Collapse in the supply of homes ‘is worse than crash of 2008’
THE collapse in housebuilding during the pandemic was the biggest since the turn of the century – outpacing even that seen after the 2008 financial crash.
Residential building fell by almost half this spring, sparking fears of a further crisis when the homes due this year are not ready.
Now homelessness campaigners say that without a supply of new homes for sale it will ‘make it much tougher to move people out of homelessness’. The problem is that people in rental properties hoping to buy a home cannot move, which means those flats and apartments are not available for the homeless living on the streets or stuck in emergency accommodation.
Official figures show homebuilding was the worst-hit sector of the construction industry, which was shut down in March by the coronavirus outbreak.
It fell by a massive 47%, while commercial building work – offices, shops and factories – dropped by a third and civil engineering – work on projects such as roads, bridges, airports, sewerage systems – fell by 37%.
The Central Statistics Office, which compiles the figures, reported: ‘This is the largest quarterly decrease since the index began – the largest quarterly decline prior to this was a decrease of 13.9% in the fourth quarter of 2008.’
Builders missed most of the spring and summer when the majority of work is done.
One homelessness charity says the building crisis means the temporary ban on evictions and a rental freeze should be reintroduced.
Focus Ireland’s Roughan MacNamara said: ‘The impact of Covid-19 has already, and will continue to have, a serious impact on housing delivery in Ireland.
‘This means it is now even more vital than ever to do everything possible to prevent more families and individuals from becoming homeless.
‘This is why Focus Ireland has called for the temporary ban on evictions and rent freeze to be reintroduced until this emergency is over.
‘These actions helped to significantly cut the number of people homeless in the last five months and this meant we were able to focus all resources on keeping people safe and moving a record number of households out of homelessness into housing which was achieved in partnership with the State.
‘However, as these bans ended last month we are highly worried that services will be stretched to breaking point if there’s a second wave of Covid-19 this winter.’
The CSO report said: ‘The residential sector showed the largest quarterly decrease with a fall of 50%, while the non-residential and civil engineering sectors both decreased by 44% and 43% respectively.
‘On an annual basis, the residential sector has seen a volume decrease of 47% in the seasonally adjusted index. The civil engineering and nonresidential sectors decreased annually by 36.8% and 33.3% respectively.’
Francis Doherty, of the homelessness charity the
Peter McVerry Trust, said: ‘If we have people in the rental market today that would have been potential customers for houses that would have normally been completed if Covid hadn’t have hit, that makes it very difficult to process those people into any other type of properties.
‘It’s going to make it much tougher to move people out of homelessness.’
Housing campaigner David Hall, of the Irish Mortgage Holders’ Organisation, said: ‘The big challenge is we don’t know yet where we’re going to be. It’s very early on and everyone’s trying to interpret but nobody knows. The signs aren’t great.’
David Duffy, of Property Industry Ireland, said many housing projects due this year will be delayed until 2021. But he believes demand for new homes will remain strong.
‘We’ll have some activity that was due to take place this year spilling into next year. That means some of the capital projects that would have taken place, their start date might be postponed.’ christian.mccashin
@dailymail.ie
‘Covid-19 has had a serious impact’ ‘Tougher to exit homelessness’