An Independent TD has described the leaked sections of the eagerly anticipated Housing Commission’s report which says Ireland has a deficit of up to 256,000 homes as a “brutal and humiliating condemnation of an ad hoc national housing policy that has laid waste the dreams of an entire generation.”
Deputy Carol Nolan was speaking after RTE reported that the Housing Commission document, which has not been formally published, called for a “radical strategic reset of housing policy” and has estimated an underlying housing deficit in Ireland of up to 256,000 homes.
The report is also expected to refer to “ineffective decision making and reactive policy making where risk aversion dominates”.
RTE reported that:
The commission estimates that the underlying housing deficit ranges from 212,500 to 256,000 homes based on 2022 Census figures.
This refers to “pent-up demand” in the system, before other factors such as future population growth and inward migration are considered.
The report states that “emergency delivery” is required to meet this deficit. In addition, it says that a mid-range figure of 235,000 homes (between 212,500 to 256,000) is the “emergency” level required between 2025 and 2034.
Based on these figures, an annual average of 23,500 homes would have to be delivered just to address the deficit, before future housing requirements are considered. It is understood that this annual target, to address the deficit, would have to be delivered in addition to existing housing delivery plans.
Under the Government’s Housing for All targets, an average of 33,000 homes are due to be delivered between 2022 and 2030. This would mean that the average annual delivery of homes between 2025 and 2034 would need to be in excess of 56,000 units.
The commission also estimates the required delivery level if the average household size reduces to 1.9 persons and the population increases to 7.25 million by 2050. In such a scenario an average of 81,400 homes per annum would be required.
“On the one hand the reported extracts are merely a confirmation of what many of us have been saying for so long now; that government housing policy is a disgrace not just nationally but internationally. It is also the least effective value for money policy, possibly at a global level,” Deputy Nolan said.
“On the other hand, however, this is also a stark and borderline terrifying report that exposes the scale of the emergency.”
“The dysfunction around housing is now effectively a poison in the social fabric of the country; a poison that is driving our young to emigrate, our renters to become trapped in cycles of evictions and unaffordable costs.”
“Everything from rural housing restrictions to insane levels of bureaucracy and a labyrinthine planning system has been overseen by a government that has been exposed as dangerously clueless.”
“We need to radically reform the current system, root out the ideological and political rot and just get on with building and supply,.
The country and its people can no longer be held hostage to a broken housing policy that has betrayed them for long enough,” concluded Deputy Nolan.