Mick Clifford: If housing is a priority, why are 5,000 homes stuck in limbo?

Despite government promises of a 'step change,' funding delays and bureaucracy are worsening Ireland’s housing crisis instead of solving it

Architect and housing analyst Mel Reynolds told the 'Irish Examiner' there may be fewer house completions this year than the 30,300 last year, and it won’t be much more in 2026. Picture: iStock

The section on housing in the programme for government is entitled ‘accelerating housing supply’.

The preamble to the section states what is colloquially known as the ‘bleedin’ obvious’.

“Housing is a major social and economic challenge that touches every generation,” it reads.

“This government will prioritise a radical step change in housing supply to rise to that fundamental challenge.”

Why is a step change needed? 

Why a step change is required between the last government and this is not outlined. The principal components of the two administrations, the civil war parties, remain the same.

Not much has changed in the depth of the crisis between October when they last sat around a cabinet table and January when the new programme was formulated.

Still, the suggestion of a step change infers that it is finally dawning on the government that the housing crisis is a social emergency.

Yet, despite the strong words about change, the evidence so far is that if anything, the step change is towards less, not more housing.

As reported in the 'Irish Examiner', there are now sober predictions that we will have less rather than more housing completions this year.

Architect and housing analyst Mel Reynolds said that it could hit less completions this year than the 30,300 last year, and it won’t be much more in 2026.

“We will be lucky to hit 27,000 this year,” he said. “The biggest single fall-off last year was in private funding for apartment schemes, and it looks like the only ones to be completed this year will be by the Land Development Agency or the approved housing bodies [AHBs]. 

Now you have the funding delay for the AHBs on top of that which will impact this year but also 2026. So for the next two years it looks like it will be struck around or under 30,000.

There are issues around the cost of building apartments that will require some imagination to tackle.

Dithering in an emergency

However, the other reason Mr Reynolds mentions for the lagging completion figures is down to what one opposition spokesperson has described as “dithering”.

At a time of an alleged emergency this, as one source suggested to the Irish Examiner, “beggars belief”.

Last month, the 'Irish Examiner' reported on the delays in funding from the department of housing to build thousands of cost rental and social houses.

These come under two separate schemes. Since last September, funding for schemes that had received provisional approval dried up.

The process by which these schemes are built involves a developer striking a deal with the AHB to build a housing or apartment development and the AHB then approaching the department for funding.

For a whole range of schemes the response for the department was that everything was in order. However, the funding was not provided mainly due to an issue between the departments of housing and public expenditure.

State is awash with money 

According to reports, the department had used up all its allocated funding for the year by last autumn. If this was the main issue, the obvious question is why extra funding was not provided immediately.

The State coffers are awash with money, apart from the windfall of €13bn from the Apple tax money. There is a whole gamut of problems holding up the acceleration of home building, but we are constantly told that money is not one of the those.

It would be reasonable to assume that the one area of public funding to be prioritized at this point is housing. Yet that did not happen.

A few days after the Irish Examiner revealed that funding had been delayed for nearly six months, the Cabinet approved an immediate injection of €450m for social and cost rental housing.

That was three weeks ago.

Yet, according to a number of sources in the industry, the shovel ready projects that were waiting on the nod about the money have not yet received it.

There are up to 5,000 homes either earmarked for construction or paused in the course of construction affected by this impasse.

None of this has to do with ensuring value for money for the state. All of the projects at issues have been assessed and approved.

No reason for funding delay

If the delays were attributable to a change of government, which would be ushering in a radically different policy, or a sudden shock to the national coffers, there may be some method to the madness.

Nothing of that nature is at issue here.

If the spending was to do with some aspect of social or economic policy that wasn’t urgent the inclination to stick rigidly to an annual budget might be understandable.

However, this is housing, “a major social and economic challenge that touches every generation”, and yet there appears to be a complete lack of urgency in contributing to get homes built.

So much for the step change.