Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The ESRI has already indicated that target of 33,000 in Housing for All is inadequate. There is a general consensus that we need at least 50,000 a year. When the Housing for All targets were first set, in my local authority we did the maths and it was clear that the failure to take into account those who will join the housing list meant that at the end of Housing for All, and this was a few years ago, there would be more people on the housing list in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown than there were when the targets were set.

The Government seems unwilling to acknowledge that the targets were always inadequate. It is now absolutely clear that they are wholly inadequate. The problem is that even those targets cannot be delivered on in regard to social and affordable housing in particular. It is all well and good to talk about the census being delayed and the national planning framework, but there must be a recognition that we urgently need to ramp up the targets, to deal with the problem, which is that we are unable to deliver even on the existing inadequate targets, and to do something about it in regard to the national development plan.

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