Councils are still buying homes instead of building them, say housing experts

THE State has increased the number of properties bought for social housing instead of the more affordable option of building them on State-owned land, housing experts have found.

In a Newstalk interview earlier this month, Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy implied the State had reduced its reliance on the private sector in its provision of social housing.

‘Previous governments relied on the private sector for social housing delivery,’ Mr Murphy (right) said on May 15. ‘We said in 2016 that we wouldn’t do that, but until we had the houses built we had to help people into homes.’ Now research by housing policy analyst Lorcan Sirr and architect Mel Reynolds shows that across the four local authorities in Dublin, fewer social houses were built last year than in 2017. The majority of houses delivered were new builds bought from the private sector. From 2017 to 2019, nearly 75% – 7,866 – of their total delivery of 10,621 social houses were ‘turnkey’ properties. Local authorities have increased their use of turnkeys by 57% over 2017-2019 and Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) have upped theirs by 73%.

According to Mr Sirr, local authorities have decreased their building of new social houses by an annual average of 2.4%, and AHBs have increased theirs by 20% since 2017. Given the level of land owned by the State in Dublin, Mr Sirr questioned the lack of building. ‘As of 2018, the four Dublin local authorities own enough vacant land for about 30,000 dwellings based on older lower density guidelines,’ he added. ‘Under

new guidelines, this number is even higher.

‘In Dublin City Council, the council is allowed spend up to €584,000 on buying a three-bed house. This would build two similar houses.’

A spokesman for Minister Murphy said the term ‘turnkey’ is misleading as the local authority is often involved from the beginning of the project. He said: ‘There are areas where a Local Authority may not have land in places suitable for social homes and turnkeys offer a good solution in this scenario. These homes ... are directly expanding the market because they are new homes built by and for the local authority/ AHBs.’

However, Mr Sirr said ‘turnkeys’ are still properties destined for the private market and are more expensive because the builder has land and profit requirements.