Council on track to deliver about 2,000 new social homes this year, says housing manager

Dublin City Council is on track to meet its social housing target for this year, said Mick Mulhern, the council’s housing manager on Tuesday. 

The council was tasked, under “Housing for All”, the government’s housing strategy, with “delivering” almost 9,090 new social homes from 2022 to 2026.

That figure includes its own direct builds, those built or bought by housing charities and the Land Development Agency, and those “Part V” homes it buys as slices of big private developments.

(Those targets fed into an overall national housing target at the time of 33,000 a year, which has recently been increased to 50,500 each year.)

Dublin City Council has missed its Housing for All targets in years past. It hit about 49 percent across 2022, 2023, and 2024, said Mulhern at a meeting of the city’s housing committee.

But this year, the council looks set to exceed the target, he said. “It was a slow start, but I think the ship is moving.” 

The target for this year is 2,122. Dublin City Council’s report showed it delivering 2,165 homes altogether. Not all those, mind, are social homes. Of them, 1,964 are social homes, says a report to councillors. 

Mulhern said he knows that the increased delivery won’t meet the need for social housing in the city where around 30,000 households are on the council’s waiting lists.

“We just need to build more,” said Mulhern. “And we know that.”

At the meeting, Dublin city councillors welcomed the progress, but some also said they were sceptical after years of the council falling short of promised targets. 

“Can we trust the figures?” said Social Democrats Councillor Mary Callaghan. “We all know, we have seen all this before. We have seen great figures.”

Extra details in the figures for social homes also threw up other questions for them, like: why is the council only building 14 percent of the social homes itself? And are enough three-bed homes coming through?  

Mike Allen, the director of advocacy for Focus Ireland, said the report shows that in a couple of years, around 40 percent of the homes planned for council land are cost-rental homes. 

But to directly address homelessness, the council should focus on delivering social housing, not pricier cost-rentals, said Allen. “Every lost social house is a lost opportunity for moving somebody out of homelessness.” 

In the pipeline

Tuesday’s report showed that Dublin City Council, the LDA, private developers and housing charities, are currently on site building almost 6,400 homes.

“Our pipeline looks a lot stronger, and we will exceed our housing delivery target for 2025 and 2026,” said Mulhern. 

There are different reasons as to why it has taken years to ramp up, said Mulhern. “You can’t turn housing projects from nothing on site. It can take three or four years.”

On Thursday by phone, Fianna Fáil Councillor Deirdre Heney – who chairs the housing committee – said she welcomed the news that the council should exceed its target for social homes this year. “It’s a positive news story for the people on the waiting list.” 

But overall, the council is behind on its five-year plan for delivery, she said. “Because of under-delivering the last three years, that has put us under serious pressure.” 

The council fell behind for various reasons, including the Covid-19 lockdowns, construction inflation, and labour shortages, she says. 

At the meeting, councillors could better work out what was happening with a new-look housing supply report, they said. But that also led to more questions. 

Independent Councillor John Lyons and Sinn Féin Councillor Daithí Doolan both asked why the council is only delivering 14 percent of the homes itself. 

Mulhern said that housing charities, known as approved housing bodies (AHBs) are building 44 percent of social homes in Dublin because it is easier for them.

“Ultimately, AHBs are able to access higher levels of grant, they are able to access higher levels of borrowing,” he said.

By phone on Wednesday, Lyons said he wasn’t convinced that the council will deliver more than 2,000 social homes this year. “Let’s see it happen,” he says. 

Any increase in social housing is very welcome, he says, but of course this won’t be enough to meet the need.

He wants to see a monthly delivery report for his local area – which is promised –  so he can track the housing that is built and see when tenants are given homes, he says. “So far we haven’t seen much movement.”

Even the rapid-build projects came in years behind schedule and over budget, he says. “The state doesn’t appear to be able to deliver capital projects, including housing, in a timely, cost-efficient manner.”

Callaghan, the Social Democrats councillor, said at the meeting that she is hearing from housing charities that there is no funding available for social housing. “Everything is stalled because of finance,” she said. “It’s just appalling.”

Also, there is very little social housing being built or planned for Ballymun, she says, while the demand is high. “The figures sometimes hide the absolutely desperate needs of some communities,” she says. 

There are just eight social homes scheduled for completion for the North West Area this year, the report says. 

Also, social housing projects in the area have stalled since the government pulled the plug on funding homes under the public-private partnership (PPP) model, said Callaghan later by phone.

“Ballymun has been really devastated by the PPPs being pulled,” she says. Three developments are affected, she says, including one of 93 homes for older people that had been scheduled to start last year. 

New social housing planned for the North West Area is mostly in Santry, she says, with little being developed in Finglas and Ballymun. 

“We cannot lose sight of the most vulnerable”

In its report, Dublin City Council breaks out what it foresees being built specifically on council-owned lands – rather than on lands owned by other parties – in the coming years. 

Next year, it foresees 1,242 homes on council land: 752 social, 290 cost-rental, and 200 affordable-purchase. 

In 2027 meanwhile, the council foresees 2,980 new homes on council-owned land: 1,510 social, 1,167 cost-rental and 323 affordable-purchase.

Allen, the director of advocacy with Focus Ireland, said he is worried about that split. Dublin City Council should focus on social homes, he says. 

To reduce homelessness, or even stabilise it, the council needs much more social housing, which is the main exit route from homelessness. 

If the council shifts its focus to delivering 40 percent cost-rental housing on council land that means less social housing, he says.

“Does the council have a view as to what the mix should be?” asked Allen, at the meeting.

Social housing is for the lowest-income households, with rents currently set at 15 percent of income for the primary earner, and a small add-on of €21 for additional earners in the household. 

Rents for cost-rental homes are set based on the costs of constructing, financing, and managing the homes – and have to come it at at least 25 percent below market rents. 

They are still unaffordable for many lower and lower-middle income households. Rents for a two-bedroom apartment in Montpellier are set at €1,695 per month, according to the brochure. (Those are new homes built on council land at what used to be O’Devaney Gardens.)

Mulhern, the council housing manager, said that at the moment the plan is that 30 percent of housing built on public land should be cost-rental. 

That mix is something the council’s housing committee could discuss again in the future, he said. 

Callaghan, the Social Democrats councillor, said later on the phone that she supports cost-rental housing, but that the council’s main focus should be social housing delivery. 

“There does seem to be a capacity issue in terms of delivery,” she says. “I agree with affordable rental but we can’t lose sight of those who are most vulnerable.”

People who contact her are really desperate now, she says. “We thought it was bad but it just keeps getting even worse.”