Breaking through all the barriers

As one of the keystones of the construction industry, the Housebuilding Summit 2024, organised by the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) and the IHBA, brought more than 500 people to Croke Park together to discuss the many challenges and opportunities faced in addressing Ireland’ s housing crisis.

With the theme being ‘Building More Homes for More People’, those attending on Tuesday 16th April were surrounded by all the top players in the field, mentioned by summit chair, Ivan Yates, entrepreneur & broadcaster, in his opening remarks.

“As someone who’s been observing this area, you could not go to a single event and meet more A-listers in thought leadership or more people in C-suite roles [in this sector],” he stated.

Kicking things off was the welcome from the IHBA from Michael Kelleher, group operations director at O’Flynn Group and chair of IHBA, who gave an overview of the challenges faced and progress made in the past twelve months.

More than 33,000 housing units were completed last year, and while it’s a step in the right direction, he mentioned that several critical elements in areas like planning, zoning, and finance were needed to deliver 45,000 to 50,000 units annually.

“Only through collaboration and understanding the different perspectives can we continue to make progress,” he concluded.

It set the stage for Darragh O’Brien, T.D, Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to give the ministerial address.

There’s no silver bullet to make it work. We have to do little steps all the time

Throughout his talk, he highlighted positive developments, including the fact that 37 per cent of buyers using the first home buyers grant are single and that “through hell or high water,” the planning and development bill will be passed in the summer.

“Building is an act of faith in our future as a country; it is an optimism and determination that our country can continue to grow and prosper,” he said.“Every brick laid by a company in this room is an investment in our future and I believe our country’s best days are ahead.”

This made way for the first panel discussion on reviewing the National Planning Framework which featured Paul Hogan; acting assistant secretary for the head of the planning division in DHLGH, Anne Marie O’Connor; deputy regulator for the Office of the Planning Regulator; Dr Kieran McQuinn, research professor, the Economic and Social Research Institute, and Sean O’Neill, CEO of Park Developments.

Infrastructure was one of the main themes of this discussion, with O’Connor mentioning how it’s not just about building units but places for people to live and thrive.

“We’re not just building houses; we’ re building communities for people to live in and work in, and it’s really critical we do that right,” she stated.“We can do both, and we can reach those targets in a socially and sustainable way.”

Following up was the international keynote on delivering affordable housing in Europe, with Federico Nahuel Lazzari, secretary-general and director of communications & public affairs at Build Europe.

He highlighted how housing shortages have been a persistent problem across Europe over the last few years. Of the many aims in Build Europe’ s manifesto, he highlighted one particularly interesting one: to make medium-sized towns and cities more attractive for people.

With more people moving back to their hometowns because of covid, the organisation believes it would be a crucial measure to help alleviate the pressure on capital cities on a European level.

Before the morning break, there was time for one more panel discussion on using public land to deliver affordable housing. The four panellists were John Hannigan, CEO of the Circle Voluntary Housing Association and Chair of The Housing Alliance; Isabelle Gallagher, head of development at Quintain Ireland; Bob Jordan, chief executive of The Housing Agency; and Phelim O’Neill, head of property at the Land Development Agency.

When asked about the socialisation of housing, Hannigan stated that the concept of social housing has changed significantly. Outside those in distress or on waiting lists, it now includes the majority of people living in Ireland.

“There’s a cohort in the middle who are unable to afford rent or a mortgage and don’t qualify for social housing,” he said.

“Social housing is not what it used to be for those who couldn’t afford anything; it’s actually now for those who are in full-time, secure jobs.

Moving on from the past

Once the morning coffee and exhibition viewing was done, it was time to focus on infrastructure and utilities. The two talks came from Yvonne Harris, head of customer operations and connection developer services at UisceÉ ireann, and Barry McWeeney, head of new developments at SIRO, who covered water and broadband connectivity, respectively.

Harris highlighted a concerning situation regarding infrastructure in Dublin and the need to build more, saying that the river Liffey serves 1.7 million people, with 85 per cent of water coming from it.

