Roche plans to spend €4bn on housing by 2009

The Department of Environment plans to spend €4bn on social and affordable housing in the next three years.

Minister Dick Roche launched a new housing policy today while announcing his department's spending plans for next year.

The framework plan is designed to meet the needs of 50,000 households between now and 2009.

Minister Roche said that the focus will be on quality, as well as quantity: “There is no point in just building masses of houses – you actually have to build places where people can live and people can recreate, and people can fulfil their own potential.

“Today we’re launching a new housing policy framework that sets out the fundamentals of the Government’s vision for housing over the next years and it reflects the need, I think, that exists in the housing sector,” he explained.