Coalition sets new housing targets to 2030

The coalition has set a housing target of 303,000 homes between 2025 and 2030.

At a meeting on Monday evening, the party leaders set a target which would see an average of 50,500 homes delivered per year over the period – ultimately reaching approximately 60,000 in 2030.

Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris had said that he wanted to see new targets set before the calling of a general election, widely expected to happen later this week.

The existing targets under Housing for All had set an average of 33,000 homes per annum until 2030.

Senior ministers had said the Government would exceed its 2024 target under that plan of 33,450 – getting close to 40,000 by the end of the year.

The new targets from Government come after the ESRI that the housing demand is projected to be approximately 44,000 per year until 2030, but that projections of housing demand are “very sensitive” to assumptions regarding migration.

Meanwhile, a Central Bank report in September estimated that between 52,000 and 67,000 new homes could be needed per year to meet emerging demand into the middle of the century.

Elsewhere, on Monday, People Before Profit (PBP) said billions of euros in tax receipts from Apple should be used to establish a state construction company.

Ireland is to receive €14.1 billion in back taxes and interest from Apple as a result of a landmark ruling in the European Court of Justice earlier this year.

The judgment restored a 2016 European Commission ruling that found Ireland gave undue tax benefits to Apple, contrary to EU state aid rules.

PBP leader Richard Boyd Barrett said establishing a state construction company is the only way to deliver social and affordable homes at the required scale.

Mr Boyd Barrett said: “The housing crisis in Ireland continues and will not be solved by repeating the same failed private market-based policies and actions that successive FF and FG governments have pursued.

“We need tens of thousands of social and affordable homes built each year to cater for the many paying extortionate rents or stuck on housing lists year after year.

“The private building industry cannot build on the scale required.”