Politics

New housing targets will include ‘pent-up demand’, says Minister

Darragh O’Brien says overall housing target for 2025 will probably be 50,000

Darragh O'Brien says housing target for 2025 will probably be 50,000. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

Vivienne Clarke
Tue Jul 2 2024 - 14:28

“Pent-up demand” will be included in new housing targets, Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien has said after receiving a new report on the extent Ireland’s housing needs.

A report from the ESRI, published on Tuesday, shows that 35,000 to 53,000 new dwellings will be needed every year based on 12 different projected population growth scenarios.

The research was based on future demographic projections but does not factor in current “pent-up demand” for housing.

Mr O’Brien told RTÉ radio’s News at One new housing targets would be published later in the year for 2025 onwards, which will include pent-up demand. The headline target would “likely” be 50,000 homes a year, he said.

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“I’ve said very publicly many, many times that when I took over as minister, we were dealing with 10 years of very significant undersupply in housing. And once we caught up with good delivery, we built 110,000 new homes since I took over as Minister. There still is that pent up demand that needs to be addressed.”

[ Between 35,000 and 53,000 homes ‘needed annually to meet demand’ ]

The ESRI research, which was funded by the Department of Housing and Local Government, was based on forecasts for population levels and related housing requirements using census and research data, as well as various forecasts on international migration patterns.

Asked whether he had put pressure on the ESRI to omit “pent-up demand” in its report, Mr O’Brien rejected the suggestion.

He said a number of reports on housing had been conducted, including one from the Housing Commission that said the deficit of homes was 256,000 while another from the Central Bank said it was 121,000, while a further report from Housing Europe said it was about 180,000.

“I have said as Minister that the pent-up demand will be included in the new housing targets, and I want to ensure that it is. I think it’s important that it is so that any target that I have set so far, we have exceeded. The targets have been the floor, not the ceiling. So the revised targets that we published probably September, October this year, certainly in the autumn, will absolutely include pent-up demand.

“But I think you can see from the really good piece of work that the ESRI did in looking at future housing demand. And we have to take that into consideration. There are many factors that feed into that. And they’ve given 12 separate scenarios. So it’s not that you can pick a figure out of the sky.”

Vivienne Clarke

Vivienne Clarke is a reporter

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