Leo: Projects ‘of all sizes’ needed to fix housing crisis

THE construction of developments of all sizes – ‘small, medium and large’ – is needed to fix the housing crisis, the Taoiseach has said.

Leo Varadkar was speaking yesterday as he officially opened a new 42unit social housing development in Stormanstown, Ballymun, Dublin, built by Oaklee Housing Trust in partnership with Dublin City Council.

The site of the project – which will house approximately 100 adults and 50 children – has been a source of controversy for almost a decade, but the Taoiseach said the development is a ‘model for the future’.

Mr Varadkar said that to some of the Government’s opponents, ‘particularly those on the left’, the development ‘doesn’t exist because it is not directly built by a local authorityit’s built through a partnership involving the City Council and Oaklee Housing Trust’.

He added: ‘But I think to the people who live here, they will tell you it does exist and it provides really high-quality public housing and it is very much a model for the future.’

When it was put to him that this type of project may be criticised for being relatively modest in scale in comparison to the volume required to tackle the housing crisis, the Taoiseach said we need projects ‘of all sizes – small, medium and large’.

‘This year, across the country, about 20,000 new houses and apartments will be built, and we are aiming to build about 25,000 next year,’ he said. ‘So I think it is a little bit like the jobs crisis or the unemployment crisis seven or eight years ago.

‘You know, nobody turned around and said five jobs in a small business or ten jobs in a medium-sized business didn’t count and all that mattered was 200 jobs by a multinational. Actually, if you want to solve a problem like the housing shortage, you solve it in the same way as we solve the unemployment crisis.’ He added: ‘That means housing developments all over the country.’