Opposition parties have trenchantly criticised the Government’s Housing Action Plan as a repackaged version of previous plans, while charities and agencies and professional bodies have given a cautious welcome.
Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin claimed the Government’s new plan was written by and for “big investors, big developers to benefit their private interests”.
He described it as “the emperor with no clothes” and accused the Government of “brazenly trying to rebrand unaffordable private homes as somehow affordable”.
“Ordinary people, workers and families have once again been ignored, and for 10 years, you have starved our councils of the resources and staff to deliver public housing on public land at scale, all the while showering investor funds, corporate landlords and big developers with subsidies and tax breaks like confetti.”
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Labour housing spokesman Conor Sheehan said Minister for Housing James Browne’s housing plan will have to “turn water into wine” if it is to achieve the target of building 300,000 homes by 2030.
All Opposition parties criticised the decision by the Government to abolish annual targets and Mr Sheehan said it would make it difficult to measure the plan’s progress.
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Social Democrats deputy leader Cian O’Callaghan claimed the housing plan “contains the same recipe for failure” as the three previous housing policies. “There’s no sign of a radical policy changes called for by the Housing Commission. Worse, no hope for the lockdown generation that anything will get any better.”
Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said “key problems are not being tackled”, including “Government bureaucracy and red tape, the lack of viability, the lack of key infrastructure and the lack of serviced zoned land”.
Mr Tóibín added that “in the middle of a housing crisis so many construction companies are idle” and are saying “there’s no proper pipeline of work coming through for them to work on”.
The Institute of Professional Auctioneers & Valuers (Ipav) has said the new plan marks the most comprehensive response to date to a housing crisis more than a decade old and nearly two decades of “housing policy delinquency.”
Chief executive of Dublin Simon Community Catherine Kenny said a “holistic homeless implementation plan must now be developed” following publication of the plan. She said “the largest cohort within homelessness is the just over 7,000 single adults” and along with families, they must be equally supported to exit homelessness.
President of The Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland Gerard O’Toole said they need to “break down the silos that appear to exist across Government departments and agencies if we are to ensure the efficient and timely delivery of new housing”.
The Irish Planning Institute (IPI) welcomed the plan but its president Gavin Lawlor warned “it will take time for our housing delivery system to get from where we are now to where we need to be to deliver the ambitious housing targets”.
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The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has described the Government’s new housing plan as “old wine in a new bottle”. Campaigns officer for the Raise the Roof campaign Paul Gavan said “there are no proposals to protect tenants from no-fault evictions, no radical expansion of the tenant in situ scheme, which was one of the better innovations of the last government.”
Homeless charity Depaul chief executive David Carroll welcomed the more than €100 million next year for second-hand acquisitions but said there must be specific reduction targets and concrete actions must “materialise now”.
Ibec, the group representing Irish businesses, has said the new housing plan “aligns with what business needs, but this now needs to be the catalyst for significant movement on delivery” and “the key now is relentless implementation”.
The Construction Industry Federation welcomed the plan but its director of housing and planning Conor O’Connell said meeting the target 300,000 homes by 2030 rests on unlocking zoned land with infrastructure and planning permissions.
