Darragh O’Brien slams Sinn Féin for 'trying to block progress' on housing
A Fine Gael report claimed Sinn Féin voted against 6,000 homes being built in Dublin. Picture: iStock
The housing minister has slammed Sinn Féin for “trying to block progress in a systemic way” by criticising housing policy and blocking planning applications.
Darragh O’Brien referenced “quite a stark example” in recent weeks when a Sinn Féin politician objected to building “208 social homes, two miles from his own home”.
“If we're serious about delivering social homes… don't object to that,” he said.
Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh had objected to plans for social housing in his Dublin South Central constituency on the grounds that it would overshadow neighbouring homes.
A Fine Gael report published earlier this year also claimed that Sinn Féin had voted against 6,000 homes being built in a number of Dublin developments.
Sinn Féin representatives have said that objections to planning were due to too low a percentage of social and affordable homes in some developments.
Mr O'Brien insisted the Government was “not losing the battle” against homelessness, despite record figures.
Homeless figures for September, the most recent available, show 3,904 children were in emergency accommodation that month. This is the highest number of children in homelessness ever recorded.
Some 12,827 people were listed as being homeless in September with the figure reaching record levels in July when 12,847 people were recorded as using emergency accommodation.
“Homelessness is our number one priority,” Mr O'Brien said after a meeting with Cork Chamber of Commerce today.
Increasing housing supply, particularly social housing, was key to tackling homelessness, he said.
“Last year we built more new social homes than we've done since 1975. And we will build more again this year.
“What I've got to make sure as minister for housing is that those who fall into homelessness are supported through emergency accommodation and have good services in place to help to exit them out.
“We're going to, this year, spend around €300m in that space.”
Mr O’Brien stood over the Government’s record on housing, saying that between 2011 and 2016, 30,000 homes were built. Last year, 30,000 new homes were built in 12 months, he said.
“This year, I can confidently predict that we will build more than that again,” Mr O’Brien said.
“We are playing catch-up; there is a pent-up demand there for both private and public homes. We're starting to address that now."
He added that "we're seeing 500 first-time buyers every single week now buying homes" and said schemes such as the First Home scheme and Help to Buy are working.
He also said the vacant property refurbishment scheme is working, despite the reporting this week that just 21 grants were drawn down since the scheme came into effect last year.
Figures show that 4,640 applications have been made for the grant, with 1,975 being approved since the scheme came into effect in July 2022.
The vast majority of these drawdowns have taken place between July and September this year, with 16 being provided in the three months.
Mr O'Brien said any criticism of the scheme was “simply for political reasons”.
Through the scheme, buyers need to initially pay to renovate the homes and the State will then pay back up to €50,000 to renovate vacant homes or up to €70,000 for derelict buildings.
Mr O'Brien defended this, saying that taxpayers’ money could not be handed out in grants before work had been completed and checked.
He said that homebuyers paying for the work themselves initially “has not been a barrier” to the take-up of the scheme.
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