Currently, there’ s no contingency plan if that disappears and the problem will only get bigger the longer it’s not addressed.

There was one more panel before the lunch break, and it asked the biggest question of the day: can we get housing right?

It included Michael O’Flynn, chairman & CEO of O’Flynn Group, Dermot O’Leary, chief economist of Goodbody Stockbrokers, Paul Mitchell, director and co-founder of Mitchell McDermott, and Marian Finnegan, managing director of Sherry FitzGerald Residential & Advisory.

During a wide ranging talk, O’Leary said that Ireland was very much haunted by the ghost estates of the past which a fear of repeating history a major barrier, while Finnegan mentioned that an awareness campaign on the effects of more rent controls would do to the market would help. The logic being that such measures can end up greatly harming investment in the marketplace rather than improving it when it’s sorely needed.

Being more cost effective and viable

After the lunchtime break, Yates welcomed everyone back to the conference, where the main focus was on cost and viability.

It kicked off with Micheál Mahon, chartered quantity surveyor and past president of the SCSI, giving a whirlwind tour of the hard and soft costs of delivering a home before making way for a panel discussion on the viability challenges in delivering affordable housing.

This included Pat Farrell, CEO of Irish Institutional Property (IIP); Ross O’Colmain, head of high-tech construction & housing for Enterprise Ireland; Dara Deering, CEO of Home Building Finance Ireland (HBFI), and Ronan McGrath, managing director of McGrath Quantity Surveyors. When asked to provide a major takeaway for the viability problems, McGrath said that we need to accept that the country has problems with building apartments and should look at improving all the pieces. O’Colmain called for standardising design processes, which will allow us to discover greater opportunities.

The penultimate panel session was on offsite construction with Denise Tuffy, head of specialist contracting at CIF; John Desmond, managing director at Cygnum; Des Riordan, associate director at Clancy, and Sarah Melody, MMC integration lead at John Sisk & Son.

While offsite can solve many problems, Desmond was clear in its requirements, saying you need a strong supply pipeline, among other things, to make it work.

“Anything you take from the site to the factory, you have to do it more efficiently,” he said.“Otherwise, you’ re creating a building site in a shed.”

Tuffy added to this by saying,“There is a level of upskilling there that needs to be done, and with the pipeline, we have to start now. There’s no silver bullet [to make it work]. We have to do little steps all the time.”

Before the final panel arrived, there were two important presentations for the audience. The first was on using hemp as a sustainable building material, delivered by Ronan McDermott, director of Hempbuild Sustainable Products Ltd. Ciarán Cuffe, Green MEP for Dublin, gave an overview of the energy performance requirements for buildings in the EU.

Cuffe’ s talk fed into the last panel session which focused on housing and sustainability and included P J Rudden, external member of Project Ireland 2040 Delivery Board, Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform; PJ Ryan, head of ESG at CIF; Seán Armstrong, head of climate & construction innovation unit for the Dept of Housing, Local Government & Heritage; and David McConnell, sales manager heating products for Mitsubishi Electric Ireland.

During the discussion, one major stat about waste was mentioned: 17.6m tonnes of waste were generated in Ireland overall in 2021, and 7.7m of that was soil and stone. Ryan mentioned how the Department of the Environment is considering bringing in levies to help deal with this.

While the exact levy hasn’t been decided, it’s better to take it seriously as those costs can add up quickly.

“[Waste in the construction industry is] dominated by soil and stone, and when you’re dealing with material that’s very dense… a small levy for something as dense as that could add something like €1,500 [on a unit].”

Closing the summit for another year, Conor O’Connell, director of housing, planning, and development services at CIF, delivered the closing remarks and commented on some themes that emerged throughout the day: planning, finance, and infrastructure.

Those words will continue to ring through the industry’s ears as it continues to work on increasing supply. The pressure is on, and time will tell if the actions will see a sunnier picture at next year’s summit.