Only 29 houses were built by Dublin City Council last year, councillors were told by a senior official at a meeting last night.
More than 16,000 applicants are waiting for council housing in the city, but the council cannot provide sufficient suitable housing for them, assistant city manager with responsibility for housing Dick Brady told the councillors.
“The profile of our housing stock does not match, with half our applicants being single,” Mr Brady said, with very few one-bedroom units available.
The breakdown of applicants shows 55 per cent are single and 30 per cent are lone parent families. Some 53 per cent are on rent supplement and 77 per cent rely on social welfare.
When the units built as part of the regeneration of Ballymun are excluded, the number of new houses built by the council has seen a ten-fold decrease – from 265 in 2009 to 29 last year.
The council has a particular problem with its ageing housing stock Mr Brady said, and had a “Celtic Tiger policy legacy” of blocks of flats emptied out for regeneration programmes that never came to pass.
“We have to be careful with how we de-tenant buildings for refurbishment. We have to move into refurbishment in such a way that we do not destroy the communities we are trying to preserve.”
He said there was an urgent need to increase housing supply in the city. “There is pent- up work that needs to be done. It isn’t an option to say it can’t be done.”
The council must bring bedsits back into use, to provide units for single people, Cllr Mannix Flynn (Independent) said.
Applicants could be waiting more than 11 years on the list at current rates of housing provision, said Cllr Gerry Breen (Fine Gael). The council should issue a €1 billion bond to get 4,000 needed units either from Nama, the private sector or by directly tendering to building firms, he said.
Cllr Christy Burke (Independent) said a fund should be created using property tax receipts to allow the council to buy or build housing.
The council should investigate setting up independent housing trusts ,which would allow it to source financing independent of the national debt, Cllr Críona Ní Dhálaigh (Sinn Féin) said.
All councillors agreed to seek an urgent meeting with Minister for Housing Jan O’Suillivan.
The council has a total housing stock of 25, 791 units.
