There was a dramatic decline in the number of social homes acquired by local authorities last year via schemes to prevent tenants from becoming homeless and to bring vacant properties back into use.
Preliminary data from the Department of Housing shows €290 million was spent on 775 acquisitions in 2025 through the Tenant in Situ Scheme and the much smaller Buy and Renew Scheme.
Local authorities recouped €520 million from the department for having purchased 1,501 second-hand social homes in 2024 and €417 million for buying 1,830 such units the year before.
The Tenant in Situ Scheme allows a local authority to purchase a rental property from a landlord who is selling, if it would facilitate keeping in place tenants who would otherwise be at risk of homelessness. The renters, who must qualify for social housing support, would instead become tenants of the council.
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New restrictions were applied to the scheme last year and several local authorities paused applications after they exhausted their budgets by the middle of the year.
However, Minister for Housing James Browne wrote to all councils in September stating they could proceed with further acquisition commitments (to a value of up to 30 per cent of their 2025 budgets) for sales closing in early 2026.
The Buy and Renew Scheme enables local authorities to purchase and refurbish derelict properties for use as social housing. Since its inception in 2017, the programme has led to 960 disused homes being brought back into use.
The Minister provided the acquisition data in response to a parliamentary question submitted by Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin.
Ó Broin said the figures “clearly demonstrate” the Government “slashed funding for vital homeless prevention schemes” and this contributed to the 13 per cent rise in homelessness in 2025.
The Minister “not only cut the funding, he also imposed very severe restrictions on the operation of the scheme”, said Ó Broin, adding that budgets for these acquisition schemes must be restored to previous levels.
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He said the Tenant in Situ Scheme was “effectively paused” for portions of last year, so it was “deeply disingenuous” for the department to claim all of the 2025 second-hand acquisitions funding was not spent by councils.
The figures show councils are now having to pay significantly more for units as house prices continue to surge. In 2020, €278 million was spent acquiring 1,314 homes, which works out at about €211,000 per unit on average. Last year’s provisional spend per unit averages out at €374,000.
The department said funding for second-hand acquisitions is only one part of the Government’s €9 billion investment in housing delivery for 2026.
Last year, local authorities recouped only €290 million of €375 million available to them under the second-hand acquisitions budget, said a department spokeswoman. She added that this is evidence of “adequate funding” for the programme.
The Tenant in Situ Scheme should “only ever be used as a ‘last resort’ by local authorities when all other options have been exhausted”, she said.
“Ultimately, a significantly scaled-up delivery of new-build social housing by local authorities remains the most effective solution to addressing the challenge of homelessness.”
She added the Government remains committed to supporting second-hand acquisitions as an option for local authorities and approved housing bodies.
“To this end, significant funding will in 2026 be made available to help alleviate shorter-term pressures, affording local authorities the flexibility needed to respond to challenging cases of homelessness while they scale up their own local construction programmes, which is absolutely critical,” she said.
The spokeswoman said councils will soon be notified of the parameters of this year’s second-hand acquisitions programme.
