Put housing crisis at the top of the Council's agenda - English

Cllr Pat English forwarded a motion: “That Tipperary County Council recognising the scale of the national housing crisis re-affirms its commitment to work with Government and all relevant agencies towards delivering new housing units and in particular ensuring that sufficient social and affordable housing is built for those in need of housing in the shortest time frame possible given the lack of house building over the last number of years.”

Cllr English described housing as a “human right” and said the official figures do not count the hidden homeless, those sleeping on couches, and those paying unaffordable rents, unable to buy a home. “A fundamental change in our housing policy is clearly required. We must ensure that any future housing plan learns from the mistakes of the past.”

Tipperary Co Council management responded: “TCC has been and will continue to be fully committed to working with all stakeholders to deliver housing options to address the accommodation needs of all of its citizens and will continue to maximise all channels of delivery which are available to it to meet this objective.

“ln the context of social housing delivery, Tipperary had a set target of delivering 625 units of accommodation between 2018- 2021. This target was exceeded with a year remaining, having delivered 657 units by the end of 2020 notwithstanding the restrictions imposed by Covid last year.

“It is anticipated (notwithstanding the additional 4-month lock down at the beginning of this year) that just under 200 additional units will be delivered as social housing units by year end (between 127 and 134 build units) and between 250- 280 units are expected to be delivered in 2022. There is also a very strong anticipated pipeline for 2023. At the moment, there are approximately 58 individual projects worth approx 200 million at various stages in the delivery channel which will address the social housing need in the county.

“The above statistics demonstrate that there has been a very strong record of house building delivery in the county in the social housing space since the local authority was enabled to carry out this function. With the proposed initiatives under the current Affordable Housing Bill, TCC would expect to be in a similar position to maximise delivery under this particular category on the basis that the necessary resources accompany same”.