Sinn Féin spokesperson on Housing Eoin Ó Broin TD has welcomed the European Commission’s latest semester report for Ireland, which calls on the Irish government to increase the provision of social and affordable housing.

Teachta Ó Broin said:

“The latest European Commission semester report for Ireland makes a number of observations on housing policy.

“It reaffirms the statistics that unfortunately most of us are familiar with; the number of households on social housing waiting lists, 10,000 homeless people and persistent rental inflation. It also warns that an increase in unemployment and people at risk of poverty remains high.

“The report calls on the government to increase the provision of social and affordable housing.

“Housing policy is a matter for individual member states. However, this echoes what many politicians, stakeholders and the public have been saying.

“No matter who forms the next government, they have a clear duty to embark on an ambitious delivery programme of public homes on public land to tackle social and affordable need.

“This approach will stimulate the economy by creating construction jobs, taking people off the dole and paying tax, while delivering the much-needed affordable purchase, rental and social homes.

“We need to see at least a doubling of capital investment in public housing.”

ENDS//

Note to editors: A copy of the report can be found at the following link – https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/2020-european-semester-csr-comm-recommendation-ireland_en.pdf