{"id":12953,"date":"2025-07-06T14:48:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T13:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/?p=12953"},"modified":"2025-07-06T14:49:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T13:49:00","slug":"housing-minster-repeating-mistakes-of-the-past-by-slashing-apartment-sizes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/housing-minster-repeating-mistakes-of-the-past-by-slashing-apartment-sizes\/","title":{"rendered":"Housing Minister repeating mistakes of the past by slashing apartment sizes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>What we have is a back-to-the-future housing minister, repeating the mistakes of the past, who is doomed to fail<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Housing Minister\u2019s big idea to increase housing supply is to dust off housing policies implemented by his predecessors that have demonstrably failed, according to Social Democrats housing spokesperson Rory Hearne.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday the Minister has announced plans to slash apartment sizes so they become glorified shoeboxes. This, he claims, will drive down costs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRegrettably for the Minister, we have all heard this \u2013 not once, but twice before. In 2015, then housing Minister Alan Kelly slashed apartment sizes to drive down costs. At the time, for example, the minimum size of studio apartments was reduced to 40sqm. The measure failed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn 2018, then Minister Eoghan Murphy slashed apartment sizes even further, ostensibly to drive down costs. The minimum size of a studio apartment was reduced to 37sqm. Again, this failed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFast forward to 2025 and we have a housing minister, bereft of any ideas, dusting off policy measures that have already demonstrably failed. This time, we are told that reducing the minimum size of a studio apartment to 32sqm is the magic number. This too will fail.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cContinually reducing apartment sizes, and slashing guidelines, will do one thing \u2013 increase developer profits. It will not bring down the cost of housing and it will not encourage more individuals and families to live in apartments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Housing Commission report said we needed a radical reset of housing policy to solve the housing disaster. Instead, what we have is a back-to-the-future housing minister, repeating the mistakes of the past, who is doomed to fail.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom removing rent caps to now reducing standards this government is making our housing more unaffordable, and of lower standard, all for investment funds. We need affordable homes not more unaffordable build-to-rent shoeboxes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What we have is a back-to-the-future housing minister, repeating the mistakes of the past, who is doomed to fail The Housing Minister\u2019s big idea to increase housing supply is to dust off housing policies implemented by his predecessors that have demonstrably failed, according to Social Democrats housing spokesperson Rory Hearne. \u201cToday the Minister has announced [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11759,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7,510],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-housing-crisis","category-press-release","category-rory-hearne"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - 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