Fianna Fáil disputes figures for social housing list

Almost 45 per cent more families and individuals are on social housing waiting lists than official Government figures show, Fianna Fáil has claimed.

The party's environment spokesman, Barry Cowen, submitted freedom-of-information requests to 31 local authorities. These showed a far higher figure than the Department of the Environment's official housing waiting list, which dates from 2013. The Fianna Fáil figures show 130,000 families and individuals are on housing lists, compared with the official figure of just under 90,000.

The figures were vigorously challenged by the Government, which claims the party did not take into account duplications, particularly in Dublin, where some families and individuals apply separately to all four local authorities.

Twice official levels

The Fianna Fáil figures show that in Roscommon the local authority figures were three times higher than the official figures. In Longford and

Mayo

the figures were running at more than twice the official level.

“This is one of the biggest issues in the country today,” said Mr Cowen. “These figures reveal that the crisis is far worse than we imagined. The Government is significantly understating the extent of the crisis, using figures that are actually two years out of date.”

A spokesman for Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly contested the findings, saying local authority figures fluctuated and also did not take into account large numbers of duplications.

“Deputy Cowen isn’t the best with figures. It’s all more bluff and bluster and counting apples as oranges,” the spokesman said. “There is a crater-sized hole in Fianna Fáil’s housing policy that he never mentions – namely that they want to use commercial funding to build social housing, which is a misnomer.”

He said the department’s figures were based on the last comprehensive analysis of the housing waiting lists from 2013, which removed duplicates.

Total crisis

Niamh Randall of the Simon Communities said the figures, if accurate, highlighted that increasing numbers of people were in need of social housing at a time the housing market was in "total crisis".

“The Simon Communities are seeing more and more people being pushed into homelessness on a daily basis due to this crisis. There are currently 3,285 adults in emergency accommodation and since January there have been increases of over 50 per cent in the numbers of families [657] and children [1,383] in emergency accommodation,” she said.

“We are seeing the impact of rising rents and reduced housing supply every day: people on low incomes and those in receipt of rent supplement are being pushed over the edge into homelessness.”