Housing needs critical infrastructure status: Ibec

The housing crisis is in danger of worsening if the Government fails to enact serious reform of the planning system and elevate housing projects to critical/strategic infrastructure status, one industry representative has claimed.

The Ibec-affiliated Property Industry Ireland (PII) has just published its property watch report, which forecasts that just 11,000 new units are likely to be built this year — based on the 2,000 or so commencements made in the first quarter.

PII said that as this year’s build total will include the overhang requirement from last year, the country isn’t progressing on its plan of aligning the supply and demand equilibrium.