€2bn underspend on housing budget this year, Sinn Féin claims

The Government is “sitting on” an underspend of €2 billion in this year’s housing budget at a time when there is “a sense of desperation everywhere”, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said on Tuesday.

Ms McDonald said it “beggars belief” that the Government claims its housing policies are working when it is not just missing its targets, but its “entire approach to housing has failed”.

Speaking during Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil, the Dublin Central TD said the Government will miss its social and affordable housing targets for “the third year in a row”, targets that “don’t even come close to meeting the level of housing need in our society”.

“Despite the Taoiseach’s repeated refrain that housing is the single biggest social issue facing Government, what we see is failure to plan and failure to deliver,” she said.

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“You promised 9,000 social homes this year by the end of June, you have delivered only 1,765. You promised 4,100 affordable homes this year, you have delivered only 925 to date.”

Ms McDonald said rents were at “record levels” and continue to rise while homelessness was also at a historic high.

Child homelessness has increased by a “staggering” 51 per cent since April 2020, she added.

“To make matters worse, we hear the Government is €2 billion behind in your annual housing spending in your capital expenditure,” she said.

“That’s not likely to change in the next six weeks, €2bn sitting there while people watch house prices go through the roof and know that they have no chance of affording their own home, while young mothers and fathers and their children squeeze into the box rooms of their own parents’ homes, while families languish for years and years on council housing waiting lists.

“People caught up in this never-ending housing crisis will be shocked by this minister and angered.”

In response, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath said there was no €2bn of capital underspend in housing, and that it was “always the case” that the final quarter of the year was always when there was the largest delivery as schemes get closed out.

Defending the Government’s Housing for All strategy, Mr McGrath said there were close to 28,000 new homes built across the country in the 12 months to September 2022.

“There were nearly 21,000 house completions alone in the first nine months of this year,” he said. “This has already exceeded the total for 2021 which was about 20,500.

“We are projected to reach over 26,000 new homes by the end of the year. We acknowledged that there was much work yet to be done but we are working very closely with the local authorities, with the approved housing bodies to deliver new homes across the country.”