Date for your diary Ireland’s Housing Conference 2022 Wednesday 2 February • Radisson Blu Royal, Dublin / Online

Experience of the Covid-19 pandemic has evidenced the need to deliver decent, adequate, affordable, and sustainable housing for all by 2030, as per the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

In this context, the fact that not everyone has access to a safe, secure, and affordable home or is enabled to live, work, learn, and socialise in a vibrant and cohesive community has been transparently exposed. Consequently, housing policy will remain firmly on the agenda of governments beyond this decade.

Improved affordable housing outcomes can simultaneously address ongoing climate action obligations and ambitions, while stimulating socioeconomic recovery required in the wake of the pandemic.

Published in September 2021, the Government’s Housing for All plan has been heralded as a radical departure from Rebuilding Ireland and the “largest State building programme in our history”.

Underpinned by an average annual investment exceeding €4 billion, the Government believes that the new housing plan for Ireland can embed environmental, economic, and social sustainability into the housing system.

With a promise to deliver 300,000 homes by 2030, including 90,000 social homes, 36,000 affordable homes, 18,000 cost rental homes, and 156,000 homes from the private market, Housing for All contains four pathways:

1. Pathway to supporting home ownership and increasing affordability;
2. Pathway to eradicating homelessness, increasing social housing delivery, and supporting social inclusion;
3. Pathway to increasing new housing supply; and
4. Pathway to addressing vacancy and efficient use of housing stock.

Specific commitments include: increasing overall supply; delivering more social housing; the delivery of three schemes to increase affordability; implementation of greater protections for renters; support for those experiencing homelessness; planning changes to reduce delays in consolidating supply; addressing vacancy; and long-term measures to ensure sustainability.

In this context, the 2022 conference will host a variety of expert domestic and international speakers who will comprehensively explore the latest ambitions, challenges, and tangible opportunities for Ireland’s housing practitioners.