Minister quizzed on studies logjam

HOUSING Minister Darragh O’Brien’s department is bogged down in a quagmire of reviews and yet to be completed assessments, questions from Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald have revealed.

The information emerged in the wake of queries by Ms McDonald to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage on the current number of live studies, reviews and research undertaken or ordered by him.

Ms McDonald also asked the minister the date by which each study, review and research is scheduled to be completed.

Minister O’Brien responded that 42 ‘studies, reviews, and research projects are undertaken or commissioned by my Department and currently under way’.

The vast majority, 30, are scheduled, somewhat optimistically, to end this year.

A further five are scheduled to end in 2022 and four in 2023, whilst two reviews have no end date at all.

In an indication of the dominant position of housing in the Irish political landscape, the department is engaged in 10 studies into housing and rent.