Social Democrat’s spokesperson on Housing Cian O’Callaghan has called for more Government action on vacant properties and apprenticeships to address the housing shortage.
Speaking on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland, Mr O’Callaghan said that the Government had been “sparse” in details in its report on Housing For All with few details about the delivery of social housing.
“The Government is way behind the targets it set itself”.
Mr O’Callaghan said that the Government was 30 percent behind in its spending for social homes and warned that it could not “chase” existing supplies to meet demand as that would push up prices.
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“It’s not delivering the extra supply that is needed”.
Mr O’Callaghan said there was an urgent need for skilled labourers in the building sector, but the country was “way behind” with apprenticeships. The current number of apprenticeships was 15 percent of the figure in 2006, he said.
The most recent census had also identified 35,000 vacant homes which needed to be converted into accommodation.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien on Wednesday brought the latest quarterly progress report on the Coalition’s Housing For All plan to Cabinet as well as an update on how it will be adapted to meet challenges like inflation in the cost of construction and soaring energy prices.
Mr Martin said the plan is working and “despite the unprecedented challenges arising from the war in Ukraine, we will exceed the target to deliver 24,600 new homes in 2022″.
However, it is unclear whether the homes built this year will include the full delivery of the 9,000 social homes and 4,100 affordable homes set out as the targets for those categories in 2022.
