Latest news with #EoinÓBroin
RTÉ News
11 hours ago
- Business
- RTÉ News
Shortage of planning staff causing housing delays
Sinn Féin's housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said a shortage of planning staff both in councils and in An Bord Pleanála is causing an excessive delay in building houses. Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, he said the Government has stated that the goal is to have 120 planners graduate each year, but it is not clear how this will be achieved in the Government's housing plan. He said that the Government has its "head in the sand" and is ignoring advice from the professionals. "Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael repeatedly have been told by the utilities, by professional planners, by people involved in public and private sector residential development what is required to get to the level of social affordable and private home ownership, new build homes that's required," he said. "We need a workplace plan from the Government and centralised planners are not necessary as decisions are best made locally", he added. He said that three years ago, the Government asked the City and County Managers' Association, the body that represents local authority managers, to do an assessment of how many additional planning staff they needed to meet the planning requirements at that time. Mr Ó Broin said the report, which was given to the department in 2022, said that local authorities needed an additional 541 planning staff. However, he said the parliamentary question that he got back from the minister last week stated that the Government provided sanction for 213 of those staff, but only 86 of those have been employed. "So less than half what was required has been sanctioned, and less than half of that again has been employed. And in my dealings with local authorities they're telling us all the time, both in their housing departments and in their planning departments, they have a problem with retention," Eoin Ó Broin said. "They don't have enough staff and there really doesn't seem to be any coherent plan from Government to address this," he said. "And the direct consequence is it is taking far, far too long, both for local authorities and An Bord Pleanála, who also have a staffing deficit, to make crucial decisions, decisions on underlying critical infrastructure, housing and renewable energy projects," he stressed. "We're not training up sufficient planners. We're also not able to keep all the planners that we're training and we're not making it as easy as we should do for people who might be, say, engineers in local authorities or related professions who want to scale up on the job and move across into planning," the Sinn Féin TD said. He also criticised the Government's "so-called resources plan" saying it does not say how many planners the country has, or how many it needs. "They say they want to get to 120 a year but they don't say how we're going to get to that number," he said. "I've met with the Irish Planning Institute, I meet with public and private sector professional planners and they've been shouting about this for a very, very long time," he stated. He said the Government can not plan for investment in water infrastructure or the electricity grid. "They haven't invested in a plan to ensure we have an adequate number of planners, both in the public and private sector side. And that's one of the single biggest reasons why planning decisions and planning decisions on housing are being delayed," he said. "We're about to have a revised national development plan and revised set of housing targets," he said. "If there isn't an adequate workforce plan to set out from 2025 to 2030, how many additional planners we're going to recruit each year, then the Government is not going to meet its housing targets, its critical infrastructure targets its renewable energy targets and of course that will make working people's lives ever more difficult," he concluded.
Extra.ie
16 hours ago
- Business
- Extra.ie
Government warned that Rent Pressure Zone system has to change
The Housing Agency has advised the Government to change the current system of Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs), understands. The agency's report is understood to have laid out several options to Minister for Housing James Browne. They include making no changes and allowing RPZs to lapse and return to market condition at the end of the year, retaining the current 2% system, and making changes to the system. Minister for Housing, James Browne TD. Pic: Sam Boal/Collins Photo No specific percentage increases to the current system are referenced in the report. RPZs have repeatedly been highlighted as a barrier to luring foreign capital into the struggling housing market. The measures limit annual rent increases to 2% in designated Rent Pressure Zones. RPZs were introduced in December 2016 in a bid to curtail rapidly rising rents by capping annual rent increases at 4%. The cap was reduced to 2% in December 2021. Mark Cassidy, Director of Financial Stability at the Central Bank, told the Oireachtas Housing Committee last week that institutional investment has declined by 80% since 2022. The Department of Finance. Pic: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos An analysis by the Department of Finance last year on the availability, composition and flow of finance for residential development highlighted RPZs as something institutional investors wanted dropped. The report found € 20 billion is needed annually in order to build 50,000 homes each year, with € 16.9 billion of this coming from institutional investors who told the Government RPZs need to go if they want their capital. The Coalition leaders, Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris, last night met to discuss the range of options. It is understood Mr Browne is formulating an option not contained within the Housing Agency's report but influenced by it. Pic: Sasko Lazarov/© One option previously floated was to allow landlords to reset rents when a tenancy ends. However, there are concerns that this could incentivise evictions. The Cabinet committee on housing, comprised of senior ministers, will meet on Thursday to further discuss the plan ahead of a memo being brought to Cabinet in the coming weeks. The Opposition has pledged to resist any changes to the RPZs despite the Government saying it will be conscious of renters in any changes it makes. A tax credit for renters was introduced in 2024 and provides €1,000 a year for individuals or €2,000 for jointly assessed married couples or civil partners. Eoin Ó Broin. Pic: Niall Carson/PA Wire Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin told that the focus needs to be on increasing supply and not 'punishing' renters. 'Rents are too high. They cannot be allowed to increase even further,' he said. 'Any change to Rent Pressure Zones that allows landlords to hike up rents even further will do little if anything to increase new housing supply, but will impose real financial hardship on tenants. 'The Minister for Housing, James Browne, should focus on increasing the supply of social and cost-rental homes rather than punishing renters with unaffordable rents.' A report by the Housing Commission in July of last year criticised RPZs and proposed to change them to a 'reference rent' system that pegs rent increases to nearby homes of a similar quality. However, this option has been criticised by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), which said it had concerns around the 'practical or feasibility issues' surrounding how to calculate appropriate reference rents in different local markets. Mr Browne is expected to unveil his new housing plan next month ahead of the Dáil's summer recess. Pressure is building on the Government to make significant intervention to stimulate housing supply in the wake of just 30,300 new homes being built last year, despite a promise that close to 40,000 would be constructed. Mr Browne said last week that achieving the target of 41,000 new homes this year will be 'very, very difficult', with some predictions from independent agencies forecasting lower than 30,000 new homes.
