250000 homes: Simon Harris makes housing promises at odds with ...

The Taoiseach-designate’s dramatic pledge last night came as the latest Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks opinion poll finds housing the number one issue with a significant majority of the public.

In the poll, housing (59pc), up 11 percentage points in a month, is well ahead of healthcare (31pc), the cost of living (27pc) and immigration (26pc) as the public’s top priority.

In his first major speech last night as Fine Gael leader, Mr Harris, who will be elected Taoiseach by the Dáil on Tuesday, claimed: “We will build 250,000 homes over the next five years.”

This would represent a significant increase in the current level of house building — or even targets.

To meet Mr Harris’s new target, the Government would need, on average, 50,000 new housing units built a year between now and 2029-2030.

However, the Government’s Housing for All plan contains a target of 33,000 new units a year, on average, up to and including 2030.

This includes, on average, 10,000 social housing units, 4,000 homes for affordable purchase, 2,000 cost-rental homes and 17,000 private homes.

A total of 32,695 new homes were completed last year, exceeding the 29,000 target set out in the Government’s housing plan.

In March last year, Leo Varadkar, who steps down as Taoiseach on Tuesday, said there was a deficit of 250,000 homes and it would “take a long time” to resolve the State’s continuing housing shortage crisis.

Last month, Mr Varadkar also said increasing housing targets to 50,000 a year was not achievable this year or next.

However, speaking in the Dáil, he said the Government believed such a target was achievable in the longer term.

At the time, the ESRI had said the Government’s housing targets were too low to meet population growth.

In response, Mr Varadkar said 40,000 homes needed to be built every year and the Government was “ramping up” to that under the Housing for All plan.

Now Mr Harris has dramatically upped the ante for the Government he will lead, with a promise to build 50,000 homes a year over the next five years.

In his speech last night, he also said that under his leadership, Fine Gael would extend the Help to Buy scheme for a further five years, and for those renting, the renter’s tax credit “should be increased”, he said, to more than €1,000.

“We will grow our construction labour force because talk doesn’t build houses,” he also said.

However, by promising to build 250,000 houses in five years, Mr Harris has left himself open to an accusation of over-promising.

In an article in the Sunday Independent today, Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin highlights a series of housing targets missed by the Government.

He said its vacant property refurbishment grant target was missed by 83pc, its affordable home purchase home target by 62pc, its cost rental target by 59pc and its First Home Scheme by 44pc.

However, a Central Statistics Office report last January said 32,695 homes were delivered in 2023 — a 10pc rise on 2022, the largest annual delivery in 15 years.

Tánaiste Micheál Martin recently said the Government had gained “momentum” in housing.

Fine Gael leader Mr Harris’s revised housing promise comes as today’s opinion poll also finds that a significant 57pc say housing should be his greatest priority ahead of other priorities identified by the Taoiseach-designate himself such as tackling crime (9pc) and helping small businesses (5pc).

The state of the parties is: Sinn Féin (26pc), down one point; Fine Gael (21pc), down one; Fianna Fáil (16pc), down one; Social Democrats (6pc), unchanged; Aontú (4pc), unchanged; Green Party (4pc), unchanged; Labour (3pc), unchanged; Solidarity-PBP (2pc), unchanged; and Independents/Other (17pc), up three points.

Today’s poll records Sinn Féin’s lowest level of support since January 2022 when the Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks monthly series began.

Increased support for Independents comes at a time when the accommodation crisis for immigrants remains a potent topic with the public: immigration (26pc) is up three points as an issue in a month.

Mr Harris’s leadership approval rating is also gauged for the first time: at 41pc approval, he comes in behind Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin (47pc), unchanged; social Democrats leader Holly Cairns (42pc), up one point; and ahead of Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald (39pc), unchanged; Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín (35pc), up a significant eight points; Labour leader Ivana Bacik (33pc), unchanged; and Greens leader Eamon Ryan (24pc), down one.

The poll also finds strong, though minority, opposition to the Government’s Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences Bill and a strong minority view that the Government has become too liberal/left wing on social issues.