Irish housing policy often presents a false choice between affordability and viability. In reality, neither can exist without the other.
Homes that are unaffordable fail households. Homes that are unviable won’t get built. If Ireland is serious about solving its housing crisis, it must place viability at the heart of the planning system while ensuring the benefits of increased supply flow through to purchasers and renters.
Minister for Housing James Browne’s comments in his recent Business Post interview highlight this challenge.
He described Ireland’s housing market as “dysfunctional” and acknowledged that apartment development currently struggles to survive without substantial State support.
Direct State interventions through subsidies, schemes and tax measures are estimated to reach almost €12 billion this year. While these measures have supported apartment delivery in the short term, the Minister is correct to ask how Ireland can eventually move towards a market that stands on its own feet.
There are encouraging signs. Reforms to the rental sector and last year’s VAT measures for apartment development have helped restore confidence among international investors. Investment capital is gradually returning to the Irish residential market.
However, finance alone will not solve the problem. Homes will only be delivered at scale if planning, infrastructure and development economics are aligned.
This is where Ireland can learn from continental Europe. Across countries such as Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden housing viability is not treated as an afterthought. Instead, it is built into the planning system from the outset.
Ireland would do well to pay close attention to differing housing policies in Spain
Local authorities typically prepare detailed plans supported by infrastructure programmes, development agreements and delivery strategies. Before land is released for development, authorities assess infrastructure requirements, servicing costs, development phasing, affordable housing obligations and overall deliverability.
The objective is not merely to maximise theoretical housing numbers. It is to ensure that plans can actually be implemented.
Ireland’s discretionary planning system has historically taken a different approach, which makes it a European outlier. Development plans often identify ambitious growth targets and density objectives without demonstrating how they will be financed or delivered.
Infrastructure commitments frequently lag behind zoning decisions. As a result, housing viability becomes a problem to be resolved at the planning application stage, long after land has been purchased and expectations set.
The consequences are becoming increasingly apparent.
Recent debates around apartment delivery have highlighted the tension between density policy and development economics. While medium-density, low-rise housing remains viable in many locations, higher-density development often requires apartment-led schemes. These projects can face substantial challenges arising from construction costs, financing costs, regulatory requirements and infrastructure burdens.
The lesson is not that density is undesirable. Rather, it is that density objectives must be aligned with deliverability. Planning policy should be grounded in the realities of the market, not in abstract aspirations.
A more effective approach would make viability a statutory requirement of plan-making. Development Plans, Urban Area Plans, Priority Area Plans and Urban Development Zone Masterplans should all be required to demonstrate how proposed housing targets can realistically be achieved.
This should include infrastructure cost assessments, housing typology analysis, viability testing, delivery projections and implementation phasing.
The central question should be simple: can this neighbourhood actually be built under current market conditions?
Such a framework could distinguish between three levels of growth. The first would identify deliverable sustainable density based on current market conditions. The second would identify target density achievable through public investment and policy support. The third would identify longer-term aspirational density that could emerge following major infrastructure investment. This would create more realistic housing projections and improve public confidence in the planning system.
Viability should also be considered when national policies are developed. Ireland routinely assesses the environmental, transport and flood-risk impacts of planning proposals, yet rarely undertakes systematic viability assessments of these proposals. In addition, before introducing new apartment standards, sustainability obligations, infrastructure levies or affordability requirements, Government should examine their impact on housing output. If additional costs reduce supply, compensating measures should be introduced simultaneously.
Most importantly, Ireland should move towards a genuinely infrastructure-led European planning model.
What would happen if Ireland followed Vienna by designing housing with women in mind?
Many successful European cities identify growth areas, fund major infrastructure, prepare detailed three-dimensional masterplans and establish development frameworks before housing applications are submitted. This reduces risk, increases certainty and encourages investment. Developers can focus on building homes rather than navigating uncertainty around servicing, transport or utilities.
Ireland has too often followed the reverse discretionary planning sequence, granting permissions in areas where infrastructure arrives years later or, in some cases, not at all.
The path to affordability ultimately lies in increasing housing supply at scale. But supply will not increase simply because planning authorities set higher density targets or announce more unrealistic housing targets for selected sites. It will increase when land, infrastructure, planning and economics are aligned.
That is the real lesson from European planning systems. The countries that deliver large numbers of homes do not ignore viability. They embed it within the planning system from the beginning.
If Ireland wants fewer housing subsidies, greater private investment and more affordable housing, the solution is not to choose between viability and affordability. The solution is to recognise that one depends on the other.
By creating a planning system that prioritises viable deliverability, Ireland can build more homes, more quickly, and ultimately make housing more affordable for the people who need it most.
Tony Reddy is chairman of Reddy A+U and Property Industry Ireland