The Irish Government’s Housing for All plan is an ambitious document that seeks to address the challenges faced across the Irish housing sector. Jim Clery and and Carmel Logan explain the key goals of the plan and discuss how effective they will be.

On 2 September 2021, the Government released its Housing for All plan – a comprehensive document that accepts the current challenges across the housing sector and sets out a roadmap for the transformation of Ireland’s housing system over the next 10 years.

The plan is influenced by the overall objective that everyone in Ireland should have access to sustainable, good quality housing to purchase or rent at an affordable price in the right location.

In total, Housing for All contains 213 actions under four pathways aimed at achieving the following objectives:

• Supporting homeownership and increasing affordability;
• Eradicating homelessness, increasing social housing delivery and supporting social inclusion;
• Increasing new housing supply; and
• Addressing vacancy and efficient use of existing stock.

The breadth of these actions is noteworthy, encompassing areas across the whole sector from proposed changes to planning law and regulations to significantly increasing the role and responsibilities of local authorities, and tax measures aimed at improving affordability and incentivising housing supply. Moreover, all actions are set in a sustainable context and align with Ireland’s commitments under the climate change agenda.

The ambitious scale of the plan will see a huge expansion of the State’s role in the Irish housing market. That is reflected in the investment the State has committed to its success – an average of €4 billion per annum to 2030.

Importantly, the document has been prepared with a clear view of the need for collaboration, both across Government departments and between the public and private sectors, in achieving the objectives and resolving Ireland’s housing crisis. In addition, the plan acknowledges the need for the country’s housing market to meet demand across various tenures, including private rental accommodation as well as social, affordable, and private ownership housing. The implicit recognition that there is no ‘silver bullet’ to solving Ireland’s housing crisis – that different tenures require different models and that a holistic approach is required to overcome this challenge – is welcome.

The publication of the Housing for All plan is, without doubt, a hugely significant first step in addressing the issues present in Ireland’s housing market. However, given the broad scope of the plan’s objectives and the ambitious targets it sets, it is understandable that specific detail regarding various aspects of the plan remains, at present, unclear.

Jim Clery is Partner & Head of Real Estate at KPMG.

Carmel Logan is Partner at KPMG.

You can read more about this topic at KPMG.