Sinn Féin spokesperson on Housing, Eoin Ó Broin TD, has said that tinkering around the edges won’t be enough to fix the housing crisis.

The Dublin Mid-West TD added that only a radical reset of housing policy as recommended by the Housing Commission will undo the damage being done by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael’s failed housing plan.

Teachta Ó Broin said:

“Over the weekend, newspaper reports were filled with speculation on government proposals to tackle the housing crisis. Today the cabinet sub-committee will meet and tomorrow proposals are expected to go to cabinet.

“Tinkering around the edges won’t be enough to fix the housing crisis. Only a radical reset of housing policy as recommended by the Housing Commission will undo the damage done by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael’s failing housing plan.

“The revised National Planning Framework must commit to an average housing output of at least 60,000 homes a year, in line with the Housing Commission. It must also front load the delivery of a greatly increased social and affordable housing output. Talk of only reaching 60,000 new homes by 2030 is simply not good enough.

“Government must also double the level of investment in and delivery of social and affordable homes to an average of 25,000 units a year from now to 2029. Given that this years capital allocation to Housing is around €400m less than in 2024, a few hundred million of additional capital funding for 2025 will not be enough.

“The new Minister also needs to set out what reforms he intends to introduce to ensure that public and private developers can increase and accelerate the delivery of new homes. This must include cutting through the red tape imposed by central government on local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies.

“It also required putting in place a suite of activation measures to enable SME builder-developers to build more good quality homes for people to buy. This should include a targeted waiver of development levies and utility connections, lower cost finance from HBFI, expanding the role of HiSCO delivering site servicing, and increased resources for planning authorities to ensure decisions are made in a timely manner.

“There is nothing in what I am hearing from government that they intend to take these kinds of radical actions.

“Pushing up rents, reintroducing tax incentives for investors and modest increases in capital funding simply will not cut it and will result in the crisis getting even worse.”