COMMENT:  Is there cause for optimism on housing?

IS THERE a chink of light at the end of a very dark tunnel on the housing front?

Personally, I wouldn’t be taking the Government’s word for it. But when you hear positive noises emanating from reputable sources such as the Peter McVerry Trust, it certainly warrants attention.

Last week, the charity welcomed the release of CSO figures showing that housing completions increased by 20 percent in 2018. It hoped the increase in supply of new homes would make it easier to reduce the numbers of homeless people in hostels, hotels, B&Bs and other forms of emergency accommodation.

Pat Doyle, CEO of the Peter McVerry Trust, said they were delighted to see progress continuing to be made on the number of house completions.

“We all know that we started from a very low base, but a 20 percent increase year-on-year is a clear upward and positive trend,” he stated. “We are glad that the number of apartments has increased year-on-year, growing by 6.5 percent, but if we are to reflect on the need for one and two-bedroom homes in city and urban centres, we’d hope to see that figure treble next year.”

Mr Doyle also noted that many of the new homes were completed by local authorities and members of the Irish Council for Social Housing, such as the Peter McVerry Trust. In addition, private developments also accounted for a considerable proportion of the new homes. 

He added: “Our hope is that with all three pillars of housing delivery ramping up supply across the country it will make the job of homeless organisations easier to find new homes for those in homeless services.”

Peter McVerry Trust called on the CSO to deepen the level of information available by publishing data on the number of bedrooms in newly completed properties. It said that such an indicator was important to show whether new homes were matching the housing need rather than delivering only larger, more expensive family homes.