Minister Browne establishes new Housing Activation Office
- Published on: 29 April 2025
- Last updated on: 29 April 2025
Office will identify barriers and actions required to speed up delivery of housing
Minister James Browne TD today announced that he has established the Housing Activation Office within the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to ensure a radical step change in housing supply. The new Housing Activation Office will move quickly to address barriers to the delivery of vital public infrastructure projects needed to enable greater housing development.
The new office will sit alongside existing divisional structures in the Department.
Explaining the importance of the new office, Minister Browne emphasised:
“The housing crisis needs rapid responses from all angles and unblocking delivery via a targeted team of experts is one of the first things I identified to be done coming into office less than three months ago.
“We must accelerate housing delivery to meet the needs of families and communities, and to deliver on ambitious targets. The Housing Activation Office will do what it says on the tin - it will have the ability to seek out obstacles to growth, the agility to troubleshoot and ensure smoother delivery. In a nutshell it’s a dedicated, expert team focused on activating sites and getting shovels moving where they are stalled.
“This new team, led by an experienced CEO – will engage, align and in a very practical way pull together stakeholders, including our local authorities, utility and infrastructure providers, and industry to get infrastructure delays moving in a coordinated way and enable an unblocking of housing development.”
“The Housing Activation office is just one of a number key steps I am taking to speed up the delivery of housing – so many parts of the process have to work in tandem and more efficiently, and I am targeting each strand for improvement.
“Supply, supply, supply is a key challenge in housing. People from Kinsale to Sligo to Dublin City Centre are feeling the impacts of the housing crisis and I am determined to move the dial on delivery. No stat on housing is a number on its own to me, it represents someone seeking a roof over their head and a safe, secure community to be part of. Every decision I make right now matters and everything on the table is being strategically considered.
“I am establishing and will directly chair the Housing Activation Delivery Group which will support the Housing Activation Office in developing a coordinated programme of public infrastructure investment. This group will comprise senior people from key Government Departments, as well as infrastructure agencies, regulators, housing delivery agencies and other public sector expertise. As Minister I will also chair the Housing Activation Industry Group, to provide for regular structured engagement between the Office and industry representative bodies. These aren’t committees for the sake of it – I want streamlined, on the ground reporting as to progress in each location and how we can scale up the housing delivery needed.”
The Housing Activation Office will focus on infrastructure needed at a local level to support housing delivery on multiple sites, including the social and community infrastructure needed to support the development of sustainable communities. It will identify and deliver those actions needed to accelerate the delivery of necessary public infrastructure and will have an operational function to unblock issues on the ground.
The Office will work with those Departments and agencies who are engaged in infrastructure development and who will remain responsible for the timely and effective delivery of their infrastructure priorities. The Housing Activation Office will include experts seconded directly from key public infrastructure agencies with detailed knowledge of the relevant infrastructural areas, including Uisce Éireann, ESB Networks, the National Transport Authority and the Local Government Sector.
See Notes to Editor for further information.
ENDS
Notes to Editor
The Housing Activation Office
The Programme for Government 2025 Securing Ireland’s Future, proposed the establishment of a Strategic Housing & Infrastructure Delivery Office under the Minister for Housing to help: coordinate and accelerate home building by unblocking infrastructure delays; and coordinate investment in servicing zoned land.
The Housing Activation Office (HAO) is the delivery mechanism for this commitment.
The Housing Activation Office will:
- Identify and seek to address barriers to the delivery of public infrastructure projects required to enable housing development, through (i) the alignment of funding; and (ii) coordination of infrastructure providers, to enable delivery of housing.
- Engage and align stakeholders, including local authorities, infrastructure providers, industry and others to address barriers in a coordinated way.
- It will have a strategic function, delivering actions to coordinate and accelerate delivery of necessary public infrastructure and an operational function seeking to unblock issues on the ground.
Housing Activation Office Scope of Work
The HAO will focus on two key areas, as follows:
Local Activation: Accelerating housing delivery at a site(s) level.
- The Office will develop a coordinated programme of public infrastructure investment, to address infrastructure barriers that are impacting housing delivery on zoned lands with the potential to deliver housing in the short to medium term.
- The programme will prioritise areas of greatest housing need and areas with the potential to deliver housing at scale.
- The Office will oversee and coordinate the programme of public infrastructure investment by infrastructure providers and other delivery partners, to ensure delivery against agreed timelines and targets.
Strategic Activation: Support public infrastructure planning for the delivery of new sustainable communities on strategic brownfield and greenfield sites identified through the statutory planning system, with a focus on opportunities for Transport Orientated Development in and around Irelands cities.
- Coordinate local authorities, infrastructure providers and other stakeholders to identify the public infrastructure required to enable housing delivery at these locations.
- Develop a coordinated programme of public infrastructure investment to support housing delivery, on a phased basis. The programme will prioritise areas of greatest housing need with potential to deliver housing at scale, aligned to investment in public transport.