No council homes built in some areas despite crisis
ONLY 2,500 of the 13,400 social homes needed to help ease the housing and homelessness crisis have been built.
Just a handful of units have been constructed in many local authority areas, with thousands mired in the planning and approvals process for up to three years. None has been built in counties Wicklow and Laois.
An analysis of official returns also shows some units received the first of four required approvals from the Department of Housing as far back as 2013, but have yet to progress to the planning or construction stage.
The figures come after it emerged buyers are being forced to queue for up to a week to purchase a new property.
Data on the social housing construction programme from the Department of Housing, published late last night, shows delivery is slow with some local authorities having just a handful of units under construction.
Overall, 31 local authorities and approved housing bodies (AHBs) have been tasked with building 13,400 social homes across all counties. To date, just 2,512 are complete and another 3,650 are under construction, which is a fall of 10 compared with three months previously.
The remainder are either awaiting final approval, being designed, tendered or taken through the planning process.
The department said the latest update on the social housing programme showed “significant increased activity”, but admitted delays were occurring.
LOCAL authorities and other public bodies have built just 2,500 of the 13,400 social homes needed to help ease the housing and homelessness crisis.
Only a handful of units have been constructed in many local authority areas, with thousands mired in the planning and approvals process for up to three years, the Irish Independent has learned. None has been built in Wicklow and Laois.
An analysis of official returns also shows that some units received the first of four required approvals from the Department of Housing as far back as 2013, but have yet to progress to the planning or construction stage.
The figures come after it emerged that buyers are being forced to queue for up to a week to buy a new property, and after the Government effectively admitted that delivery of ‘affordable’ homes costing between €240,000 and €320,000 was difficult to achieve.
Data on the social housing construction programme from the Department of Housing, published late last night, shows delivery is slow, with some local authorities having just a handful of units under construction.
Overall, 31 local authorities and approved housing bodies (AHBs) have been tasked with building 13,400 social homes across all counties.
To date, 2,512 are complete. Another 3,650 are under construction – a fall of 10 compared with three months previously – while the remainder are either awaiting final approval from the Department of Housing, being designed, tendered or taken through the planning process.
The latest figures, published late last night, arrived too close to deadline for detailed analysis. However, an examination of the Social Housing Status report published in January suggests major problems with delivering units.
It showed:
■ Some 12,238 homes were to be delivered. In January, 1,460 were complete and 3,660 under construction;
■ No units were built in Offaly, Wicklow, Leitrim and Laois. Fewer than 10 homes were built to date in Westmeath, Clare, Sligo and Roscommon;
■ Local authorities were tasked with building 7,277 homes. 629 were complete, 1,958 were under construction and the remainder are in planning;
■ No local authority directbuild homes had been built in eight of the 31 councils. They were Clare, Offaly, Galway, Wicklow, Kildare, Leitrim, Galway City and Laois;
■ Fewer than 10 had been delivered in Tipperary, Westmeath, Kerry, Sligo, Mayo, Roscommon and Cavan;
■ AHBs were charged with delivering 4,961 units. Some 831 were complete, and 1,702 under construction.
All social housing projects must go through a four-stage approval process before construction works can begin, with stage one considered to be a high-level appraisal of the project, where the business case is examined prior to approval in principle of funding.
Some 2,792 units were at stage one, some since 2013. Some 357 had progressed through all four stages, but work had yet to begin. Some 21 of the 31 local authorities had delivered less than 10pc of their housing programmes. The best-performing was Longford with 16 of 37 homes built (43pc), followed by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown (60 of 240, or 25pc).
The Department of Housing said the latest status update on the social housing programme showed “significant increased activity”, but admitted that delays were occurring.
“It is acknowledged that build activity in certain local authority areas has been slower than others to intensify, but that is not to say social housing delivery in those areas has not been progressing,” it said, adding the social housing programme included new build but also delivery under Part V, acquisitions, leasing and other schemes including HAP.
In some cases, AHB projects were not progressing due to “market conditions and negotiations with private developers”.
“At this time, the department is satisfied that appropriate arrangements are in place to deliver much-needed social and affordable homes,” it added.