Within the first week of February, Dublin Chamber welcomed the European Commission’s decision to allow the Government set up funding under the Croi Conai scheme to tackle the viability gap between the cost of building housing and market prices. 

This funding amounting to between €25,000 and €144,000 per unit will subsidise the cost of building affordable housing across the city region. According to the CSO, there were just 1,407 planning permissions granted for apartments in the four Dublin Local Authority Areas in the last quarter of 2022. The Croi Conai Cities scheme hopes to unlock some 40,000 uncommenced planning applications across Dublin. This will go some way in ensuring that housing targets are reached. 

Many of our members have told us that housing is a major obstacle in the labour market and recruiting into Dublin is hampered by the lack of viable housing options. Speaking after the announcement, Aebhric McGibney; Dublin Chamber’s Director of Public Affairs said “The Government’s Housing for All strategy is ambitious but with innovative thinking in schemes such as this, there will be some movement towards unlocking viable housing stock for people to live and work in Dublin. 40,000 approved planning permissions are uncommenced in Dublin due to cost and we in the Chamber are glad to see funding now approved to get the building of these much needed homes underway”.