The SIPTU Policy Research Unit and SIPTU Construction Sector launched a new briefing document entitled Affordable Housing, Affordable Living at the Union’s Biennial Delegate Conference in November 2025.
The briefing document analyses Budget 2026, which delivered over half a billion euros in tax cuts to property developers after the developers’ lobby claimed they could not make money building homes. The Government accepted these claims despite the evidence.
The document’s author, SIPTU Researcher Michael Taft, said: “Affordable housing is a public good, a good which can only be vindicated through substantial and sustained democratic interventions. High house prices and high rents are not inevitable. By adopting SIPTU’s fundamental principle — that affordable housing should track construction costs — we can refocus the public debate and policy-making.
“We need to choose between our current developer-led model or an affordability-led model based on social need and actual construction costs. Ultimately, this is a political choice.”
To read the full briefing document click here
(Left to Right) SIPTU National Executive Council member, Willie O’Shaughnessy, SIPTU member and CATU Organiser, Jack Ferguson, SIPTU Deputy General Secretary, Ethel Buckley, SIPTU TEAC Divisional Organiser, Willie Noone, SIPTU Researcher, Michael Taft and SIPTU Construction Sector Organiser, Fran McDonnell, pictured at the launch of Affordable Housing, Affordable Living at the SIPTU Biennial Delegate Conference in Galway in November 2025 (pic. Brian Harding).