The derisory delivery of affordable homes shows that the Minister for Housing is hopelessly out of his depth and incapable of meeting the Government’s own targets, according to Social Democrats TD Cian O’Callaghan.
Deputy O’Callaghan, who is the party’s housing spokesperson, said:
“The Quarter 3 Affordable Housing Report highlights exceptionally poor delivery and targets that are going to be missed.
“These figures were quietly published online without any press release, with the Minister seemingly hoping his astonishingly poor delivery of affordable homes would go unnoticed.
“Of the 5,500 new affordable homes promised in 2023, just 159 affordable purchase and 56 cost rental homes have actually been built. This miserable total of just 215 affordable homes represents less than four per cent of the target delivered in the first nine months of the year.
“This glacial pace of delivery is of little use to the more than half a million adults stuck living in their childhood bedrooms or to the 13,000 people in emergency homeless accommodation.
“It is important to remember that these targets are not nearly ambitious enough in the first place to address the housing disaster. Homelessness and rents are at record levels while the home ownership rate is at its lowest level in over 50 years.
“This scale of under-delivery is inexcusable when you consider that the Minister for Housing, Darragh O’Brien, has failed to spend €70 million that was supposed to build affordable homes and has now been reallocated elsewhere.
“It is clearly not a lack of money that is stopping us building the affordable homes we desperately need. Rather, it is disastrous mismanagement by this Government and Minister for Housing.
“We need affordable housing targets that reflect the scale of this crisis and a government that is capable of delivering.
“With each quarter of poor delivery and missed targets, it is becoming increasingly clear that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil cannot lead us out of a housing crisis that is of their own making.”
December 19, 2023