Housing targets are too low
Deputy Bacik argued the State’s housing targets are insufficient and the Land Development Agency lacks funding certainty. The Taoiseach said higher targets will be set in the new year after considering expert advice.
On the subject of housing, it is easy to feel like a broken record in this Chamber from time to time. We in the Labour Party have been repeating the same mantra, that the Government needs to build more houses and it needs to raise its targets for housing because they are too low.
Yesterday I pointed out the mystery of the missing billions with the absence of any indication as to where the Land Development Agency or the lame duck agency is to get the necessary funding to be able to deliver the housing that is so badly needed.
Today I want to raise the issue of targets that are set too low. We have called for more ambitious targets to be set by the Government. Today, if more evidence were needed, it is clear from the report that Dr. Ronan Lyons from Trinity College is going to be pointing out at a conference of Engineers Ireland that the Government must double the target of 33,000 new homes per year. Dr. Lyons says 74,000 new homes per year are needed, based on demographic demand.
We also hear from Simon Communities about an abject shortage of properties for those on housing assistance payment, HAP. When will we see the necessary revision of the targets the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is now saying are under review and how will we solve the mystery of the missing billions?
Comment on this
The Deputy will see the new targets in the early New Year. We will take account of Dr. Lyons's research and the advice of the Housing Commission. We will also take account of other work being done by the ESRI and we will increase the housing targets in the new year. However, we need to be realistic. Housing construction can only be scaled up so quickly. We definitely do not want to cut corners or go back to jerry-built houses and apartments like we had during the Celtic Tiger period.
We have gone from 7,000 new homes in 2011 to double that, 14,000 new homes, in 2017, and it looks like it will be more than 30,000 this year. That is a fourfold increase in the number of new homes being built since 2011. This is very significant, but we will need to go much higher than 30,000 per year.