Case Study: Housing and Climate - The Labour Party
Housing is one of the most pressing and contentious challenges of our time, and it has significant implications for climate, both in terms of the emissions of the construction sector as it builds the new houses our society needs, and the ongoing emissions of occupied homes. The current Housing Plan covers 2025 to 2030, aligning it with most of our climate targets. Yet the present government has dropped climate nearly entirely from its housing policy, emblematic of its wider regression on climate action.
Probably the most discussed point of intersection between housing and climate is retrofitting, with the State pledging to retrofit 500,000 homes to a BER of B2 by 2030, and install 400,000 heat pumps by 2030. According to SEAI, they have completed 85,085 retrofits from 2018 to 2025, less than a fifth of the target in more than half of the associated timeframe; and 18,765 heat pump installations, less than 5% of the target in more than half of the associated timeframe.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the residential built environment sector is projected to exceed its sectoral emissions ceiling. This is especially concerning as Ireland is not building enough houses, so in fact if the government wasn’t also failing in the area of housing, the sector would be creating even more emissions.
To make construction cleaner, it is essential to build housing according to principles of compact growth. Compact growth, which is in theory government policy, is largely absent from the Housing Plan with no specific actions related to it, despite calls from the Climate Change Advisory Council to set more ambitious targets in this regard. The government has recently committed to significantly relaxing planning restrictions on one off rural housing, which is fundamentally incompatible with compact growth and belies any claims that compact growth is a guiding principle of Irish housing policy.
The Housing Commission made seven recommendations on climate and environment, and none of them are addressed in the 2025-2030 Housing Plan. The Programme for Government’s commitment to developing a Green City Pilot is similarly absent. The prior plan, Housing for All, had a distinct section on environmental sustainability with eight associated actions, but there is no such section in the current Housing Plan. Housing for All also included actions related to waste reduction and material reuse in the construction sector, which is not raised in the current housing plan despite Ireland’s continued poor performance in this area. This is all part of the pattern of this government’s row back on climate action, and this Plan also has far weaker climate and environmental commitments than its predecessor Housing for All. The table below describes these recommendations.
| Housing Commission Recommendation Related to Climate and Biodiversity | Status in Housing Plan |
|---|---|
| 1. Meet emission reduction targets for the new residential construction sector. | No reference to emissions in the Plan; efficiencies and modern methods of construction should help with this. The report on the status of Housing Commission recommendations does say some progress has at least been made. |
| 2. Publish housing guidelines that address and cross-reference the Climate Action Plan with reference to the National Planning Framework and the Town Centre First policy, and link to their identified targets and actions. | No reference to the Climate Action Plan. The new planning standards for apartments make one reference to the Climate Action Plan but certainly don’t cross-reference it. The report on the status of Housing Commission recommendations does say some progress has at least been made. |
| 3. Address the energy efficiency deficit in the housing stock through sufficient funding and supports. | No reference to nZEBs. One commitment on retrofitting: “a ramping up of expenditure on the local authority energy efficiency programme to ensure the Government commitment to deliver 36,500 LA retrofits to B2 standard is achieved in the lifetime of the Plan.” There is also reference to the extension of the income tax deduction for small landlords who retrofit their properties. |
| 4. Promote and enable through legislation the wider adoption of district heating as a lower-carbon source that can reduce the cost of residential heating and help meet climate goals in applicable areas when applied at scale. | No reference to district heating. The report on the status of Housing Commission recommendations found no progress had been made in this regard. |
| 5. Support and deploy more widespread use of timber in housing construction and reform the building control system accordingly. | No reference to expanding the use of timber, though the report on the status of Housing Commission recommendations found at least some progress had been made. Increasing long-term timber supply is discussed in the National Planning Framework. |
| 6. Ensure that state policy supports compact housing growth, which is essential to achieving the transition to a low-carbon society. | Nothing on compact housing, though progress is claimed under the report on the status of Housing Commission recommendations. It is unclear how, given the relaxation of restrictions on one-off rural developments. |
| 7. Support biodiversity measures in the development of residential areas. | No reference to biodiversity in the Plan. The report on the status of Housing Commission recommendations found no progress had been made in this regard. |