New report raises questions about State support for one-off housing

A new paper published by the Department of Public Expenditure has raised questions over whether the State should continue to provide the current level of financial support for one-off houses, mainly in rural Ireland.

It says that up to €100,000 in various subsidies can be available, and that such one-off houses tend to be much bigger than those in larger multiunit developments.

The paper, prepared by staff in the Irish Government Economic Evaluation Service, says to meet housing demand there is a need for more social and affordable housing as well as higher density urban development. “This raises considerations around opportunity costs, potential displacement and deadweight from continuing to provide untargeted supports for one-off units which are a relatively sustainable delivery stream and may not need significant State subsidies to be delivered.”

The report says that one-off housing is a long-standing tradition in Ireland. It says such houses play an important role in rural living and continue to be supported in national policy through the national planning framework which aims to achieve more balanced regional growth.

The paper says that generally between 4,000 and 5,000 one-off housing units commence construction each year, and one-off housing makes up more than 40 per cent of new completions in the west and Border regions.

The report says that in 2023 the average size of a one-off housing unit was around three times bigger than the average apartment and almost twice the size of multihousing units.

It says many new demand-side supports introduced in recent yeas are broad-based, making them available to high income households and households with substantive assets and funding capacity. Recent policy expansions have made these targeted supports more widely available, such as expanding the First Home Shared Equity Scheme to self-builds. “Higher subsidies allow these households to potentially maximise the size, spec and value of their one-off house.”