After 18 months, Government says it has built no affordable homes

NOT one of the 10,000 affordable houses promised by the Government to low and middle income workers 18 months ago under the Sustaining Progress pay deal has been built.

The homes were included in the three-year pay deal to tackle the shortage in housing supply and the rapid increase in house prices.

At the mid-term review of the Sustaining Progress deal yesterday, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern announced 1,000 of these affordable houses would be provided in Kildare and Galway on State land. An additional 7,800 houses will be made available using surplus local authority land, he added.

But neither Mr Ahern nor the Department of the Environment could say yesterday how many of the promised 10,000 affordable houses will be built by the time the Sustaining Progress deal runs out in 18 months.

Labour said Mr Ahern’s promise will be treated with considerable scepticism by those trying to get on the property ladder.

“Not a single block has been laid for a new house or a sod turned on the promised sites since this deal was first announced 18 months ago,” the Labour Party deputy leader Liz McManus said.

The Taoiseach made a similar promise a year ago at the ICTU conference in Tralee to release land owned by the Office of Public Works in Kildare and Meath for affordable housing.

“A year on, there is no sign of any of the promised houses on these lands or anywhere else and, in the meantime, house prices have trebled and the numbers on the housing lists doubled to over 60,000,” Ms McManus said.

But Mr Ahern defended the scheme and added that the provision of the 10,000 affordable houses was a key commitment made by the Government when the Sustaining Progress deal was signed.

“Last year, I placed on record my personal commitment and enthusiastic support for developing the Affordable Housing Initiative,” Mr Ahern said.

The Government has also agreed that alternative strategies should be pursued. These include the possibility of swapping valuable sites in return for affordable housing.

Mr Ahern said this could be done in a manner that ensures more housing units, more quickly, and with better value for money.

Meanwhile, the Department of the Environment confirmed not one of the promised 10,000 houses has yet been built.

“The first part of the plan is to identify the areas where the houses will be built and then we have to go through the planning process which can be long and difficult - but no physical work on any site has started,” the Department spokesman said.

But Mr Ahern did point out that this affordable housing scheme would not affect the funding for existing social housing programmes, which he said, would amount to more than €1.8 billion this year.