Construction firms are at the housing committee - here's what they want to improve delivery

A NUMBER OF construction companies and property developers are set to highlight some of the barriers to delivering more housing supply at the Oireachtas housing committee this afternoon. 

Representatives from the Irish Home Builders Association (IHBA), Cairn Homes, Castlethorn, Glenveagh Homes and the Housing Alliance will tell TDs and senators that a lack of infrastructure, slow planning and policy barriers all act as hurdles to increasing supply.

IHBA housing director Conor O’Connell will say that there were 36,284 residential units completed in 2025 and just under 8,000 completions in the first quarter of this year.

He will say that Ireland’s housing challenge is “fundamentally one of delivery” in a system where there are multiple constraints suppressing delivery at scale. 

“Housing output in Ireland does not fall short because of a single point of failure – it is the result of an ecosystem of barriers across planning, cost, infrastructure and policy.”

O’Connell will say the IHBA’s biggest concern is supply of zoned land over the coming years and the capacity of state agencies and the planning system to deliver infrastructure to enable housing supply.

He will say the process for development plans is often too slow and inconsistent to respond to urgent housing need, which means that suitable land is not always brought forward fast enough.

He will also tell the committee that the cost of constructing homes has increased “substantially”, and that where land is zoned and viable, delivery can’t proceed without timely access to transport, electricity and water infrastructure.

He will say it is “vital” that the National Transport Authority, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, Uisce Eireann, ESB Networks and Eirgrid “now proceed at pace with infrastructural delivery”.

Cairn Homes CEO Michael Stanley will tell the committee that while significant progress has been made, “Ireland’s structural housing deficit remains an unresolved challenge”.

He will highlight how delays in enabling infrastructure are a “considerable barrier to further progress”, and that targeted investments in areas like energy, water and public transport are “critical to enable our industry to meet our national housing targets”.

Stanley will say that Cairn believes that the housing crisis can only be met “from scaled apartment delivery in our towns and cities”, where multimodal public transport is often required as a planning condition.

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“Following our analysis, it would appear many transport infrastructure initiatives are stuck on the rank,” he will say. “We would encourage policymakers to prioritise some of these key projects where possible, recognising that achieving our ambitious housing targets is intrinsically linked to transport infrastructure delivery.”

Castlethorn chairperson David Kennedy will tell the committee that his firm is forecasting that it will deliver 1,350 housing units in Dublin this year, increasing to 1,650 in 2027 and to over 2,100 in 2028.

This, he will say, is sensitive to the local authority planning system operating efficiently to secure planning approvals, the “contemporaneous” delivery of public sector infrastructure and the continued support of government affordable housing programmes.

“Failure on any of these fronts could easily and quickly result in a reversal of the positive trajectory and a material reduction in overall housing delivery in the coming years, not just for Castlethorn, but across the sector as a whole,” he will say. 

Kennedy will say that reform and resourcing of planning at local authority level must happen, citing that the timelines from securing a site to commencing to build houses or apartments “can be upwards of 36 months”.

He will say this is partly due to “unnecessarily sequential processes” and resource challenges in local authority planning teams, which “will only get worse” as demands grow due to increased output.

He will also call for “multi-annual budgets and frameworks” for apartment delivery.

“Planning for delivery in 2028, 2029 and 2030 and beyond is happening today,” he will say, adding that being able to plan ahead in the knowledge that exchequer budgets for social and affordable supports will continue to be available to support delivery in those years “is critical”. 

Housing Alliance policy lead Brian O’Gorman will also appear before the committee. The alliance is made up of seven approved housing bodies (AHBs) which manage over 50,000 social and affordable homes across the country.

O’Gorman will highlight how Ireland’s social housing stock stands at under 11% of total housing. The European average is over 15%, with France, the Netherlands and Germany all operating at significantly higher levels.

“Ireland’s deficit is not a funding anomaly; it reflects decades of under-investment that this sector exists to address,” he will say.

“In the current housing crisis, the country needs every new home it can deliver. It is vital that all channels of supply are used to ensure that AHBs are delivering as many homes as possible across all tenures.”

He will also say that the approvals process must reflect how homes are actually built.

“Social rental, cost rental, special needs housing and communal facilities on a single site are constructed under a single contract. They are assessed and approved as separate components. Coordinating those approvals would accelerate delivery at no additional cost to the State.”

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