Turnkey acquisitions for social housing to be phased out

The purchase of new turnkey properties for social housing is set to be phased out under plans that went before Cabinet this morning.

Minister for Housing James Browne announced that funding for these acquisitions by local authorities and approved housing bodies will end late next year.

This policy change is aiming to get local authorities to take a more hands-on approach to building social housing.

Housing bodies and the Land Development Agency will have a major role too.

Minister Browne has been critical of what he sees as a reliance by councils on buying homes that would otherwise be available on the private market.

The minister also believes these purchases prevent councils and housing bodies from influencing the homes' design.

The new financing rules will not kick in immediately though, and December next year will mark the final funding deadline for turnkey properties.

Speaking on his way into Cabinet, Mr Browne said local authorities had become too reliant on purchasing new turnkey properties for social housing, accusing some of "simply not stepping up to the mark".

We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences

He said local authorities and approved housing bodies were "buying up houses as they were being finished by developers" as the housing crisis deepened.

"That's led to real frustration among ordinary people, and understandably so," he said.

The minister said that it is "critical" that homes are not taken away from the private sector.

"We want to see social housing increase, but we want to see the approved housing bodies, and the local authorities delivering them themselves."

Cabinet updated on Stack apology

Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan updated the Cabinet on the planned Government apology over failings in the investigation into the murder of Brian Stack by the IRA in 1983.

Mr Stack was chief prison officer at Portlaoise Prison during the 1980s and was the sole prison officer in the State killed by violence related to the Troubles.

He was shot in the neck in March 1983 after attending a boxing tournament at the National Stadium in Dublin.

He survived the shooting but was left paralysed, and succumbed to his injuries on 29 September 1984, aged 49.

To date no one has been made liable for his death.

The Provisional IRA admitted responsibility in 2013.

Tomorrow's formal apology to the Stack family is part of Government commitments to address the legacy of the Troubles and the work of reconciliation.

Virtual Record Treasury on agenda

Mr Martin and Minister for Further and Higher Education James Lawless brought a memo to Cabinet outlining the work of the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland.

The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland is an all-island and international research programme at Trinity College Dublin.

It was launched in 2022 to mark the centenary of the destruction of the Public Record Office of Ireland at the Four Courts during the Civil War.

The project provides a digital reconstruction of the records which span 750 years of Irish history from 1172–1922.

To date, more than 500,000 individual records have been recovered, and over 150,000 missing names have been identified from lost 19th century census documents.

The project will receive €625,000 a year in funding until 2030 from the Department of Further and Higher Education.

Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary will also update the Cabinet on the first disability work and skills week.

The programme running this week comprises of 30 events across 17 counties, including job fairs and events focused on disability employment, training and inclusion.

A media campaign will also be launched in November to increase awareness among employers.

Additional reporting Róisín Cullen