Special Cabinet meeting on housing will consider ‘all different actions’
By Cate McCurry, PA
A special Cabinet meeting on housing will look at and consider “all different actions” and policy options, the Government’s chief whip has said.
Mary Butler said that investors will have to help plug the gap in funding to meet the Government’s target of building 60,000 homes a year.
Ministers are expected to gather on Monday for a special cabinet committee meeting on housing.
It comes as the Government is under further pressure to ramp up the number of new builds after figures from the Central Statistics Office revealed that just over 30,000 new homes were completed last year, far short of the projected 40,000.
The meeting is set to assess a number of housing options, including reviewing tax breaks for developers and builders.
Speaking on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics programme, Ms Butler claimed it was “unfair” to say the Government had failed to reach its targets on housing.
“There was 125,000 houses built over the last three years. That’s 125,000 families sitting in their home this morning,” she said.
“We have a minister for housing in post for three weeks. We have a Cabinet meeting tomorrow, a Cabinet meeting to look at all different actions.
“I’m not sure exactly what’s going to be discussed at the meeting, but what I do know is that no decision has been made yet.
“In the programme for government, it stated quite clearly that we would look at the Rent Pressure Zones, there is nothing new in that, they are going to be looked at. That was one of the recommendations of the (Housing) Commission as well.”
She added: “I do think the one thing we do have to recognise is taxpayers will spend 6 billion this year on housing in Ireland.
“In order to ramp up to the 60,000 houses that we need, you need an investment of approximately 20 billion euros. That can’t all come from the state. That’s why we need investors as well.”
The Social Democrats Sinead Gibney accused the Government of “doubling down” on housing policies that do not work.
She told the programme that she does not believe tax breaks are needed to break the logjam in housing.
Ms Gibney said: “We’ll be hosting our own motion and discussion on housing on Wednesday, as the Social Democrats are putting forward our solutions, which we have done so throughout the last term of government, and those solutions have been rejected by a government that seems entirely focused on private sector led solutions.
“There is a place for those solutions within a broader housing policy, but their own Commission has told them that they need a radical reset of that policy, and they are not doing that.
“They are doubling down a policy which has clearly been proven not to work.
“We need to see renters with greater protections, not a shredding of the very poor protections that are already there, and we need to close those loopholes, and we need to focus on affordable and social housing delivered by this state. That’s where we should be.”
Sinn Féin’s Donnchadh O Laoghaire said that private investment should not be “exploitative” or led to increase in house prices and rent costs.
“There’s a discrepancy between what the government is saying in terms of needing to bring in private investment and the reality that if there is to be a greater return on investment, then surely that means a greater amount being paid by renters to their landlords,” he said.
“In our view, there is a place for private investment, undoubtedly in the housing market, but it has to be on the basis of sensible investments that are not exploitative, that do not lead to the increased escalation in house prices and rent prices of the kind that we’ve seen the last couple years.”
