Budget fails to address rental crisis - Adams

Ireland’s largest housing association, Clúid Housing, which provides 411 homes in Louth, says that last week’s budget has failed to address the rental crisis.

Louth TD Gerry Adams also criticised the budget for ‘failing’ to deal with the housing crisis.

While welcoming the €2.3 billion for the housing programme in 2019, housing association Cluid stated that a dedicated affordable rental scheme is ‘ desperately needed’ to alleviate the crisis faced by the ‘ squeezed middle’.

Affordable rental provides housing to the ‘squeezed middle’ – people whose incomes are above the eligibility level for social housing but who cannot afford to pay market rents. Cluid believes this has the capacity to make a significant contribution to a greater mix of tenures across County Louth .

Fiona Cormican, Cluid said: ‘Clúid welcomes the focus on housing in Budget 2019, and particularly the money being made available for affordable housing. ‘

‘ To have a sustainable tenure mix we need to address the needs of a wide range of people. We’d like to see more focus on affordable rental.’

Ms. Cormican added: ‘Currently Clúid has 411 homes in Louth and we are continually looking for new opportunities to develop further in the county and beyond. We want to partner with developers and local authorities to deliver 2,500 units nationwide over three years.’

But Louth TD Gerry Adams hit out at the government’s budget, saying it fails to meet the needs of citizens with disabilities in health, in education and in housing.

‘ The claim by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil that this is a housing budget does not stand up to scrutiny. Housing and homelessness is in crisis,’ said Deputy Adams.

‘It required a priority response and significant additional resources by the government. Instead the proposals in the budget fail to tackle the huge social and affordable housing need which clearly exists in Louth and across this state.’

‘When you cut through all of the hype only a miserable €120m additional has been allocated for capital investment in housing. This means that less than 500 new social homes, in addition to what was already committed, will be provided bring the total for 2019 to less than 8,000 homes. This is far short of what is needed.’

The Louth TD added ‘In a budget that provides more money for landlords the government is predictably pushing the responsibility for housing onto the private rental market. ‘

He criticised moves to make ‘almost 20,000 subsidised private rental tenancies, which will be used to meet social housing need.’

‘ This is a short term strategy which provides no security for tenants and leaves them vulnerable to homelessness.’