The much anticipated budget for 2027 was released a couple days ago, and within it sits a few key details for housing across tenure types. Keeping with the most recent housing policy, Delivering Homes, Building Communities, much of Budget 2027 is geared towards social housing and first-time homeowners.
What do we know so far?
-We know that there will be €3 billion put towards social housing to fund 11,250 new social houses across the country in 2027.
-Over €1 billion has been allocated for the Starter Homes Programme. This programme is where the likes of Help to Buy, Affordable Purchase Scheme, Cost Rental, Local Authority Home Loan, and First Homes Scheme are all consolidated under.
-Help to Buy will see its maximum increase to €35,000 (up from the previous €30,000 limit).
-Renters Tax Credit will increase by €150, meaning singles can now claim up to €1,150 and couples €2,300.
-The Rent a Room Scheme has increased for homeowners renting out a room to take home €16,000 tax free (up from €14,000).
-Finally, the budget outlines a commitment to a “continued investment in homelessness services”, but did not specify a number or what services will see allocation. A later press release clarifies this (discussed further below), but its to be noted the budget release itself does not.
How will this affect us?
On the surface, this all seems like positive actions on behalf of the government. Of course, building more social housing is a positive and money should be allocated towards it. Same goes for committing to more affordable housing. Nothing wrong with increasing the renters tax credit either.
What I am about to say might sound controversial but hear me out: I think increasing the Help to Buy is a bad idea. All it means is that new build homes are going to increase their prices, essentially washing out any extra you would be getting in the tax credit. Additionally, house prices are increasing well beyond €5,000. Also remember there is a cap on what you can purchase your house for while using the scheme, not allowing you to purchase a home beyond €500,000. This is problematic if you are within Dublin where the median purchase price for a home sits right at €500,000. On top of this, house prices for sale in Dublin are slowing down and are less than the previous year, meaning now is a bad time to be generating more demand-side inflation.
Increasing the Rent a Room Scheme is also a shallow solution, with homeowners even more incentivised to charge extortionate prices for students only allowed to stay 5 nights a week (see my previous blog regarding digs and the lack of rights granted to students for the cost of a small fortune). All it does it appease homeowners who feel forgotten about in the budget, keeping FF/FG’s voter base happy and quiet.
The last point of concern is the aloof mention of “continued investments towards homelessness supports” without actually giving any sort of plan or budget to follow the statement. In a follow up press release by the Department of Housing, Minister Browne says “I am determined to prioritise the most vulnerable in our society and those living in precarious conditions. That is why I have secured €593 million in funding to tackle homelessness and ensure that local authorities can continue to provide emergency accommodation for those who need it.” While it is great that a follow up statement was made regarding the “continued investments”, without knowing about the press release, one would never know what they meant. This continues the same pattern of vagueness by the Government where you never really fully know where they stand until you do further digging. And at the end of the day, all of these housing supports and tax credits are great unless you are one of the 17,885 in emergency accommodation—a number that doesn’t even reflect the true extent of our housing and homelessness crisis. The government are continuing to fail in addressing the real systemic and systematic causes of homelessness in this country—affordability. More emergency accommodation means individuals and families are being made homeless, all while the root causes are not being addressed.
Takeaways
My biggest takeaway from the budget is that the government aren’t all that committed to helping the average every day person, but I didn’t need a budget release to know that. The frivolous, “here, have this” gestures that nobody really asked for are meaningless for a swath of people. My only positive is that social housing is still at the top of their housing goals, which I guess is something given previous iterations of this government and their commitments. But until we see real commitments at addressing the root causes to our housing crises, I will continue to feel lacklustre.
