Record number of homes built but social housing low

A RECORD number of 76,954 houses were built in Ireland last year - up almost 12% on 2003, Housing Minister Noel Ahern confirmed yesterday.

But while Ireland’s housing output was one of the highest in Europe last year, almost the lowest number of social houses were built - just 7,000.

This prompted the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI) Justice Commission to call on the Government yesterday to impose infrastructural levies on second-home owners to subsidise the cost of providing social housing for 50,000 householders on the waiting list.

CORI Justice Commission spokesman Fr Sean Healy said it was not fair we were providing substantial resources for people who already have a home and, at the same time, the Government was not providing homes for 50,000 households.

“If the Government has to choose between providing infrastructure for people building investment properties or holiday homes, and providing for the 50,000 on a housing waiting list, then second-home owners should pay the cost of sewage, roads, water and electricity supply,” Fr Healy said.

Mr Ahern accepted people should be getting some money from second-home owners, but he said he did not favour imposing huge penalties on them.

“Most of the tax schemes for second-hand homes will run out next year and if you go from providing tax incentives to imposing penalties a lot of these people will buy overseas instead,” Mr Ahern said. CORI and Threshold, the national housing organisation, yesterday said that the output of 7,000 social houses a year was not sufficient to meet the demand and the State needs to be building at least 10,000 a year.

The minister, however, insisted the €2 billion budget for social and affordable housing for this year was a good start.

“We built 7,000 social houses last year and expect to increase it by 500 each year in the coming decade, which should go some considerable way towards reaching that target,” Mr Ahern said.

But Threshold chairperson Ann Hayden said the Government’s record on building affordable houses for those who have been pushed out of the market was appalling.

“Only 315 affordable houses were delivered last year under the controversial Part V section for developers and none of the 10,000 affordable homes promised under the Sustaining Progress deal have yet been built,” Ms Hayden said.

But while the minister conceded that people on certain incomes were being pushed out of the market, he said 2,000 affordable houses were built last year.

“We hope to increase it to 3,000-3,500 a year over the next three years,” Mr Ahern said.

But Mr Ahern said double the amount of houses were built in 2004 than in 1997.

“This has brought us to the position where we are building at a much higher rate than our EU colleagues - at over 19 houses per 1,000 people,” Mr Ahern said.

The most houses were built in Dublin last year at 16,810 - up 13%.

And, in the Greater Dublin area, which takes in the city, county and counties Kildare, Meath and Wicklow, a record number of 25,915 houses were built - up 140% in a decade.

Cork was the second highest with 8,276 new houses, followed by Galway with 4,943; Waterford was in fourth place with 3,248 and Limerick in fifth place with 3,108.