Government not living up to own hype on housing, says O’Callaghan

A huge increase in the number of social homes is urgently needed, according to Social Democrats TD Cian O’Callaghan.

O’Callaghan was responding to a new report published by the parliamentary budget office which showed that 235,000 people are in need of social housing in Ireland, with 92,000 of those figures being children.

The report looked at the overall social housing need by combining the social housing waiting list with the number of people in receipt of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP).

In O’Callaghan’s view, the massive increase in people in need of a home in Ireland lays at the feet of Fine Gael-led governments.

“Thirteen years of Fine Gael-led governments has left the country with a devastating social housing deficit and a deeply problematic reliance on the HAP system,” he said.

Citing the report, O’Callaghan says that Ireland needs to increase the number of social homes by a whopping 56% just to meet the current deficit.

“The failure to deliver enough social homes is taking a substantial toll. There are 14,303 people in homeless emergency accommodation, 4,404 of them children. These are the highest figures in the history of the State and continue to rise month after month,” he said.

In late July, it was revealed that the number of homeless people in Dublin could fill Hill 16.

“The Government are constantly telling us that they are turning the corner and finally getting to grips with this crisis. In reality, they are failing miserably to live up to their own hype,” O’Callaghan remarked.

He said that the government could take a number of steps to increase the number of social homes, such as streamlining the current four-stage approval process and ramping up compulsory purchase orders.

“The Minister for Housing needs to take the necessary action to ensure the delivery of social housing at a pace that reflects the scale of the housing emergency.”