In respect of Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan's point about Uisce Éireann, I will again engage with it in respect of Carrignavar and Glenville. The developer-led initiative is meant to be new schemes as well, in certain towns around the country. It is initially on nature-based solutions but we are pushing to get not just nature-based but other provision as well. That has to happen. Uisce Éireann has got a lot of resources and it has to deliver.