The Government’s social housing statistics demonstrate that private market-driven approaches continued to attract millions of Government funding in 2020, according to Social Democrats TD Cian O\u2019Callaghan.<\/p>\n
Deputy O\u2019Callaghan, who is the party\u2019s Housing spokesperson, commented:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Department of Housing’s Construction Status Report saw housing delivery reach only 70% of its annual target. While restrictions were naturally going to impact delivery, the Government is once again turning to the private market to make up for its failures.<\/p>\n
“The Government’s target of 11,000 for 2020, as set out in \u2018Rebuilding Ireland\u2019, was sadly hamstrung by the restrictions caused by Covid-19. In response, the Government is repeating mistakes of the past.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn additional 1,444 houses are being delivered through leasing programmes. This is bad value for money where the Department pays the cost of a home over a 20-25 year period but does not own the property after the lease. These funds would be better invested in new build social housing owned by the State.<\/p>\n
“In 2020, there was also a spike in accommodation being provided through new HAP and RAS schemes, with 16,798 added over the past year for a total of over 80,000 renters. The Government is lining the pockets of institutional landlords through these payments.<\/p>\n
“The 6,818 decrease in social housing waiting lists is largely driven by HAP or the removal of applicants due to the Housing Needs Assessments completed by councils. We need long-term, secure social housing instead of an ever-increasing reliance on costly market-driven approaches.\u201d<\/p>\n
March 9, 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Government’s social housing statistics demonstrate that private market-driven approaches continued to attract millions of Government funding in 2020, according to Social Democrats TD Cian O\u2019Callaghan. Deputy O\u2019Callaghan, who is the party\u2019s Housing spokesperson, commented: \u201cThe Department of Housing’s Construction Status Report saw housing delivery reach only 70% of its annual target. While restrictions were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[278,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cian-ocallaghan","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n