The Irish Council for Social Housing has welcomed increases in grant aid to voluntary housing bodies announced by the Minister of State for the Environment. Speaking at a conference organised by the council in Galway last week, Mr Bobby Molloy said capital grants for voluntary housing bodies would be increased by between £5,000 and £15,000 per house.
Voluntary housing schemes on offshore islands would be given an extra £15,000 per house. Other changes included a 50 per cent increase in funding for communal facilities in voluntary housing projects, he said.
"The terms and conditions of the social housing schemes had not been updated since 1995 and had fallen out of line with house building costs and house prices," Mr Molloy said.
"This was leading to a slowdown in social housing provision which could not be allowed to continue."
The announcement follows a substantial increase in funding for the local authority housing programme in the 1998 Estimates.
The Government has increased the allocation for council housing to £214 million, a rise of £40 million or almost 23 per cent. The overall allocation for social housing is £453 million, an increase of almost 14 per cent.
The money will allow local authorities fund up to 3,900 housing "starts" in 1998, compared to 3,500 this year. The increases in the grants for housing associations will help them catch up with spiralling housing costs, according to the Irish Council for Social Housing's development officer, Mr Donal McManus.
"We're very pleased with the increase in the capital limits within the capital assistance scheme," he said. "It will address some of the problems that have been raised by the housing associations."
Housing associations and co-operatives are currently building between 900 and 1,000 houses a year for low-income families, the elderly, homeless people and people with disabilities. The associations have found it increasingly difficult to compete.
"The limits were £27,000 and £32,000 in Dublin under the capital assistance scheme. There was very little being built. In one sense the voluntary sector was being priced out of the market," he said.
The conference also discussed the prospect of importing the French foyer model for housing young single people. A number of housing associations in Dublin and Cork are considering setting up such foyers, where young homeless people are given accommodation and training under the one roof.
The idea was developed in post-war France, when thousands of dislocated young men and women drifted from town to town in search of work. They frequently had no relatives or friends in the towns to which they moved, and endured great hardship until they established themselves.
The first such project on this island, in Lurgan, Co Armagh, opened earlier this year. It provides 30 flats and bedsitters where young, unemployed, homeless people can stay while they learn some basic skills aimed at helping them get work.
The idea is to defeat the "catch 22" syndrome where you can't get a job if you don't have an address, and you can't find a home if you are out of work.