Transforming housing and local government
Mihai Bilauca, Chief Information Officer in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, highlights the work the Department is doing to “unlock digital transformation across housing and local government”.
Mihai Bilauca says that it is evident within his department that “in Ireland, housing is a national priority”.
He says this is why, in November 2025, the Government published Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025-30, which commits to the construction of 300,000 homes, including 72,000 social homes and 90,000 affordable supports.
According to Bilauca: “Digital technologies, digital transformation, and data can help us accelerate our journey towards that destination and goal.”
Digital transformation
Bilauca explains that “only a very small percentage (3 per cent) of our services are facing the customer directly”, while 41 per cent are in collaboration with local authorities and agencies.
This, Bilauca says, means that the Department “needs to embrace a different type of digital transformation, a digital transformation that is carried out in partnership and in tandem with local authorities and the agencies of the department”.
The work on this digital transformation began five years ago, and DHLGH took a “dual approach” to this project.
Bilauca explains that this involved both a “top-down strategic programme of work that has seen a set a coordinated strategies being developed”, as well as a “bottom-up, agile acceleration programme that has focused us on the exact project initiatives that had to be undertaken as a matter of urgency”.
Bilauca adds that “the first thing we did was we defined a longer strategic journey, for a period of 10 years, and that journey has been split into three particular sprints; the initial ‘foundation’ sprint, a second ‘emerge’ sprint for another three years, and finally the ‘evolve’ sprint”.
This was done to allow for a “a longer-term type of a strategic approach” which would ensure that the transformation was as effective as possible and not focused solely on quick wins.
In 2021, the DHLGH published its first data strategy, detailing the goals and actions they will take to achieve their digital transformation, and in 2025 published a revised roadmap with updated actions for the emerge sprint, as they progress towards its targets.
“Transformation is enabled by strong data governance, strong data management practices, and strong programme and paroject management.”
Bilauca outlines the core tenets of the Department’s work in this area: “The main goal in our digital strategy is to reimagine our services and operations but in tandem with local government, in tandem with our agencies. And central to all our strategies is a key point: sustainable communities and the delivery of homes.”
Department initiatives
Bilauca highlights some of the projects the Department has been working on to improve its services, including the Insights Service which brings in a cross-government collaboration with “all housing-related data together in one place” and includes information relating to over 140 clearly defined metrics.
Bilauca says that “paramount to the service was establishing good data governance, making sure that we understand what metrics we are using, because very often we hear people arguing about housing data, and yet everybody has a different set of definitions to work with”.
The Department is also exploring how it can use this data to improve and accelerate the delivery of homes.
Bilauca explains that “in recent months, we have started looking at using AI to query such data in using natural language”. This would involve asking the data repository questions that have not been previously explored because of technological limitations.
Another project that has been undertaken in the last year relates to the collection of data relating to modern methods of construction.
Bilauca says that this project was about “engagement with the various stakeholders that had a say or had an interest in this information, to agree on metadata; that is what every term means, because it is fundamental that we have a common language”.
Bilauca underlines the importance of having the correct processes around the usage and collection of data: “I look forward to the new national data strategy, because data governance is absolutely paramount to unlocking digital transformation especially in the age of AI.”
“No matter what systems we put in place, if we just move the data from older systems into newer systems without having appropriate governance and ownership, we are just moving and dusting things under the carpet.”
Vacant homes
An area of particular importance to the Department, is addressing the number of vacant homes and Bilauca says there are two main challenges to achieving this.
Firstly, Bilauca says “we have three different sources in Ireland around what vacant homes are, and those numbers never match” and this problem is compounded by the definition of vacant varying from source to source.
Bilauca says the second issue “is that not all vacant homes can be brought back into reuse”.
To address this issue, the Department “shared a geographical information system (GIS) solution with our colleagues in local authorities, and we started collecting from the ground up information around properties that can realistically be brought back into use”.
A GIS refers to software that captures, manages, analyses, and visualises geographic data.
Another housing-related initiative that the Department is currently developing is Project Díon, which Bilauca describes as “transformative”.
He explains that the project plans to “bring together 33 housing delivery programmes from multiple spreadsheets, systems, and data sources into a single platform”.
This, Bilauca, says will allow for “a common way of working that is understood not just in the Department, but also with local authorities” and help address “the data fragmentation issues we have had over the years”.
At the end of 2025, the Department also started working with the County and City Management Association and the Local Government Management Agency “to support local authorities to implement the building information modelling (BIM) mandate for the Capital Works Management Framework”.
BIM supports the “digital twins” concept which refers to the generation of digital representations of the physical and functional characteristics of buildings and physical assets, which can be used to make planning more efficient.
National digital solutions
The Department are also currently developing two major national initiatives with local government, the first of which is the National Digital Housing Solution.
Bilauca explains that this aims to “bring together, from the systems of 31 local authorities into a national platform, particular modules that are relevant to social and affordable housing”.
This will include the data and services relating to social housing applications, the allocation of houses, tenancy management, as well as the management of the housing stock.
This platform will be linked with Project Díon, which tracks the delivery of housing, allowing for “a constant tracking of properties from one end to another”.
Similarly, the National Digital Planning Solution will bring the data and systems from each of the 31 local authorities into one singular platform.
Bilauca says this will “not only provide a better and consistent online service to all citizens of Ireland, no matter what county they are in, but it will also establish a common way of dealing with planning applications, regardless of what county council you are dealing with”.
Concluding, Bilauca highlights the enormous potential that digital transformation can have on local government, saying: “There are over 1,100 services that the local government sector provides on behalf of many of the government departments at local level. We know that working in partnership, we have the opportunity to bring online over 250 services up to 2030.”
To achieve these goals, however Bilauca says the correct processes must be in place: “Governance structures and data governance is paramount, and transformation is enabled by strong data governance, strong data management practices, and strong programme and project management.”
