Between 85,000 and 100,000 homes per year need to be built to address Ireland’s housing deficit and additional needs by 2030, TDs and Senators have been told.
The estimate was provided to the Oireachtas Committee on Housing by Trinity College Dublin professor Ronan Lyons who was a member of the Housing Commission, which was established by the previous government.
That commission’s report on a wide range of housing issues was published in May 2024. Questions were raised at Tuesday’s committee meeting about its disbandment a short time later.
Another commission member, University College Dublin professor Michelle Norris, claimed a Department of Housing suggestion that the commission’s recommendations were already under way is “not true in any meaningful sense”.
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The current programme for government, which outlines the Coalition’s commitments and objectives, includes a target of delivering more than 300,000 new homes by 2030.
Housing supply will have to increase significantly from the 30,330 dwellings completed during 2024 if this target is to be delivered.
Mr Lyons said the housing deficit is principally shown through elevated household size and the inability of Ireland’s younger adults to set up their own households. The commission’s report put the estimated deficit at 212,000-256,000 homes based on Census 2022 figures.
Sinn Féin TD Eoin Ó Broin asked Mr Lyons the average number of new homes Ireland would need per year up to 2030 to meet the deficit.
Mr Lyons replied: “To be completely blunt the housing deficit is of such scale I don’t think there’s any realistic scenario in which it’s tackled in five years.”
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The deficit is “probably of the order of 300,000 homes now”, he said, adding: “even just addressing the housing deficit in the space of five years ... that would be 60,000 homes a year and then there’s ongoing need on top of that”.
“So you’re talking 85,000-100,000 homes per year if you wanted to get the deficit addressed as quickly as that.” He suggested it could be 10 years before the deficit is addressed.
Later, Independent senator Aubrey McCarthy and Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne asked about the disbandment of the commission.
Its chairman, former Housing Agency chief executive John O’Connor, told the committee the commission was “disbanded because we had finished our work”.
“Our task was to do a report on this and make recommendations,” he said. He said it “would still be beneficial if there was more engagement with the Housing Commission to understand the recommendations.”
Another member, former Irish Congress of Trade Unions general secretary Patricia King, said that “within days” of the publication of the report the Department of Housing said “two-thirds of the recommendations are already done and one-third are in train, and we were disbanded and that was the end of our association with it”.
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Mr Lyons said the department’s response is contained in a document that shows “ticks” beside the recommendations it believed were under way.
Ms Norris contended: “It’s just simply not true in any meaningful sense that they’re currently under way.”
Asked about these remarks, a Department of Housing statement said it is “currently assessing the report of the Housing Commission”.
It said the assessment is “complex”, given the breadth of housing policy areas covered, and “it is looking at prioritisation, cost implications, sequencing, timing and the practicalities of implementation”.
“The assessment is being supported by an ongoing analysis of priority recommendations by the Housing Agency, and follow up engagements with the Housing Commission.”
“The work of the commission has been acknowledged extensively by Government,” it said.
