Labour Party wants State as the 'direct provider' of 50,000 new homes per year
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Reforming the Land Development Agency into a state construction company would allow for house prices to fall and increase the number homes being built, Labour leader Ivana Bacik has said.
Ms Bacik launched the party's new housing policy, simply known as Build More Homes, at its first press event of the campaign in Dublin. Her party has pledged to work towards building an average of 50,000 homes per year up to 2030.
Targets set out by the party for next year are in line with the revised Housing for All targets, but for 2026 the party wants to deliver 12,000 new social homes, 4,000 cost rental homes, 4,000 affordable homes and 25,000 private houses.
Ms Bacik criticised the existing Government’s housing plan, particularly lashing out at them over the number of people entering into homelessness.
“Homelessness figures are now at a shocking level, an unprecedented level. 14,760 people homeless, including 4,561 children. The first time, last month, the number of children in homelessness has exceeded 4,500,” Ms Bacik said.
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"It’s a shocking rate and a shocking legacy this government leaves as we embark on the dissolution of the Dáil today.”
On LDA reform, Ms Bacik said unlike other opposition parties, Labour supports the principle of the LDA and it is the appropriate vehicle to deliver State-owned homes.
She said the LDA needed to be “transformed” and radically resourced to provide it with greater capacity to deliver houses, calling for the body to directly employ construction workers.
“It’s simply giving the Land Development Agency, the existing entity the power and the resources to provide houses directly and that is the missing link that has been absent from government plans, which have been reliant far too extensively on private sector delivery,” Ms Bacik said.
“It will create a virtuous circle where we see house prices falling and increased delivery.”
Pressed on what protections Labour would put in place to prevent homeowners from going into negative equity, Ms Bacik said that her party wanted to end boom and bust cycles for housing.
She admitted there is an issue of people going into negative equity, while saying that homeowners are aware of the potential risks of dramatic price rises and falls.
“What we are seeking to do is to create a more stable housing market and that’s the key difference that a large State actor can make,” Ms Bacik said. “We’re talking about this being done incrementally… There isn’t going to be any cliff edge for anyone.”
The party has also promised to roll back existing government policies, including the Help to Buy scheme and the First Homes scheme.
However, it has said that it will replace the Help to Buy scheme with a new policy known as Save to Buy, which it compared to previous SSAI schemes in the early 2000s.
This new scheme would contain income limits, after saying that the existing scheme disproportionately benefits high-income households.
The party is also proposing a new Rent to Buy scheme, which would apply to people living in cost-rental homes. If individuals live in the property for more than three years and fully pay their rent, they will have a proportion of this rent put towards a deposit for purchasing their home.