Zero housing acquisitions recorded by Wicklow County Council in first quarter despite €6m allocation
The Wicklow PeopleWicklow County Council recorded no housing acquisitions in the first quarter of 2026, according to Department of Housing figures.
The collapse in activity coincides with a significant drop in the council’s use of the Capital Assistance Scheme (CAS), the State’s 100pc capital grant programme for housing vulnerable groups, and comes despite Wicklow receiving a €6 million allocation for second hand purchases this year.
The latest local authority acquisitions dataset shows Wicklow bought seven homes in 2025, down from 17 in 2024 and a high of 30 in 2023. The downward trend is stark: 24 homes were purchased in 2019, nine in 2020, 22 in 2021 and five in 2022 before the rebound in 2023.
The fall to zero in early 2026 confirms that the slowdown has accelerated rather than stabilised.
The dataset, which covers second-hand acquisitions by all 31 councils, includes homes delivered under local authority acquisition programmes, regeneration acquisitions and traveller accommodation acquisitions.
The figures align with a written parliamentary reply issued to Wicklow TD John Brady, who asked the Housing Minister James Browne for a detailed breakdown of CAS funded homes purchased in the county in 2025 and 2026 to date.
Minister Browne confirmed that Wicklow County Council had recouped €1.7 million in CAS acquisition funding in 2025 and €0.579 million to the end of Q1 2026.
However, the acquisition dataset shows that none of this resulted in completed purchases in the first quarter of the year.
Minister Browne also stated that Wicklow had drawn down €0.93 million of its €6 million second hand acquisition allocation for 2026, including CAS, but again the dataset indicates no completed acquisitions in that period.
Understanding CAS is central to explaining why Wicklow’s acquisition numbers have fallen so sharply. The Capital Assistance Scheme provides up to 100pc capital funding to Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) to buy or build homes for people with specific, high-priority housing needs: homeless households, people with disabilities, older persons and care leavers.
CAS is not a pre-allocated budget line for individual councils or projects. Instead, AHBs submit proposals to the local authority, which assesses whether they meet local need.
If approved, the Department reimburses the council as the project progresses. CAS is therefore a recoupment based scheme, meaning funding only appears in the system when a purchase or construction milestone is completed.
The minister’s reply confirms that Wicklow has drawn down funding, but the dataset shows that no CAS acquisitions were completed in Q1 2026. In practice, this means projects may be stuck in earlier stages: negotiations, conveyancing, approval processes or due diligence. It may also reflect a lack of available suitable properties in Wicklow’s highly competitive housing market, where prices and scarcity can make targeted acquisitions difficult.
Councils must identify suitable properties, secure approval, and complete purchases, all within a market where private buyers, investors and landlords exiting the rental sector are competing for the same stock. The absence of acquisitions in Q1 suggests Wicklow may be struggling to convert its allocation into completed purchases.