Housing Minister out of his depth with no new ideas – Eoin Ó Broin TD
23 April 2025
Sinn Féin spokesperson on Housing, Eoin Ó Broin TD, has said that the Housing Minister James Browne is out of his depth and has no new ideas to solve the housing crisis.
The Dublin Mid-West TD’s comments were made in response to an opinion piece from the Minister in today’s Irish Examiner.
Teachta Ó Broin said:
“James Browne has been Minister for Housing for 12 weeks. Today, he set out his views on how to address the housing crisis in an opinion piece in the Irish Examiner. It is clear from reading the article that the Minister is out of his depth and has no new ideas to solve the housing crisis.
“The opinion piece lists three government policies which the Minister believes will lead to an increase in the supply of much-needed homes. All of these ideas were introduced by his predecessors and will do nothing to address the causes of the crisis.
“Minister Browne says the revised National Planning Framework will lead to more zoned land. The final draft of the NPF was agreed by Darragh O’Brien and significantly underestimates housing need.
“The document states that we need an average of 50,000 new homes a year out to 2040. This figure is not based on any objective assessment to total housing demand. It completely ignores unmet demand, or what the Housing Commission calls the housing deficit. We need at least 60,000 homes a year to meet both unmet and emerging demand. And for every year this level of need is not met the deficit will grow.
“The Minister also talks about setting up a Housing Activation Office. This was tried before by Simon Coveney in 2016 when he was Minister for Housing. The Housing Delivery Office, as it was called then, had no impact on housing output and was moved from the Department of Housing to the Local Government Management Agency.
“It is still unclear what the new Minister’s proposal actually is, who will be on it, and what actual powers it will have. Until we see the detail it is hard to judge, but on the basis of what has been said to date, it is a far cry from the Housing Commission’s proposed Housing Delivery Oversight Executive, with emergency powers backed by legislation.
“Minister Browne is also claiming that the slow enactment of the Planning and Development Bill will increase supply. There is no evidence to support this spurious claim. In fact, all of the professional, legal and industry bodies that engaged with the legislation say that it has the potential to slow down the delivery of much-needed homes and infrastructure. The main problem with our planning system is lack of staff, something which the government continues to ignore.
“Minister Browne is wrong when he says supply is the key. Affordable housing supply is the key.
“This means delivering the right number of homes, in the right place, at the right price to meet people’s needs. The single most important intervention from the government is the delivery of social and affordable homes. As we will see when Minister Browne releases the final 2024 output figures, the government will once again have missed its key targets.
“Unless the government increases and accelerates the delivery of social and affordable homes alongside measures to activate the SME builder-developer sector to build more good quality homes for working people to buy at more moderated prices, then the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael housing crisis will continue. Sinn Féin has set out in great detail how this could be achieved in our alternative housing plan, A Home of Your Own.
“It is clear from Minister Browne’s opinion piece in the Irish Examiner today that he has nothing new to offer – just the same failed policies and hollow soundbites as his predecessors.”
