Government missed its social housing targets again in 2024
The Irish Government has missed its social housing targets again.
It comes months after it was confirmed that it had missed its overall housing target of 33,300 after promising the delivery of 40,000 new homes in 2024 during the general election.
Housing for All, the Government's housing 'blueprint,' breaks down the number of privately owned, social, affordable and cost-rental housing units that should be built in any given year to meet their targets.
James Browne's Department of Housing published the social and affordable housing delivery statistics for 2024 on Wednesday morning.
It stated that 10,595 social homes were added to the social housing stock in 2024.
This included 7,871 new-build homes, 1,501 acquisitions and 1,223 homes through leasing programmes.
The target for social and affordable housing in 2024 was 12,930 homes.
It was anticipated that 9,300 homes would be built, 1,500 homes would be acquired and 2,130 homes would be leased. The only target met was the acquisition target.
The building target was missed by 1,429 homes (15 per cent), while some 907 fewer homes (43%) than expected were leased.
The Department of Housing stated that, when the Housing Assistance Payment (8,121 payments) and Rental Accommodation Scheme (1,576 payments) are included, '20,292 housing supports were delivered across 2024.'
However, these schemes were also below target. The target for 2024 was to create 8,800 HAP and 1,600 RAS tenancies.
However, the government exceeded its target of 6,400 affordable and cost-rental housing. Some 7,126 homes were created in 2024.
However, this included 2,851 instances where first-time buyers availed of the First Home 'bridge the gap' scheme. This gives the Government or local authorities an equity stake when first-time buyers buy privately built new build homes.
Another 1,349 people availed of the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant and were also included in the 'affordable purchase' statistics.
Just 779 affordable homes were actually built and available to buy.
Some 2,147 cost-rental tenancies were also created.
Minister Browne said that he 'acknowledged that the number of newly built social homes was below target for 2024 and that he would expect each local authority to do everything possible to meet their targets for 2025'.
He also confirmed that he will now publish quarterly performance reports to ' clearly outline how each local authority is delivering on individual targets for new-build social housing'.
Minister Browne said: 'To drive home a renewed urgency in delivering social housing, I will be meeting with the chief executives of all 31 local authorities to discuss their targets and plans to bring forward projects on their own land. 'Reaching our overall annual targets is dependent on each local authority meeting their target and we cannot afford for any individual local authority to fall behind.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Post
39 minutes ago
- Irish Post
Face to face with the Ulster warlord
I FIRST met Andy Tyrie, the leader of an armed loyalist group, who died last week, in 1986. A BBC religious affairs programme, Sunday Sequence on Radio Ulster, had started hiring me as a freelance reporter and interviewing Tyrie was one of my first jobs. He was of interest to a religious affairs programme because the producers thought he might have thoughts on how much loyalist violence against Catholics was religiously motivated. I had to travel to a part of Belfast I did not normally feel safe in, where the population was almost entirely Protestant and unionist. Esther who managed reception, pressed the buzzer to let me through the security gate and directed me up the stairs to Short Kesh. This was the joke name for Tyrie's office, a pun on Long Kesh, the site of the Maze prison which housed loyalist and republican convicts. I found Tyrie affable and witty. He was a stout and tawny man with dark hair and a thick moustache. I assumed that the loyalist sectarian marauders he governed had at least the good sense not to shoot a journalist, one who might air their case, if they had one. We spent a couple of hours talking and then I recorded the interview. We covered a lot of ground. His basic theory was that sectarian tension in Northern Ireland was about territory. Most working class Protestants lived in housing developments that were almost exclusively Protestant but the Catholic population was increasing and needed housing too. The Ulster Defence Association which he led was ostensibly about defending Northern Ireland, or Ulster as they called it, against the IRA. In reality it was more concerned to scare away Catholics who had moved into houses in what loyalists regarded as Protestant areas. We talked also about new ideas being developed at that time about loyalist culture. Tyrie said that loyalists had been surprised to see that republicans in the prisons were able to communicate using the Irish language. They realised that a coherent Irish culture reinforced the argument for Irish unity and the preservation of a singular Irish identity. To match that, loyalists had to explore their own identity. They were now taking an interest in Ulster Scots, a rural dialect that their forebears had brought from Scotland. Before I left Tyrie, one of his close colleagues came into the room. He remarked that I bore a strong resemblance to Jim Campbell, a former news editor of mine who had been shot and wounded by men of the UDA that Tyrie led, perhaps with Tyrie's approval. The new arrival said, 'Sometimes we drive past Campbell's house and wave to him just to scare the shite out of him.' This was closer to the raw humour of vicious people than the amicable chat I had been having with Tyrie. This man took from his pocket a large brass folding knife, opened it and held the blade up to my face. 'If we just cut off a bit of the beard here and another bit here, you'd look just like Jim Campbell,' he said. I edited the interview and it was broadcast at length. On the day after broadcast the production assistant called me and asked for Tyrie's address. The BBC, which paid interviewees back then, sent him a cheque for £83. A few weeks later, Terry Sharkie, my producer and I went to Moneymore to report on an Orange Ceili, one of those presentations of loyalist culture that Tyrie had spoken of. This was held in the ballroom of a hotel. Tyrie was there. I went over to talk to him and realised that the men around him were not happy with my presumption of familiarity. I said something light-hearted to Tyrie to evoke a similarly friendly response that would reassure these goons that I was no threat. Tyrie said nothing so I walked away. There was further embarrassment that night when I was called out to draw the raffle ticket for a clock made by a loyalist prisoner. This clock was built onto a brass map of Northern Ireland on a wooden plaque. I drew the ticket and to enormous embarrassment my producer Terry Sharkie had the winning ticket. There was stamping of feet and shouts of 'Fenian Fix! The Taigs have got the clock'. But Tyrie's people assured us we had won the clock fair and square and even invited us to stay on. I danced with one of the loyalist women in a cumbersome country waltz. 'We're not sectarian here,' she said. That clock sat on a filing cabinet in the BBC's religious affairs office for about three years and was then blown onto the floor by an IRA bomb in the street below us. In the year before my interview with Tyrie his organisation had shot and killed one Catholic. He was later usurped by more murderous younger members who raised that tally considerably after trying also, and failing, to kill Tyrie himself. Perhaps I had seen a hint of that emerging tension myself, between the cheery bloke that he was when we were alone together and the sterner figure he became when hard men were around. See More: Andy Tyrie, IRA, Ulster
