Housing Association urges Green Party to deliver on promises

HOUSING ASSOCIATION URGES GREEN PARTY TO DELIVER ON HOUSING PROMISES

Ireland’s largest provider of social housing is calling on the Green Party during their first Convention since their ascension to Government in June 2007, to deliver on what the party promised prior to last May’s General Election. Respond! Housing Association is urging party leader and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, John Gormley TD, to deliver on the pledged annual 10,000 social and affordable units of accommodation in order to clear the current public housing waiting list of 43,000 households (with approximately 32,000 children).

According to Pat Cogan, ofm, Managing Director of Respond! Housing Association: “Over the past decade, we have witnessed the boom which occurred in the private housing sector but unfortunately these levels of increased production were not matched by the voluntary housing sector. Between 2000 and 2006, the private sector produced 444,419 units of accommodation while the social housing sector (including Local Authorities) only provided 35,839 units during the same period of time. Urgent and appropriate action is required on the part of the Minister and his Department to redress this imbalance.”

As Ireland’s largest housing association, Respond! currently manages more than 4000 properties and advocates a more integrated, sustainable approach to social housing. With more than 25 years experience in housing, community development, childcare and education, the housing charity contends that bad housing policy on the part of successive governments has resulted in today’s housing crisis.

“While we are calling on the Government and Minister Gormley’s Department to conduct a critical evaluation of the social housing sector in Ireland, there are measures which can be put in place in the short-term to help increase the level of social housing in Ireland” Pat Cogan added. “We could almost double our current national production of 1,000 units per year if new and vastly improved approval systems were put in place and if the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government looked more vigorously at applications received by them.”

Respond! also believes other interim measures could be introduced including a programme of land-banking whereby Local Authorities and social housing providers were given first port of call on any state land to be sold, as well as legislation to end practices such as land speculation and the hoarding of zoned land; practices which have distorted the housing market to date and greatly limited the capacity of social housing providers.