Government to stop turnkey homes being bought for social housing after next year

The Government is to force local authorities to stop buying “turnkey” homes for social housing, in a move going to Cabinet on Tuesday.Minister for Housing James Browne is to introduce the measure to place the emphasis on adding to the social housing stock through the construction of new social homes by local authorities and housing bodies.It is planned to take effect at the end of next year, with the final date for applications for turnkey purchases set to be December 31st, 2027. Browne wants to move away from the purchase of new-build social housing units on completion, which has sometimes been blamed for depriving private buyers of the opportunity to buy.READ MOREBrowne also believes it means the State has no opportunity to influence the types of units being delivered.The plan is to move to a system where social housing is delivered by expanding own-build programmes from local authorities, housing bodies and the Land Development Agency.It is understood the Minister has been highly critical of the reliance on the purchasing by councils of social homes that would otherwise have been available to the private market.Elsewhere, the Cabinet will be briefed on a planned Government apology over failings in the investigation into the murder of prison officer Brian Stack by the IRA in 1983.[ State apology to be delivered to family of late chief prison officer Brian StackOpens in new window ]The apology will be made in the Dáil on Wednesday, but Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan will update Ministers on the matter on Tuesday. Stack, who was chief prison officer at Portlaoise Prison during the 1980s, was the only prison officer in the State killed by Troubles-related violence. The IRA denied responsibility but in 2013 issued a statement to Stack’s three sons, Austin, Kieran and Oliver, saying its members were responsible but that the murder had not been sanctioned by the leadership.A number of failings in the Garda investigation were the subject of an apology by the then-Garda commissioner Drew Harris to the Stack family in 2019. The investigation remains open. Meanwhile, Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee will seek approval to sign a non-binding political declaration of countries seeking to build resilience in the technology sector, with a focus on secure supply chains – especially for artificial intelligence (AI).The so-called Pax Scilica declaration covers critical raw materials and energy through to AI frontier foundation models. The Government is expected to say that becoming a signatory to the declaration is a signal of association with shared priorities concerning international economic and security aspects of the global technology supply chain. The framework is expected to allow for engagement with the US and others on tech supply chains. Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary will brief Cabinet on plans to host a disability-focused work and skills week aimed at connecting disabled people with employers, training opportunities and workplace supports. It will comprise 30 events across 17 counties.Martin and Minister for Higher Education James Lawless will bring a memo outlining the work of the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland. The research programme, hosted by Trinity College Dublin, provides a digital reconstruction of the Public Records Office and its collections, which spanned the period 1172-1922. It was set up to mark the centenary of the destruction of the office during the Civil War. To date, it has recovered over 500,000 individual records and identified over 150,000 missing names from lost 19th century census documents.