*Photograph: Joe Buckley
COUNTY COUNCILS must return to building houses in order to tackle what is acknowledged as a housing crisis, a Clare TD has said.
In a report released at the end of January, IBEC warned, “The crisis in the availability of affordable housing in Ireland is becoming the critical barrier to the continued growth and development of business investment”.
Within Co Clare, there is insufficient work being done when it comes to social housing, Michael McNamara TD (IND) argued. “In terms of housing, I’ve raised the lack of social housing, there is affordable housing being built in Clare but there’s no social housing being built in Clare”.
133 social housing units across the county which were officially opened by Minister for Housing, Darragh O’Brien (FF) last year “were houses in the pipeline for a long time” when it was put to the Scariff native that the shortfall was more to do with affordable rather than social housing. “There is a shortfall of both but there are affordable housing schemes underway, there is very little actual County Council built schemes where County Council tenants will go into, there is a shortage of both I accept but there are no estates under construction from the County Council”.
Approval has been granted for multiple social housing schemes in Clare including Ennistymon (30), Drumcliffe Rd Ennis (26), Gort Rd Ennis (20), Scariff (18), Sixmilebridge (15), Doonbeg (8) and Clarecastle (2) but construction has not begin on any of the seven projects.
Deputy McNamara told The Clare Echo that reducing the role of local authorities has accelerated the housing crisis. “County Councils got out of the business, there was a perception that it was a function better performed by housing charities, those housing charities are very good but we just need Councils to realise it is their core function, we’re stripping back what Councils do the whole time, planning has been stripped back with the office in Dublin, water has been taken off them. Clare County Council unlike most have almost found a niche with tourism and tourism management, they do that very well, I’m not saying it’s an either or but it’s not their core purpose, in Britain local authorities are the ones tasked with ensuring there is adequate childcare in an area of their administration, the extent to which they do that in Ireland is just looking at County Development Plans. You need a more active local authority but it’s going to come down to funding and who will fund it, one of the big problems is local authorities sold off a lot of houses which was good and bad”.
He stated, “We’re going to have to get local authorities building houses again, there is no houses under construction by Clare County Council. There has been a lot of talk about modular homes but still years into the crisis it is just talk”.
