by Alan Jacques
LIMERICK City’s housing crisis needs to be tackled at the highest level of government.
This is the opinion of Social Democrats General Election candidate for Limerick City, Sarah Jane Hennelly, whose party launched its housing policy last weekend.
Under the Social Democrats’ plan, housing would become the responsibility of a senior minister, rather than a minister of state, and a new agency would be established to handle social housing, mixed-type developments and the use of State land for housing.
Ms Hennelly believes, outside of the capital, Limerick is one of the areas worst hit by the housing crisis.
“The reports from the city and county manager consistently show waiting lists of several thousand people, all who have been approved for housing eligibility but the supply just isn’t there. For example, in May a report showed that Limerick had 4,681 applications for social housing approved – 3,705 of which were in the City – but just 180 housing units had been allocated at that point”.
She said the fact that the Social Democrats are seeking to give responsibility for housing to a senior government minister shows that they are the only political party acknowledging the seriousness of the crisis. Her party has also proposed the creation of a new Department of Communities, Housing and Planning.
“One of the measures that we are proposing in our housing document is reducing local authority housing lists by 10,000 each year nationally. We have proposed the creation of a new agency, Housing Ireland, that would oversee a target-led approach to reducing waiting lists, by supporting delivery of mixed-type, mixed tenure developments in conjunction with developers, local authorities and housing associations.
“We also plan to introduce rent certainty measures, another important factor for Limerick where rents went up by 12.5 per cent in 2015. Under our plan, future rent increases would be linked with the cost of living, as is the case in many other European countries,” she concluded.
