The State's and the building industry's record on providing housing for the most vulnerable in society has worsened in the past 20 years and is now "totally unacceptable", a range of speakers at a conference on housing said yesterday.
The conference, Building Houses or Creating Homes?, organised by the Focus Ireland charity, heard that while 27 per cent of the new housing stock built in 1985 was social, by 2005 this proportion had fallen to 7 per cent.
"This record is unacceptable and totally inadequate," said Declan Jones, chief executive of Focus Ireland.
He said that of the 23,948 houses built in 1985 6,523 were social. Last year of the 80,957 units completed just 5,559 were for social housing.
"The ironic truth is that more and more people are being left without a home in the midst of the greatest building boom in Irish history. About 43,684 households are waiting for a home, at least 35,954 children are in desperate need of proper housing and over 5,000 people are homeless."
Builder Mick Wallace said the whole thrust of Government housing policy left "a lot to be desired".
He cited the fact that developers were able to "buy their way out" of an obligation to provide 20 per cent of all housing they built as social or affordable housing. He described the decision by Government to allow builders to pay local authorities rather than provide 20 per cent social and affordable housing as a "climbdown".
He called for more high-rise buildings - "or else we are going to run out of grass" - and for bigger apartments, "with higher ceilings and big balconies" to make them more attractive to families.
It should also be a condition of planning for all estates and apartment complexes that there be playgrounds and sports pitches, he said.
Phillip Watt, director of the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism, warned of the importance of "planning for diversity" in housing, given that it was projected that 20 per cent of the anticipated five million people living here in 2030 will have been born abroad.
"There's a need for sensitivity by estate managers to the issue of racism in estates."
He also warned of the dangers of ghettoisation of immigrants into bad-quality, cheap accommodation.
