Wexford hosts major social housing conference
HOUSING Minister Eoghan Murphy was among the visitors who arrived at a busy Clayton Whites Hotel in Wexford town as it hosted a major national conference on social housing.
The event was hosted by the Irish Council for Social Housing (ICSH), the national federation for non-profit housing associations which represents approximately 270 member organisations that manage 35,000 homes and house 90,000 people including families on low incomes, older people and people with disabilities.
With climate change being a topic of such concern globally at the moment, unsurprisingly CEO of the ICSH Dr Donal McManus spoke of the need to ‘deliver low carbon solutions as part of our national effort to build a more climate resilient society’.
Having spoken with Minister Murphy, Dr McManus welcomed the €45million in funding to be provided for retrofitting as part of Budget 2020 and spoke of how these measures can help alleviate fuel poverty.
Wexford was perhaps an ideal host town for the conference, with Wexford County Council leading the way nationally in terms of Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB), and council officials were present to meet with some of the delegates.
Some 300 people attended the conference over two days with speakers arriving from the likes of Boston and continental
Europe. The conference also hosted a special gala dinner to announce the winners of the ICSH Allianz Community Housing Awards 2019.
While McCall’s Cottages in Rathangan was one of the projects nominated for an award, sadly they just missed out with the overall award going to the Focus Housing Association in Dublin.
The weekend was said to have been a great success and the decision to host the event in Wexford was said to have been a positive one from the organisers’ point of view.