Irish Times
20 hours ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Planners needed to speed up housing delivery not hired
Just 15 per cent of the new planners sought by city and county managers two years ago to speed up the delivery of new housing have been recruited, latest figures show. While delays in the planning process are cited by developers, builders and utilities as a big reason for the undersupply of housing, the planning departments of local authorities remain understaffed by hundreds of posts, with only slow progress in filling the vacancies. In 2023, during debates on revised planning legislation, the body that represents city and county managers said that local authorities countrywide needed 541 more planners to keep up with existing demand – and would need more to fulfil an expanded role under the new Planning and Development Act. [ Has Fingal County Council found a solution to our housing crisis? Opens in new window ] In 2023, the Department of Housing sanctioned 101, of which 86 have been recruited to date. A further 112 were sanctioned by the department in January of this year, but none have yet been appointed. READ MORE It means that of the 541 new posts sought by local authority managers two years ago to meet existing demand, just 15 per cent – or less than one in six – have been filled. Government efforts are under way to train more planners and to attract qualified planners from abroad, though progress has been slow 'Lack of staffing is the single biggest reason why planning decisions are taking so long,' said Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin , who submitted a parliamentary question on the issue. Committees of the Oireachtas are back, but why can't Irish politicians ask a good question? Listen | 40:01 'The failure of Government to put in place an adequate multiannual workforce plan for council planning sections and the Bord [Pleanála] is resulting in lengthy delays to housing projects as well as critical infrastructure and renewable energy projects. 'The Government desperately tried to blame everyone else for delays in the planning system, but the simple reality is that without adequate staffing, councils and the board simply cannot cope with the volume of work they have. And this is before any of the new functions in the controversial Planning and Development Act have been enacted.' [ Top finance official raises risks to public finances from surge in housing body deals Opens in new window ] He said that Sinn Féin's housing plan had made provision for an additional 450 planning staff for local authorities on top of the Government's additional sanction, as well as an extra 50 staff for An Bord Pleanála and three more High Court judges. In his reply to the parliamentary question, Minister for Housing James Browne said that his department 'is currently working on a number of measures to increase staffing levels in the local government planning sector ... These supports include the provision of staffing resources and expertise to enable planning authorities to perform their functions efficiently and effectively.' The news comes in advance of a meeting of the Cabinet committee on housing this week, where several controversial issues are expected to be discussed by the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and key Ministers. It is expected that they will agree to expand the role of the Land Development Agency (LDA) to include facilitating private sector development on lands it controls, plans to strengthen the LDA's power to take land owned by State agencies and also to expand its remit beyond cities to towns where housing developments on State lands could be located. The committee is also expected to push ahead with a process to recruit someone to head the Housing Activation Office – the so-called housing tsar – with potential candidates understood to have been identified.
