Opposition accuses ministers of ‘a litany of failure’ on housing
OPPOSITION leader Micheál Martin yesterday accused the Government of a litany of unfulfilled promises on housing.
The Fianna Fáil leader alleged that ‘scheme after scheme, announcement after announcement’ had failed to materialise into meaningful bricks and mortar.
‘Delivery has just not matched the high blown rhetoric of ministerial announcements,’ he said listing a number of what he claimed were unfulfilled Government promises. He alleged that:
The repair and lease scheme promised 800 houses last year, but that none has been delivered.
The affordable rental scheme was promised in 2015, but had delivered nothing.
The rapid build scheme, announced three years ago with a target of 1,500 houses, had delivered only 208.
Nama had nearly 7,000 units certified as being available for local authority and social housing – but only 2,400 were delivered.
O 400 units were promised by the end of this year under the affordable homes scheme, but the number delivered was zero.
O Credit Union off-balance sheet funding for housing, set up in 2015 has delivered nothing.
Mr Martin highlighted in particular the Poolbeg West scheme, a Strategic Development Zone in Dublin city centre announced by Tánaiste Simon Coveney (thenhousing minister) in May 2016.
Mr Coveney promised that the pace at which it would be delivered ‘would take us by surprise,’ Mr Martin said. ‘He certainly did. It has not yet been delivered and will not be for another couple of years.’
In 2015 then-environment minister Alan Kelly announced a public private partnership to provide 534 houses. The successful tender applicant was announced only this week – three years later – and the houses will not be completed until 2020.
The most farcical situation of all, said Mr Martin, was where local authorities must submit plans for any build that will cost over €2million to the Department of the Environment.
That’s the case with any development of more than ten houses and it takes over a year to approve them, Mr Martin charged. Such bureaucratic delays were unacceptable, meaning local authorities were unable to get schemes off the ground, he said.
Sinn Féin also accusing the Government of sitting on the sidelines during the housing crisis. Leader Mary Lou McDonald branded the Taoiseach ‘timid’, claiming: : ‘Any Government worthy of the name needs to intervene in an emergency fashion. That means doubling your capital investment, it means being bold, it means having ambition… ditching your pathetic excuse for dealing with rent control… introducing a rent freeze.’
Mr Varadkar said his Government was accelerating the building of all types of housing, and that millions were spent this year providing emergency accommodation.
Emergency powers had been brought in to fast-track planning and rent-control measures had been introduced, for the first time in decades, he said.
Declaring a housing emergency would not build any more houses, he said, and neither would amending the Constitution to provide a right to be housed.
He said making declarations and speeches to play politics summed up Sinn Féin’s approach to housing ‘not putting forward solutions that are workable, or in many cases affordable,’ he said. ‘Sinn Féin really has no credibility when it comes to housing.’
208 rapid-build houses in 3 years