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Irish Times
03-07-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Housing target should be revised up to 60,000 homes per year, Dublin Chamber says
A national target of 60,000 new homes per year should be set, with half of these delivered in the Greater Dublin Area to align with increased population growth and pent-up demand in the region, Dublin Chamber has urged the Government. The proposal is contained within the business lobby's pre-budget submission. Just 30,330 homes were completed during 2024, while the programme for government pledges to deliver more than 300,000 by the end of 2030. This year's target is 41,000. 'Dublin does not have sufficient housing and infrastructure to meet its current needs, and the future outlook is bleak,' Dublin Chamber said. The group also called on Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe to increase the standard rate income tax band by a minimum of €2,100 for single earners and €4,200 for married couples. READ MORE It said this adjustment would help 'redress the lack of indexation in recent years and ensure that workers are not penalised for modest income growth that simply keeps pace with inflation'. It also called for capital gains tax on disposals of investments in unquoted, actively trading Irish companies to be cut from 33 per cent to 20 per cent. 'This measure would directly incentivise entrepreneurial risk-taking,' it said. 'It would also more effectively appeal to gain-seeking investors than existing measures such as the Employment and Investment Incentive Scheme (EIIS).' The group was also critical of the supports available to small businesses. It said Dublin's start-up ecosystem 'is faltering', and that early-stage funding has 'declined sharply' since peaks in 2021. 'Instead of attracting entrepreneurs and founders, the current system often deters them, weighed down by misaligned and bureaucratic supports,' it said. Furthermore, it called Ireland's non-residential stamp duty rate of 7.5 per cent a 'significant barrier' to commercial development across offices, logistics, and retail. 'In an already high-cost market, this rate adds a substantial upfront cost, undermines project viability, and deters both domestic and international investment,' it said. It recommended a return to the pre-2017 rate of 2 per cent to 'unlock stalled development, ease supply constraints, and support wider economic growth'. The group said businesses are 'increasingly dissatisfied and frustrated' by the lack of delivery of infrastructure by the Government. 'Many do not believe that the investments proposed under the Programme for Government will happen, given past delays,' it said. On water, it said Dublin faces a 'major crisis', and that the provision of water and wastewater in the Greater Dublin Area is 'wholly inadequate and in need of urgent review'. 'The risk of a water shortage due to necessary maintenance and remedial work is high and rising,' it said. 'The lack of water and wastewater is a direct limiting factor on the delivery of affordable accommodation across the Greater Dublin Area. 'Currently, Uisce Éireann has no mandate or increased funding to support the supply of new housing developments. This must change and Government must put in place a multiannual budget for the utility to ensure new housing developments are connected.' At present, the Greater Dublin Area is 'excessively reliant' on a single water source, with 85 per cent coming from the Liffey. The group said the Eastern and Midlands Water Supply Project is 'urgently required' to meet the needs of half of Ireland's population. 'This must be accompanied by the Greater Dublin Drainage Scheme (GDDS), as the need for wastewater facilities has risen in line with the growing population,' it said. 'The need for adequate wastewater facilities and the building of the GDDS cannot be overstated. If this facility is not built, this will have a detrimental effect on the provision of housing.'
Irish Times
16-06-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Onerous regulations frustrating delivery of infrastructure, NED told
Ireland's complex regulatory environment is frustrating the delivery of badly needed infrastructure, the National Economic Dialogue (NED) event in Dublin Castle heard yesterday. In one of the breakout sessions on infrastructure, Dublin Chamber 's Aebhric McGibney made a forceful contribution on the need to streamline regulatory processes to aid the delivery of housing, water and energy projects. 'In many cases, we've decided what we want to do, but we're preventing ourselves from doing it because of the high level of bureaucracy we've built into the system,' Mr McGibney later told The Irish Times. [ Failure of EU-US trade talks would have immediate ramifications for budget, Taoiseach warns Opens in new window ] In particular he highlighted the high level of documentation required by different agencies. READ MORE 'Lots of projects like the Eastern and Midlands Water Supply project have been well assessed and diagnosed for the guts of 20 years' but have still to start. The project is seen as critical to the delivery of housing in the capital. 'There seems to be a spinning plates process to various projects under the National Development Plan [NDP],' Mr McGibney said. 'In other words the authorities say, look it's going ahead but not quite yet,' he said, noting that more and more companies do not believe that capital projects under the NDP will happen. 'The range of projects that we're saying are going ahead when they're not making any progress is considerable,' he said. The Small Firms Association (SFA) said a recent survey indicated that 77 per cent of Irish SMEs had not applied for any State contracts in the last two years, reflecting the onerous level of paperwork and bureaucracy involved. Jeromin Zettelmeyer, director of the Bruegel think tank, meanwhile, warned that 'economic nationalism' posed the greatest threat to Ireland's corporate tax boom. International tax co-operation and the move to minimum global rate had triggered an additional boom in receipts here as corporations moved their IP to low- tax countries with substance to offer such as Ireland, he said. But the United States is no longer happy to be undercut in tax terms and may end up deciding to compete with Ireland directly (on tax), posing a risk to the current tax base, he said. Oisín Coghlan of climate advocacy group Environmental Pillar said most representative groups at the NED 'start by saying what they think the Government should spend more money on'. 'This year, the Environmental Pillar's first advice to Government is what not to spend money on,' he said. 'Don't spend €8 to €26 billion on the bill we currently face for missing our climate pollution targets,' Mr Coghlan said, citing the potential costs awaiting Ireland if it misses its climate abatement targets, contained in a recent Fiscal Advisory Council report. 'Invest now in improving the quality of life in Ireland rather than waste billions in public money buying carbon credits from other EU states in a few years time,' he said. 'The fiscal council calculated the Government could reduce our climate bill by €14 billion by urgently implementing what's promised in the Programme for Government: 'decisive action to radically reduce' our reliance on expensive, imported fossil fuels,' Mr Coghlan said.
RTÉ News
06-06-2025
- Business
- RTÉ News
Businesses offering fully flexible working drops to 27% - Dublin Chamber's Business Outlook Survey
The number of firms offering full flexibility to staff on the number of days they spend in the office has fallen from 37% in the second quarter of last year to 27% a year later. While just over one third of firms (36%) require staff to present on a number of core days, a slight increase on previous years. The figures have been published today in the latest edition of Dublin Chamber's Business Outlook Survey. Speaking at the launch of the report, Director of Public and International Affairs Aebhric McGibney hybrid and remote working is still a major draw for attracting and retaining talent in a tight labour market. "The hybrid work model remains the predominant workplace arrangement for Dublin firms, with most employees required to spend two or three days in the office per week, with fully flexible arrangements having dropped to 27% in this quarter," said Mr McGibney. "This shows a trend that highlights, while businesses are willing to be flexible, a more structured approach is being settled on with core days being more important. This is down to a number of reasons such as fostering culture and collaboration and increasing productivity."
