Government approves establishment of Housing Activation Office

Government has approved the establishment of the Housing Activation Office (HAO) within the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage “to ensure a radical step change in housing supply”.

In Securing Ireland’s Future, the 2025 Programme for Government (PfG), government committed to integrating existing housing delivery groups into a new “strategic housing and infrastructure delivery office” under remit of the Minister for Housing, James Browne TD.

The PfG envisioned that this office would help “coordinate and accelerate home building by unblocking infrastructure delays” while coordinating “investment in the servicing of zoned lands for homebuilding”.

Previously, in the Report of The Housing Commission, published May 2024, The Housing Commission arrived at a consensus “that it is essential to establish a body to address the functional administrative, technical, and practical barriers” in the housing system.

Identifying a Housing Delivery Oversight Executive (HDOE) “as the most appropriate vehicle… for this task”, the Commission recommended its establishment in legislation as a time-limited “decision-making body responsible for coordinating the delivery of housing”.

Cabinet approval

In late April 2025, the Minister for Housing announced cabinet’s approval of establishment of the Housing Activation Office.

Outlining the raison d’être for the new office, the Housing Minister explains: “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 is a dedicated, expert team focused on activating sites and getting shovels moving where they are stalled.”

Objectives

Specifically, the HAO’s three objectives are as follows:

1. Identifying and addressing barriers to the delivery of infrastructure projects crucial to housing development by aligning funding and coordinating infrastructure providers.
2. Engaging and aligning stakeholders to address barriers in a cohesive manner.
3. Delivering actions to coordinate and accelerate the delivery of necessary infrastructure and unblocking “issues on the ground”.

Meanwhile, the HAO’s scope of work focuses on two areas:

1. Local activation

With a goal of accelerating housing delivery at site level, the HAO aims to:

• develop a programme of infrastructure investment which prioritises areas with housing need and greatest potential for delivery at scale; and
• oversee and coordinate the programme.

2. Strategic activation

With a goal of supporting infrastructure planning for the delivery of sustainable communities on strategic sites (with emphasis on transport-orientated development (TOD)), the HAO aims to:

• coordinate stakeholders to identify the public infrastructure required to enable housing delivery; and
• develop a programme of infrastructure investment to support delivery on a phased basis, aligned with investment in public transport.

Structure

Led by “an experienced CEO”, the HAO is tasked with engaging and aligning stakeholders such as local authorities, utilities, infrastructure providers, and industry to “enable an unblocking of housing development”.

While the current NAMA CEO was proposed to cabinet by Minister Browne, as the preferred appointee, subsequent political fallout provoked Brendan McDonagh to withdraw his interest. At the time of print, the HAO CEO has not been officially named.

The Housing Activation Office will be supported by a Housing Activation Delivery Group, comprising senior representatives from key government departments, as well as infrastructure providers, regulators, public housing delivery agencies, and “other public sector expertise”, and chaired by the Minister.

Furthermore, the Housing Activation Industry Group is intended to provide an opportunity for regular and structured engagement between the Housing Activation Office and industry representatives and, again, will be chaired by the Minister.

Staffed by a “multidisciplinary team” of seconded public sector and contracted expertise, the HAO’s terms of reference envision that “expertise will span programme and project management, planning, economic appraisal, infrastructure delivery, engineering, financial and legal etc”.

Managing a planned “multiannual housing infrastructure budget” via the Towns and Cities Infrastructure Investment Fund (to be determined by the review of the National Development Plan), the HAO will also be tasked with coordinating investment by infrastructure providers. Simultaneously, it will be required to “explore co-financing and other delivery models”.

Ultimately, the HAO is intended to deliver:

• a more coordinated and systematic approach to infrastructure enabling housing delivery; and
• a clear investment programme, with delivery metrics, “within six months”.

Reaction

Describing the concept of the HAO as “ill-conceived form the start”, Sinn Féin housing spokesperson, Deputy Eoin Ó Broin remarks: “Along with vaguely defined Housing Activation Delivery Group and Housing Activation Industry Group also announced this week, the combined proposal creates more bureaucracy that will get in the way of public and private sector housing delivery.

“We do not need more red tape or more departmental committees. We need a radical reset in housing policy… they [government] should implement The Housing Commission proposal for a Housing Delivery Oversight Executive with emergency powers underpinned by legislation.”

Labour housing spokesperson, Conor Sheehan TD says: “We have heard plenty of noise about unblocking blockages, tackling shortfalls, and watching delivery, but nothing in black and white as to the legislative underpinning of the office, and if it will do more than check the Minister’s homework.”

Meanwhile, appearing before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing on 10 June 2025, chairman and CEO of the O’Flynn group and former Commission member Michael O’Flynn asserted: “We saw the housing delivery oversight executive, as we call it and which has now graduated into being the [housing] activation office… as a body that would be time limited and established in legislation in order to give it the authority it needs to identify and address the blockages and make things happen across the sector, whether that involves zoning, high delivery zones, infrastructure deficiencies, water, wastewater, or utilities.

“This was a structure that would be introduced to change things immediately… At the time, we anticipated it being in the Taoiseach’s office so that it would operate across departments and make sure that immediate provision of housing would happen where it was not… That is very different from what is now being suggested.”

On the previous day, President of the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI), Gerard O’Toole insisted: “The terms of reference for the [HAO] must facilitate greater collaboration and transparency. Regular and effective engagement with key industry stakeholders will be key to the success of this office. But so also will be accountability and ongoing measurement of activity.

“If the HAO can accelerate planning and procurement processes, improve access to finance for home builders and increase the supply of serviced development land, it will be deemed a success.”