Irish Government's new strategy for the property sector

Amani Omar

— 2 min read
Irish Government's new strategy for the property sector
Photo by Nicholas Chester-Adams / Unsplash

On 13 November 2025, the Irish Government published its new housing strategy: Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025‑2030, a bold plan to accelerate home-building and reduce homelessness.

  • 300,000 homes by 2030: This includes 72,000 social homes and 90,000 Starter Home supports.
  • Massive infrastructure investment: Over €275.4 billion committed under the updated national development plan, including €12.2 billion for the water sector.
  • Regulatory and taxation reforms: Measures to unlock private-sector delivery, zoning more land, reducing planning delays, lowering VAT for apartments, and supporting cost-rental through tax incentives.
  • Construction & innovation push: The Plan sets a target that at least 25% of new social and affordable homes will use Modern Methods of Construction (MMC).
  • End dereliction and vacancy: New tax for derelict properties, grants to refurbish vacant units, and bringing 20,000 homes back into use.

What It Means for People

Supporting People

  • A dedicated Homelessness Prevention Framework will be introduced, including €100 million for second-hand acquisitions for long-term family homeless situations.
  • Expansion of the Housing First Programme: over 2,000 tenancies to help rough-sleepers transition to housing.
  • Tailored supports for older people, disabled persons and Traveller communities are included e.g., enhanced adaptation grants, specialist accommodation.
  • For renters: national rent controls, stronger protections under the Residential Tenancies Board, a published rent price register.
  • For first-time buyers: The “Starter Homes” programme aims to support approximately 15,000 affordable home-ownership supports per year.

Enabling More Housing

  • More land needs to be zoned and serviced: the Plan commits to ensuring a strong pipeline of zoned and serviced land across the country.
  • A new Housing Infrastructure Investment Fund of €1 billion to unblock infrastructure bottlenecks (water, waste, grid) for housing.
  • The Land Development Agency (LDA) will be further empowered/capitalised to play a major role in social and affordable housing delivery.
  • The cost of apartment delivery will be addressed: VAT on apartments reduced, corporation-tax incentives for cost-rental homes.

Key Insights

  • The plan shows scale and ambition: hit 300,000 homes, combine supply-side reform with demand-side support.
  • For people experiencing homelessness or housing stress, this will increase the supply of homes and improve security.
  • For the property & construction sectors: signals strong demand ahead, backed by infrastructure and regulatory support.
  • For communities: combining housing with infrastructure, planning reform and investment in towns/villages could yield more balanced growth.

Final Thoughts

“Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025-2030” is a big step, combining high ambition (300K homes) with structural reform (infrastructure, planning, tax, construction methods). If executed well, this could significantly ease Ireland’s housing crisis and make meaningful progress on homelessness. But success isn’t guaranteed, much depends on how quickly the commitments translate into real-world building, zoning, servicing, and occupancy.

Source: Government Assets

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