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Sec Gen rejection of ‘housing tsar' shows Government ‘shambles'
Comments by a top civil servant that a Government-appointed 'housing tsar' was not needed underlines the 'utter shambles' of the response to the housing crisis, Sinn Féin's Eoin Ó Broin has said. Mr Ó Broin, the party's housing spokesman, suggested that in making his comment, secretary general at the Department of Housing, Graham Doyle, was speaking for his equivalents in a number of other departments. Mr Doyle made his comments at the Property Industry Ireland (PII) conference in Dublin on Thursday. [ How housing 'tsar' became a PR problem for Government Opens in new window ] Referring to a poll of attendees on whether a housing tsar was necessary, Mr Doyle said: 'I like that poll; I voted no. READ MORE 'We do not need a housing tsar – can I just clear this one up please, once and for all.' His department subsequently issued a statement saying Mr Doyle was referring to his opposition to the term 'tsar', rather than to the role of the head of the Government's new Housing Activation Office (HAO). Asked on RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne show if he thought Mr Doyle was only objecting to the word rather than the position Mr Ó Broin said: 'It's much more significant than that. First of all, it shows the utter shambles that the new administration is making of what was already a very, very bad housing crisis. 'When you go back to the first interview the Minister for Housing James Browne did in February he talked – and this was the Minister's language – about wanting a maverick to knock heads and kick down doors. 'If you have not only the secretary general of the Department of Housing – but I suspect Graham [Doyle] is also speaking for the secretary generals of the Departments of Public Expenditure and Reform, and Finance – absolutely and very publicly and deliberately opposing the proposition, it tells me you have got a problem.' He described the HAO as a 'dead duck, before it has even started' and questioned how the Government would deal with 'resistance' from the Civil Service in implementing the body. On the same programme, Minister of State for Public Procurement Emer Higgins addressed the situation saying: 'I think we all agree that there needs to be a strategic housing delivery office, and ultimately, you need somebody to lead that.' She denied that the Government had used the term 'tsar'. It was her 'interpretation', she said, that Mr Doyle was opposed to the use of the term but was 'on board with the strategic Housing Activation Office which obviously needs a leader'. She said there was a 'recognition' in the Department of Housing that the HAO was necessary and said 'we don't need to get bogged down in terminology the Government has never used'.
BreakingNews.ie
26-05-2025
- Politics
- BreakingNews.ie
Resistance to rent cap change would be like water charge campaign, Ó Broin says
Resistance to an easing of rent caps has been likened to opposition against water charges by Sinn Féin's housing spokesman. Eoin Ó Broin said the 'do-nothing Government is letting people down' as he called for emergency action on housing. Advertisement It comes after the four political parties involved in the 'Raise the Roof' housing campaign – Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, Labour and People Before Profit-Solidarity – announced a protest outside Leinster House next month. Raise the Roof, which is a trade union and civil society campaign, has been involved in several demonstrations since 2018. The next protest is scheduled from 6pm on June 17th and will coincide with a private member's motion on the housing crisis. At a joint media opportunity on Monday, Mr Ó Broin said: 'There is a growing anger and growing frustration at a Government that has completely abandoned communities, abandoned people in housing need, abandoned people in need of affordable childcare, abandoned people in need of vital supports for children with special needs or people accessing education or healthcare. Advertisement 'And at the centre of that is an ever-deepening housing crisis.' Asked how opposition parties would counter any move by the Government to reduce protections for tenants under Rent Pressure Zones, Mr O Broin said: 'Any move by Government to allow landlords to increase the rent burden on tenants – a rent burden that is already far too high – will be strongly resisted not just by our political parties here and the Raise the Roof movement, but I think by thousands and thousands of people. 'Industry is looking for the caps to be raised, they're looking for the caps to be waived in between tenancies, and they're also looking for the caps not to apply, not just to new rental stock but new rental stock over a period of time. 'The consequence of that will be – at a time when average rent is already over 2,000 euro a month – for rents to spiral ever upwards.' Advertisement He said that would be 'unacceptable' and added: 'Just as we've done in the past with the likes of Right to Water, we will put pressure inside the Oireachtas and without to force the Government to stand by renters and not heap extra pressure on them – and that will be one of the key actions on the 17th. Attempts to introduce metered water charges as part of the bailout programme were abandoned in 2017 after numerous mass protests. Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne said the housing crisis has deepened into a 'social catastrophe' and disaster'. He said his party would be 'actively and vociferously' opposing any attempt to remove rent caps. Advertisement Mr Hearne said: 'We need a change of direction and emergency action on building social and affordable housing on a huge scale.' Labour TD Marie Sherlock said there was a need for 'radical change' in housing delivery, adding: 'The level of despair out there is absolutely incredible; a degree of fatalism that housing will not be fixed in this country – and it has to be.' People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Paul Murphy said: 'In 2016, when we had the general election, you had just over 5,000 people in emergency accommodation. 'By the time of (the) 2020 general election, we were up to just over 10,000 people and by the time of the general election just gone, we were at about 15,000 people in emergency accommodation. Advertisement 'Over the course of that time, rents have doubled and house prices are at an all time high. (left to right) Paul Murphy of People Before Profit-Solidarity, Sinn Fein's Eoin O Broin, Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne and Labour TD Marie Sherlock. Photo: Niall Carson/PA. 'If we continue in the way we are going, by the time of the next general election we will have well over 20,000 people in emergency accommodation in this country, rents will have risen by another 40% or so – and house prices will be just so out of reach for ordinary people.' He added: 'We simply cannot wait until the next general election, we know what direction that this Government is pointing in: It is a government for landlords, by landlords – and for developers.' Mr Murphy, who was involved in the protests against water charges, called for the declaration of a housing emergency and added: 'We need to act. That means pivoting away from reliance on the private sector, reliance on the market to deliver housing and instead for a much, much greater role of the State.' Asked for details of what would be included in the motion, the representatives said that would be announced at a later date.
