Plan to buy up Laois agricultural land to tackle housing crisis

A plan to buy up agricultural land as a way of tackling the housing crisis in Laois has been put forward at the latest meeting of Laois County Council.

Housing was the predominant issue raised by local councillors at the November meeting of Laois County Council, with numerous councillors citing issues with Approved Housing Bodies in Laois, loans and grants for housing, as well as zoning.

Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Fitzgerald expressed her concerns with zoning in Laois and suggested a possible solution to this and the housing shortage could be Laois County Council purchasing agricultural land themselves.

The councillor queried: “Do we need to zone all the land? Could we as a council buy land at agricultural prices and then we could zone it and have that land for our own people in County Laois who want to build a house on it or whatever the case may be.”

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Cllr Fitzgerald urged the council of the need to address the issue of the lack of land available for development, emphasising “we have no land bank at all in Portlaoise.”

She asked: “Are we going to go through the process of doubling, tripling, quadrupling the price of this land? Then if we want to buy houses we have to go back and buy it.”

Cllr Ben Brennan supported the idea, saying: “We should be buying our own ground, there is land for sale there.”

Cllr Fitzgerald pressed the council for a meeting in early 2026 to discuss zoning and purchasing land for affordable housing.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme