Stop shouting, Deputy.
TDs / James Browne
James Browne
Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage
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questions asked
Members of the Government answer questions rather than ask them
145,875
words spoken in the chamber
145,131 as a minister, 744 as a TD
431
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
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Contributions to debates 670 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
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| March 2025 | 36 |
| April 2025 | 15 |
| May 2025 | 46 |
| June 2025 | 41 |
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| October 2026 | 41 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 394 contributions in the regular slots, such as Leaders' Questions and Priority Questions. Speech from the chair is not counted.
Party, constituency and offices
- constituency Wexford 29 November 2024 to now
- party Fianna Fáil 29 November 2024 to now
- office Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage 23 January 2025 to now
Deputy, stop shouting.
You will not shout people down.
Do not try to shout me down, all right, Deputy?
Show a little respect.
I know you do not like my answer, but shouting me down will not stop me giving it, okay, Deputy? The reality is that Sinn Féin's housing policy proposes to significantly reduce second-hand acquisitions. I suggest Deputy Gould read it.
As to what we have done, in some local authorities, unfortunately, significant amounts of money have been used for refurbishment, €5 million in the case of one local authority. That wa…
The Deputy is comparing outturn from previous years to the funding we provided in May this year. The year is not over.
Stop comparing the result at the end of one match to the score halfway through another.
I am not blaming the councils.
I thank Deputy McGrath for raising the important issue around expectations for the delivery of affordable housing this year. I know it is a matter that is important to the Deputy.
The Government is fully committed to delivering affordable housing at scale and continuing to accelerate housing supply across all tenures. In 2024, more than 7,000 affordable housing options were delivered nationwide by a range of deliver…
I thank the Deputy for raising the important issue of affordable housing. I also thank him for his regular engagement with me on the issue of how we can develop further affordable housing. In terms of the pipeline of delivery in Cork city, since the launch of Housing for All until the end of quarter 4 in 2024, 747 affordable housing solutions have been delivered via a range of delivery partners. To date approval has …
I thank Deputy McGrath for his question and I fully agree with him that in addressing our housing needs in this country, we need to deliver private houses for those who can afford them and affordable houses for those who need help to bridge the gap to own their own homes. We also need to provide social houses. We must ensure that options are there for each person in this country so that their housing needs are met an…
I thank Deputy Connolly for raising the important issue of the funding provided to housing authorities for the provision of emergency accommodation in 2024 and 2025. Supporting individuals and families at risk of, or experiencing, homelessness is a priority for Government and me. Critical to this is increasing the supply of housing. The Government is committed to increasing supply with a record level of €6.8 billion …
I thank Deputy Connolly for raising this very important issue. He has raised this matter with me on numerous occasions and he campaigned on it. The issue of child homelessness in particular is very dear to the Deputy's heart and it is also extremely important to me that we address this issue. The prevention of people going into homelessness is absolutely critical and that is what we are working on. Obviously, there i…
I again thank the Deputy for raising the important issue of homelessness and especially child homelessness. I will continue to engage with him. I will meet the two Galway local authorities in the coming weeks. I will head to Galway to meet both the city and county councils. Homelessness is a national issue but it has regional variations in terms of both causation and how we address the particular issues. I am aware o…
I thank the Deputy. The programme for Government commits to the introduction of a new voids programme and work is under way in my Department to develop and roll out that programme. As Minister, my focus is on building on the strong progress made over recent years in tackling local authority vacancy levels, which was supported and enabled by significant Exchequer funding for my Department over the past ten years and i…
I thank the Deputy again for raising the question. I assure him the Government commitment is there to ensure we have a planned maintenance programme for our local authority stock. The largest-ever voids programme was funded by the previous Government in 2020 and the Department provided uncapped funding for those dwellings vacant for more than 12 months in 2020. Subsequently it was acknowledged that legacy vacancy sho…
Again, getting these voids back into play as quickly as possible is essential. Record funding is provided for the local authorities. There is inconsistency across them; there is no question about that. Some local authorities take the view of ongoing maintenance that when the property is vacated it is got back into a state where it can be re-let as quickly as possible. Other local authorities seem to take a considerab…
I thank the Deputy for raising the important issue of expectations for the delivery of affordable housing in 2025. I also thank him for his ongoing engagement on this issue, which is one he campaigned very strongly on. The Government is fully committed to delivering affordable housing at scale and continuing to accelerate housing supply across all tenures.
In 2024, more than 7,000 affordable housing options were del…
I thank the Deputy again for raising this question. It is a matter he has worked very hard on and has campaigned on to ensure we can have those affordable homes, which are an essential part of our housing delivery and to ensure we have private homes people can afford to buy, affordable homes people can access, and social homes across the spectrum so everybody has access to a home they can afford. I hear the Deputy on…
The Deputy is rightly passionate about keeping our young people in this country and providing affordable homes as a key solution to keeping young people here. That is what we want to deliver, and we want to accelerate the number of affordable homes that are being delivered. It is certainly something I regard as extremely important. I am working with each local authority to ensure that those affordable homes are avail…
I thank Deputy Daly for raising this important question in relation to Roscommon County Council and the funding allocated for the tenant in situ scheme for 2025. I thank the Deputy for his ongoing engagement in relation to this important issue.
The Government is providing continuing and substantial financial support to local authorities to acquire second-hand properties for priority categories of social housing need…
I thank Deputy Daly again for raising this very important question. In relation to Roscommon County Council's acquisitions from 2020-2024, the annual acquisitions funding provided for Roscommon for that period was €1.8 million, with €2 million funding provided for them in 2025. During the period of 2020-2024, my Department provided €8.9 million to Roscommon County Council for the delivery of 57 acquisitions. Funding …
I thank Deputy Daly and, indeed, I am always happy to go to Roscommon. I have asked our local authorities to use the full range of options for tenants in situ who have received a notice of termination. Acquiring the landlord's property is one option but it is not the sole option. In some cases, local authorities might use the thousands of new social allocations that they make each year to provide a new tenancy for fa…
I thank Deputy O'Meara for raising the important question around the expansion of the provision of modular housing. I thank the Deputy for his ongoing work and engagement in this important area of housing delivery. My Department, working closely with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and other relevant stakeholders, is progressing work to increase delivery capacity in the residential construction sec…