Minister Browne announces additional €50 million in housing acquisitions funding will be targeted at removing families from long term emergency accommodation
- Published on: 10 September 2025
- Last updated on: 24 September 2025
Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, James Browne today announced that he intends to prioritise and target the recently announced additional €50 million for housing acquisitions to support larger families with children and Housing First clients, to exit long-term homeless emergency accommodation.
To this end, funding will be allocated to the eight city and county councils which generally have the highest numbers of households that have been in emergency accommodation for more than 24 months in the Dublin region and 12 months or more in the remaining four regional authorities. The respective allocations are detailed in the table below.
Progress will be monitored and funding will be reallocated as needed to maximise the impact of the funding for homeless households.
The Minister has already committed €325 million to support a second-hand acquisitions programme in 2025, allowing local authorities to target priority categories of housing need, and recently announced that he would be allocating a further €50 million for additional acquisitions.
Announcing the targeted measure for families in long term homelessness, Minister Browne emphasised:
“We are in a housing crisis, and a crisis calls for swift and targeted measures that get to those who are most vulnerable as quick as possible. I want to see children off our homelessness list full stop, but today’s action is about getting children who are in emergency accommodation for an extended period into safe, secure and permanent homes as all children deserve. This is just one part of significant and ongoing wider work to tackle Ireland’s levels of homelessness, experienced particularly acutely in our capital city which requires decisive interventions like this.
“I am instructing local authorities to specifically target this additional tranche of funding support at family households in emergency accommodation that are being supported to exit emergency accommodation into housing. I want a reduction, on an urgent basis, in the number of families in long-term emergency accommodation.
“This targeted €50 million acquisition programme will complement local authority efforts to exit families from homelessness using other delivery streams and the Housing Assistance Payment. A particular focus will be the acquisition of four-bedroom properties, which have not been available through other delivery streams.”
The €50 million in funding will be provided in the first instance, for acquisitions that can be contractually committed and fully recouped in 2025, though any funding committed but not drawn down in 2025 will be available to local authorities in 2026 to complete acquisitions.
Minister Browne has also confirmed that sufficient funding remains available from the original €325 million allocation to allow all local authorities complete whatever priority acquisitions they have on hand for 2025 delivery. It is estimated therefore that local authorities might potentially complete around 850 acquisitions this year from the €325 million originally allocated, including hundreds of Tenant in Situ purchases. The Tenant-in-Situ acquisitions scheme, which was introduced as a temporary funding measure as part of the department’s second hand acquisitions funding programme, has not been paused or ended at any stage.
Minister Browne has also confirmed funding certainty for local authorities on priority acquisitions during the remainder months of 2025 which may not fall due for payment until 2026 thereby allowing the second hand social housing acquisitions programme to remain open in all local authority areas.
Notes
Housing First
Housing First provides housing with intensive supports for rough sleepers and long-term users of emergency accommodation. Individuals supported by Housing First generally have complex high support needs such as mental or physical health problems, addiction issues or dual diagnosis (the presence of mental ill health and a substance addiction. The Housing First National Implementation Plan was published in 2021 includes a target to establish 1,319 Housing First tenancies by 2026. The implementation of the Plan is a joint initiative of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Department of Health, the Health Service Executive (HSE), the criminal justice sector (the Probation Service and the Irish Prison Service) and local authorities, in conjunction with NGO partners. The Programme for Government includes a commitment to create 2,000 Housing First tenancies.
Indicative allocations from additional €50 million
|
Local authority |
Indicative allocation |
|
Cork City |
€2,000,000 |
|
Dublin City |
€22,000,000 |
|
Dun Laoghaire Rathdown |
€2,500,000 |
|
Fingal |
€10,000,000 |
|
Galway City |
€4,000,000 |
|
Limerick City and County |
€3,000,000 |
|
South Dublin |
€5,000,000 |
|
Waterford City and County |
€1,500,000 |
|
Total |
€50,000,000 |