🏡 New Irish Housing Plan: What Does 'Delivering Homes, Building Communities' Mean for You?

Architex Online
Nov 13, 2025
3 min read

Published: Thursday, November 13, 2025

The Irish Government has just launched its major new housing roadmap, 'Delivering Homes, Building Communities: An Action Plan on Housing Supply and Targeting Homelessness, 2025-2030'.

Following on from the previous plan, this new strategy is ambitious. It's not just about building more houses; it’s about reshaping communities, tackling dereliction, and helping people—whether you are a first-time buyer, a renter, or a current homeowner.

Here’s a breakdown of the key areas and how they might affect you.

1. The Big Picture: What Are the Targets?

The primary goal of the new plan is to deliver at least 300,000 new homes by the end of 2030. While they are moving away from fixed annual targets, this projection signals a significant increase in construction activity across the country.

72,000 Social Homes: A major commitment to increase the supply of public housing.
90,000 "Starter Homes": A focus on delivering more homes for first-time buyers and those on moderate incomes.
Massive Infrastructure Investment: The State is committing an unprecedented amount of funding (€50 Billion in housing and water) to ensure the supporting infrastructure (water, electricity, transport) is in place to allow all this new construction to happen.

2. Unlocking Existing Housing: The Grants You Need to Know About

For existing homeowners, builders, and those looking to buy a fixer-upper, the Government is doubling down on incentives to bring vacant and derelict properties back to life.

The Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant (VPRG)

This scheme, part of the existing Croí Cónaithe (Towns) Fund, is a core pillar of the plan, with a target to bring 20,000 vacant homes back into use.

Grant Type	Max Funding	Purpose
Vacant Home Grant	Up to €50,000	To refurbish a vacant home for personal use or rental.
Derelict Top-Up	Up to €20,000	An extra top-up if the property is confirmed as derelict, bringing the maximum grant to €70,000.

Brand New Grant: The "Above the Shop" Top-up

A significant new measure is the introduction of a grant specifically for converting vacant upper floors (premises 'over the shop') in town centers into residential accommodation. This aims to revitalise our main streets and increase density in urban areas.

Impact: If you own a commercial building with vacant upper floors, this new top-up could make conversion a much more viable option.

New Property Taxes

To encourage the use of land and buildings, the plan includes implementing a Derelict Property Tax, collected by Revenue. This is designed to put pressure on owners of derelict properties to either develop them or sell them on.

3. Support for Buyers and Renters

The plan introduces several measures to support people looking to get onto the property ladder:

Extending the First Home Scheme: This scheme, which helps first-time buyers with a government equity stake, will now be extended to include vacant and derelict properties. This means you can combine the First Home Scheme support with a VPRG to make a vacant home purchase and refurbishment more affordable.
More Affordable Housing Options: The plan commits to delivering more Cost Rental homes, where rents are based on the cost of building and maintaining the property, not market rates, aiming to keep them significantly below the typical rental price.
Tackling Short-Term Lets: The Government is strengthening the regulation of short-term rental platforms (like Airbnb) to bring more homes back into the long-term rental market.

4. Speeding Up Delivery

One of the biggest complaints from builders and the public is the time it takes for a project to get planning approval. The new plan directly addresses this:

Reforming Planning: The Government is committed to reducing "planning, legal and regulatory delays" by improving the planning process and strengthening the laws around judicial reviews.
Faster Social Housing: Local Authorities will use a standardised design and single-stage approval process to speed up the delivery of new social homes.

This new plan signals a major shift in focus, prioritising the efficient use of existing housing stock alongside new builds. For homeowners and potential buyers, the expanded grant schemes for vacant and derelict properties are the most immediate and exciting opportunities.

Online.ie