‘Flawed’ housing targets ‘aren’t based on evidence’, Dáil hears

THE Government’s housing targets are ‘fatally flawed’, ‘aren’t based on evidence’ and need to be significantly increased, the Dáil has heard.

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan conceded yesterday that the Coalition should ‘err on the side of more’ housing being needed.

An average target of 33,000 new houses a year coming on stream between now and 2030 has been set under the Housing for All plan, but ministers have conceded that given Ireland’s rising population, it would need closer to 40,000 homes a year.

It comes as research by the Housing Commission says the country may need up to 62,000 homes built annually until 2050 to meet demand. Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty said that based on this, ‘even if you met your targets by 2030 there would be a shortfall of as much as 245,000 homes’.

He said that this was ‘alarming for everybody’, and that the Housing Commission’s numbers show the Government’s targets are ‘fatally flawed’. Mr Doherty added: ‘So it is obvious that the Government’s housing targets need to be revised, and revised up significantly, and revised up immediately.

‘The current targets aren’t based on evidence or objective assessment of needs. Instead, they’re a result of political manoeuvring, boasting the targets are met when the targets themselves are clearly, clearly flawed.’

Mr Ryan responded by saying the Government wants to exceed its housing targets, and that they don’t represent a ‘limit on ambition’. ‘We want to smash those targets,’ he said.

He also said of the Housing Commission’s figures: ‘We’re the people who brought forward that analysis, and in July when they present their work, of course [we’ll] present it, as part of getting the analysis right to get the solutions right.

Figures released yesterday by the Central Statistics Office showed there were 29,851 new homes built in 2022.