Waterford branch of Social Democrats criticise new Housing for All strategy
The Waterford branch of the Social Democrats (SD) recently took to Twitter to criticise Housing Minister Darragh O' Brien's latest Housing for All strategy.
In its tweet, the branch expressed doubts over the new strategy: "Fianna Fail promised they were going to build 10,000 affordable purchase homes a year each year when they were in Government."
"But the new Housing For All plan falls well below that."
Contained within the tweet was an interview of fellow SD member Councillor Cian O' Callaghan TD, who recently gave his thoughts on the new strategy while speaking to RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland programme.
The Dublin-Bay North politician said: "We had a very clear promise from Fianna Fáil last year that that were going to build 10,000 affordable, purchasable homes a year, each year when they were in government and that's missing from the plan, that's gone effectively."
"They are talking about 1,000 affordable, purchasable homes potentially next year, moving to 2,000 affordable after that."
He added: "Over the lifetime of the Government, they're not going to deliver the amount of affordable purchase that they were promising in black and white in their manifesto that they would deliver each year.
"So I think for people who are renting, paying very high rents now, were hoping that maybe to get an affordable purchase home, they will be disappointed and they'll be wondering, 'why is that commitment that was given, where is that gone, why isn't it being delivered by the government?'"
Mr. O' Callaghan continued: "We know that there are about 90,000 homes that are vacant on consistent basis. We know where they are, (according to the) county by county local electoral area, so we don't need more data, (what) we do need (is) action for this."
"The evidence from other countries, if you bring in a vacant homes tax, it would not mean that all those homes get turned into use but a significant number of them will be."