Tadgh McNally: Will James Browne's reforms deliver on housing?
Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage James Browne speaking to the media at a press conference on the Housing Infrastructure Investment Fund, at the Government Buildings in Dublin. Picture date: Wednesday January 21, 2026.
Housing is “the number one priority for this government”.
You might think this comment came from current Taoiseach Micheál Martin, but it did not.
It did, in fact, come from Simon Coveney, speaking in May 2016 when he promised to tackle the worsening housing crisis.
Every government over the last decade has publicly set their sights on dealing with the crisis, with successive ministers making changes to policy, but progress has been painfully slow.
The housing portfolio has moved from Coveney to Eoghan Murphy to Darragh O’Brien, and finally to James Browne.
Mr Browne has been responsible for a slew of reforms to the housing sector in his year and a half in the job, from reforms to the rental sector to changes to taxation in the sector.
But how effective have these been?
The most consequential changes introduced by Browne have been his reform of rent pressure zones, permitting landlords to reset rents to market rates.
It is the biggest change to the sector in a generation, and has proven controversial in the Dáil and among housing and homelessness campaigners.
Mr Browne and his team have argued the change was necessary in the long run, saying without these changes, there would not have been an increase in apartment delivery.
“We had to do something very important here to drive the supply, because we had seen the supply dry up,” Mr Browne said.
While it has allowed rent resetting, the Government points to stronger protections for renters in the measures, with new restrictions on evictions by larger landlords.
The reform has been strongly criticised by the political opposition and housing campaigners, but also by the Irish Property Owners Association (IPOA) — essentially the landlord representative body.
The organisation had previously warned the reform risked smaller landlords departing the rental market, with IPOA chair Mary Conway saying it would reduce property values.
Ahead of the measures coming into effect, there had been warnings it would lead to increased levels of evictions, with the Residential Tenancies Board documenting this in the first three months of 2026.
There were 7,062 eviction notices issued by landlords in Q1 2026, the highest level on record in Ireland.
There were some significant measures aiming to increase the delivery of apartments in October’s budget
This included a Vat cut on the sale of apartments to 9% until 2030, alongside an enhanced corporation tax reduction for the construction of new apartments.
The latter allows for builders to save “up to €6,000 per unit” on the cost of building, but civil servants have warned this was an upper limit and would likely be “significantly lower”.
One developer, speaking privately, said while some things are positive from the changes, it is “nothing like what’s needed”.
The builder said the rental initiatives introduced by the Government are “helpful”, but viability issues remain, preventing the development of apartments in many areas.
Builders have called for the return of tax breaks to encourage more apartment development, such as those previously used during the Celtic Tiger era.
“The reality is, things happened because of those tax breaks,” the builder said.
One of the first major decisions made by Mr Browne was to establish the Housing Activation Office, to remove the barriers to building houses across the country.
However, he hit a stumbling block when his original choice to lead the office — Nama boss Brendan McDonagh — withdrew over controversy stemming from the salary he would be paid if he took up the role. The controversy prevented the hiring of a so-called ‘housing tsar’ who would oversee the office, with senior civil servant Garret Doocey later appointed.
The office has now begun to issue funding to local authorities, primarily for roads, to get access to key sites for housing. If all projects are delivered, the Government estimates there could be land for 86,000 additional houses unlocked.
The introduction of this measure by Mr Browne was meant to change how new
social housing projects are approved, moving away from an elongated four-stage approval process.
However, it does appear more complicated than how it was originally set out, with a recent flowchart showing that many of the engagement and approval processes from the Department of Housing still apply, so it will take more time to assess the effectiveness of the new approval process, which only came into force earlier this year.
Mr Browne is expected to increase the social housing income thresholds.
His housing plan, ‘Delivering Homes, Building Communities’, also sets out several measures on homelessness, including a new action plan on family and child homelessness.
Additionally, previously-signalled changes to one-off and Gaeltacht housing rules are expected to be introduced as early as this week.
There certainly is more time for this Government to deal with housing, but Mr Browne must be seen to deliver the thousands of homes the country needs to end this seemingly everlasting crisis.
- Tadgh McNally, Political Reporter
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