Wicklow council received more than €117m in housing funding in 2025
The Wicklow PeopleWicklow County Council received more than €117 million in housing funding last year, according to figures released to Wicklow-Wexford TD Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin.
The six-year dataset shows how much money has come into the county and what each scheme does, revealing a housing system built on a patchwork of construction grants, leasing supports, retrofitting programmes and payments to voluntary housing bodies.
The biggest single line in the tables is Local Authority Housing, which covers the council’s own building and buying of homes. This is the money the local authority uses to construct new estates, purchase turnkey units from developers, and refurbish older council houses.
Funding here rose from €54 million in 2020 to €58.9 million in 2025, though it dipped sharply to €23.8 million in 2022. That drop reflects the stop‑start nature of construction: projects move through planning, tendering and building phases at different speeds, and inflation forced many councils to pause or retender schemes that year.
Two schemes aimed at Approved Housing Bodies, voluntary organisations that build and manage social housing explain the dramatic spike in 2022. The Capital Assistance Scheme provides grants to AHBs to build homes for people with particular needs, such as older residents or people with disabilities.
Wicklow County Council received €40.1 million under this scheme in 2022, a level of activity not seen in any other year. The Capital Advance Leasing Facility helps AHBs finance the construction or purchase of homes that will then be leased to the council for social housing. The garden county’s local authority received €39 million under CALF in 2022.
These two schemes alone made up more than half of all housing funding to Wicklow that year, reflecting a cluster of AHB projects reaching payment stage at the same time.
Another major line is Energy Efficiency – Retrofitting, which funds upgrades to older council homes to improve insulation, heating systems and energy ratings. This programme has grown steadily, rising from €1.17 million in 2020 to €3.6 million in 2025.
Retrofitting is now one of the county’s most consistent housing programmes, with the department noting allocations of €3,063,400 in 2024 and €3,607,400 in 2025. The aim is to bring older homes up to a B2 energy rating, reducing bills for tenants and cutting emissions.
Affordable housing supports have become more visible in recent years. The Affordable Housing Fund helps councils deliver homes for purchase at below market prices. Wicklow County Council received €1.81 million in 2023, €197,276 in 2024 and €2.83 million in 2025.
The Croí Cónaithe Towns and Vacancy scheme provides grants to bring empty homes back into use, either for private buyers or rental. The local authority first received funding under this scheme in 2023, with €120,000, rising to €1.24 million in 2024 and €1.69 million in 2025.
These programmes are designed to tackle dereliction and support town centre living, and the local authority has begun using them more actively in Arklow, Wicklow town and other areas where vacant properties have become a political issue.
Several older schemes show declining or uneven trends. The Rental Accommodation Scheme pays landlords to provide long‑term housing for social tenants, but it has been winding down nationally.
Wicklow’s RAS funding fell from €3.4 million in 2020 to €1.32 million in 2025. The Housing Assistance Payment appears small in Wicklow’s figures because payments are processed centrally through Limerick’s Shared Services Centre.
Private Housing Grants, which help people adapt their homes for disability or mobility needs, have risen sharply, from €868,367 in 2020 to €3.05 million in 2025, reflecting higher demand and rising construction costs.
Traveller accommodation funding has fluctuated, rising from €316,068 in 2020 to €1.88 million in 2024 before falling to €524,113 in 2025. Mortgage to Rent, which helps households at risk of losing their homes to switch to a long‑term tenancy, also varies year to year. Planned maintenance and voids funding, used to bring empty council homes back into use, has remained relatively steady.
When all housing schemes are combined, the department’s totals show the local authority received €128.2 million in 2022, €95 million in 2024 and €122.3 million in 2025. These swings underline how dependent the county is on national funding cycles and how difficult it is for councils to plan multi year delivery programmes when allocations rise and fall so sharply.
The figures also show how small the county’s own income is by comparison. Local Property Tax allocations reached €22.2 million last year, significant, but far below the scale of housing capital funding.
The data also shows local property tax allocations rose from €15.5 million in 2020 to €22.2 million in 2025. The biggest pressure now comes from pay agreements, which climbed from €2.7 million in 2020 to €10.8 million last year.
Covid supports have not only ended but are now being clawed back, with a negative adjustment of €153,702.89 applied in 2025.
Overall local government funding reached €33.08 million last year, the highest level in the period, but the composition of that funding has changed dramatically: emergency Covid payments have been replaced by rising payroll obligations and growing reliance on LPT buoyancy.