Independent TD for Laois/Offaly, Carol Nolan has described the cost of the yet unmet need for social housing in her constituency as “breathtaking” and described the situation as an “emergency”.
Nolan’s comments came after the scale of the current and future “housing emergency” in Laois and Offaly were highlighted by the Deputy after an analysis by the Oireachtas Parliamentary Budget Office on the number of households eligible for, but not yet in receipt of social housing estimated the combined costs for both counties as €742.5 million.
The PBO analysis based the costs on what it would take to house the number of households on the social housing waiting lists plus households in receipt of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP).
The cost for the Offaly County Council lists overalls was put at €338,360,562, while for Laois County Council the cost is €404,159,521:
Deputy Nolan said, “The data released today by the PBO is breathtaking in terms of the magnitude of the emergency we are facing,”.
She added that, “The PBO itself now estimates that there were 115,425 households nationwide with an ‘ongoing need’ for permanent, state-supported housing at the end of 2023 which will cost approximately €34.95 billion to build.”
“Alarmingly the PBO also estimates that at end-2023 there was a minimum of 235,659 people (4.4% of the total population) making up the households with an ongoing need including an estimated 92,116 dependent children.” she said,
Deputy Nolan said it was, “absolutely clear that we are a critical juncture in terms of housing and accommodation and unless new and innovative solutions are implemented immediately the crisis will continue to get worse.”
“We have already seen this week how rising population levels are outstripping supply by a ratio of 4 to 1. That combined with a decades old and dysfunctional planning system mired in bureaucratic red tape is destroying the capacity of entire generations to own their own home or even access a roof over their head,” Deputy Nolan concluded.
Senator Keogan described the government’s policy on migration as “reckless” and “madness” after a new report showed that the “severity” of Ireland’s housing crisis was “on a different level” with almost 4 people being added to the population for every home built. Most of the recent sharp population increase has come from immigration.
The report from Savills Ireland analysed the scale of the housing crises in an international context, and found that Ireland is an outlier in the severity of its’ housing supply challenge.
“Looking at population growth in comparison to housing delivery between 2015 and 2023, the analysis shows that 3.8 people were added to the population for every one new unit of housing delivered, a ratio of nearly four to one,” the analysis reported.
It said that the ratio was “by far the worst among the countries analysed”, being 14% higher than the next worse country, Spain, which saw 3.4 new people per one new unit delivered followed by Canada with a ratio of 2.9.
You can read the full report on Gript here.