The housing crisis is “on the cusp of changing” with prices starting to level off or fall, the Taoiseach has claimed.
Leo Varadkar insisted measures introduced by the Government are having an impact on the accommodation shortage.
He also defended the Department of Housing after it emerged it had underspent its budget by €1billion between 2020 and 2022.
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Mr Varadkar said this should be taken in the context of “record spending” by officials.
He said there was “no lack of political will” on the issue of housing but that the budget was “so big” the department struggled to spend it.
He told RTE: “People are leaving home later than they used to. The average person leaves home now at 28, it used to be 23, and that’s because of the housing crisis. And also people are buying homes later for the first time.
“I believe this is something that is on the cusp of changing. House prices levelling off, if anything falling a little, record numbers of first-time buyers in the past few months.
“Why is that happening? Because of the increased supply, because of schemes the Government has put in place like help to buy.”
Latest CSO figures show property prices fell for the first time in almost three years in January, though this was primarily blamed on higher interest rates and broader cost-of-living pressures curbing activity in the market.
The Central Statistics Office’s latest Residential Property Price Index shows prices fell on a monthly basis by 0.6%. This was the first monthly decline since May 2020.
The Taoiseach also defended the decision to end the eviction ban, claiming up to half of notices to quit were invalid. He said when people moved out of houses, they were not left vacant for long and were often purchased or re-rented.
Varadkar said if he was a first-time buyer he would be concerned about what might happen if Sinn Fein or a left-led government was voted in.
He said: “They want to take away Help to Buy, they want to take away the First Homes scheme. If I was a first-time buyer now in my twenties or thirties, buying my first home, I’d be very worried about a change of government.”
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