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
The Irish Times view on domestic planning exemptions: room to improve
Reports this week on on proposed adjustments to current planning exemptions brought to Cabinet by Minister for Housing James Browne have focused on the idea of making it easier for families to make alterations to their proerties in order to facilitate accommodation for older relatives. The proposal follows earlier musings by Minister of State John Cummins about the merits of permitting modular living spaces to be installed in gardens for this purpose. The details that emerged this week added the spectre of older family members being dispatched to the attic to that of them being banished to the bottom of the garden. In truth, the idea is a good one if executed well, offering greater flexibility for families to make appropriate changes to their properties at different life stages. Increased longevity and smaller family sizes mean the standard three or four-bed 20th century suburban home may no longer be appropriate for some 21st century lifestyles. If the new exemptions were to lead to a moderate increase in population density in mature suburbs, that would be no bad thing, although some research from Australia suggests measures of this sort can drive up house prices even further, deepening the emerging generational divide between property owners and those who can never afford to buy. All of this should be taken into account in the public consultation which is due to take place over the summer. Whatever the outcome of that process, the regulations need updating. Much has changed since they were last amended. In particular, the State has been eager to encourage lifestyle changes that protect the environment and mitigate climate change. Many of these have implications for domestic residences. Current restrictions on insulation or structures to house bikes and bins should be adjusted accordingly. READ MORE A further benefit would be to remove some of the pressure on the over-burdened planning system. In fact, dispensing with excessive or archaic regulations wherever they occur should be an absolute priority across the system as a whole.
The Journal
2 hours ago
- The Journal
Court escorts for prisoners at risk due to overcrowding, Irish prisons boss warns
THERE IS A real risk that the Irish Prison Service will not be able to transport all prisoners for court hearings, as overcrowding is putting pressure on staff to meet their escort abilities. Director General of the Irish Prison Service Caron McCaffrey warned the Department of Justice in a letter last year that the system is at 'tipping point' in respect of its ability to carry out escorts to court and maintain safe staffing standards inside its facilities. Her letter told the Department: 'Current levels of overcrowding are exacerbated by resource constraints due to ever-increasing demands for escorts.' The Journal has previously reported that record-high levels of overcrowding inside Ireland's prisons are increasing the risk of violence , seeing incarcerated people sleeping on the floor and creating a difficult working environment for staff . Speaking to journalists last month, McCaffrey said she hopes that new ankle monitoring technology will assist the service in reducing the number of people in prison who are on remand, awaiting trial, which amounts to roughly 20% of the population. The short-term remedy is also being met with additional funding to increase the number of beds that can be made available in the existing system , the department of justice has previously said. In her letter, the head of the prison system said she had 'grave concerns' around the safety of staff and prisoners, because of dire overcrowding in jails. Concerns around the length of time court escorts take, and frequency of them, were highlighted by staff at a recent Prison Officer Association conference in Galway last month. Recruitment for the Prison Service Escort Corp, which transports officers and prisoners to court and other prisons, has been a particular issue in recent years as resources become stretched. Advertisement There were 4,960 prisoners in custody at the time of McCaffery's letter, in May 2024, in which she said the Irish prison system was 'not in a position to absorb the inevitable increase in committals safely'. Since then, the number of people in custody has risen to as high as 5,400. McCaffery said the appointment of additional judges has contributed to the increases in prisoner population and court escorts. 'Undoubtedly, a large element of the current overcrowding crisis is directly related to the appointment of additional judges,' the letter said. '[This led to] the scheduling of over 600 extra court sittings this year, decisions taken when our prisons were already overcapacity and not in a position to absorb the inevitable increase in committals safely.' McCaffrey's letter was addressed to one of the most senior officials in the Department of Justice, but has only now been released following an appeal to the Information Commissioner under Freedom of Information laws. Months before the letter was sent, The Journal reported how the Irish Prison Service was using temporary release measures, when people in custody are let out periodically under strict conditions, to alleviate the system from increased levels of overcrowding . The use of the temporary release scheme is approved on a case-by-case basis. It is understood that every suitable candidate for the measure in the system has already been approved. McCaffery told the department in May 2024 that she wanted an urgent decision on new rules around who could and could not be given temporary release. She wrote: 'In the absence of an urgent decision [on temporary release measures], I need to advise you that I now have grave concerns in relation to the ability of this service to ensure the safety of both those who work and live in our prisons.' She said there had been a sharp increase in temporary release to relieve pressure, but that all the main prisons were well above operational capacity. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
