Developers neutering social housing plan, says Rabbitte

DEVELOPERS “using their inside track to Fianna Fáil” have neutered a crucial scheme to provide more social and affordable housing, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said last night.

In a blistering attack on its handling of the issue, Mr Rabbitte said the Government was “announcing and re-announcing initiatives” with “minimal impact”.

He criticised the Government’s decision to give developers a way out of their obligation to ensure 20% of new estates contain social and affordable housing. That law was contained in the Planning and Development Act 2000, but was later changed to give developers the option of giving land or money to local authorities instead.

According to housing agency Focus Ireland, €25 million has been handed over since the change of law, but few homes have been built with the cash.

The agency estimates that, had the original law stood, an additional 14,000 social and affordable houses would have been built since 2002.

Mr Rabbitte said the obligation contained in the act has effectively been neutered by developers using their inside track to Fianna Fáil.

He was addressing the Parnell Summer School in Avondale, Co Wicklow, on the subject of Michael Davitt’s legacy for contemporary Ireland.

“We have more than 43,000 people on the public housing waiting list,” he added. “The Government announces and re-announces initiatives on social and affordable housing that so far have contrived to have minimal impact.

“In practice our social housing need is being transferred into the private sector. Apartments funded by tax breaks are often sustained by tenants on housing rental supplement but the recipients will lose that supplement if they go out to work.

“The young mother (whether from Ballymun or Bosnia), a single parent, living as a private-sector tenant in the absence of a proper public housing policy, finds herself in our newest property trap.

“That is not how Davitt would have envisaged the Ireland of the 21st century.”

Green Party leader Trevor Sargent, addressing the same subject, called for immediate implementation of the 1973 Kenny Report to ensure more affordable housing.

The report envisaged capping the amount of money local authorities had to pay when purchasing potential development land. The Greens believe such a move would drive the cost of building social and affordable housing downwards.

Mr Sargent said there was a “protected class of developers and speculators”.

“In the year of the centenary of Davitt’s passing, policy makers should pay tribute to his memory by ensuring that housing is made affordable,” he said.