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PETER MCVERRY HAS called on the government to start compulsorily purchasing empty homes to tackle our country’s housing problem.
“If we can do it when a motorway is being built, why can’t we do it to deal with our homelessness crisis?”
Speaking at the launch of the Peter McVerry Trust 2015 annual report, McVerry said that there were only two ways to make a meaningful difference to the levels of homelessness: to bring in legislation to link rents to the consumer price index, and to introduce a major programme of compulsory purchases.
The preliminary results from the census show that there are almost 260,000 vacant homes in Ireland, 61,204 of which are holiday homes. There were about 140,000 people on the social housing waiting list back in February.
McVerry said:
It is an affront to the thousands of people in homelessness that they should attempt to live their lives in emergency accommodation, B&Bs, and hotels while so many homes are allowed to lay empty across the state.
Government response
In response, Minister for Housing Simon Coveney said that it was not as simple as buying up all the vacant properties and putting all of the people in them.
The problem is, a lot of the vacant properties are in places where there’s not a lot of housing demand. So if you look at counties like Leitrim, Roscommon, Sligo and Donegal, there are some unfinished housing estates and there’s still a lot of vacant properties. But the real pressures are in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford.
https://twitter.com/liz_o_malley/status/770584683876933633
Coveney said that €17 million had been set aside for the Housing Agency to purchase empty houses in areas where people want to live. The target is to purchase around 1,600 properties.
Coveney said he had asked for the housing ministry because he “wanted to take on what many deem is a prickly political and human challenge”.
Homelessness
The Peter McVerry Trust dealt with 4,705 unique individuals, each of whom needed to access an average of two services provided by the trust. Of these, 171 individuals exited homelessness.
The number of individuals accessing their services increased 40% from last year.
McVerry said, “I began the forward for the Annual Report 2014 by saying: ‘In over 35 years of working with homeless people, I have never seen the situation as bad as it is today.’
“I spoke too soon; 2015 was much worse.”
Looking at the statistics for homelessness in July compared to December, there were:
Coveney said that he was firmly committed to tackling the housing problem, and that was why they had put together the housing action plan, Rebuilding Ireland, last month.
The plan commits almost €5.5 billion for 47,000 social housing units. The rapid house building programmes will produce 200 units by the end of this year, and a projected 800 by the end of next year.
“In many ways, the response by government over the last five years to this problem has not been good enough,” Coveney said. “I can give you all sorts of reasons why that’s been the case. But that is changing now.
There are some people who will quote statistics at you to say that the numbers of homeless per head of capita Dublin as a city compares quite favourably with other European cities. I don’t buy into any of that stuff.
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#COYGIG!! Fantastic evening for soccer in Ireland.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: Really great win.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: you are right, amazing performance. You kind of wonder why they couldnt pull it out for the other games though. Still it will give them great confidence going to the playoffs.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: its a shame you’re not very consistent AND you think FG have overseen some massive recovery in Ireland that they havent
@S Suilleabhain: What has that got to do with his COYGIG comment and this article? Was a comment of his deleted from this page?
@Setanta O’Toole: For the same reason probably that the Ireland’s men’s team would be lucky to win any match if they were in the same group as the 2nd, 3rd and 6th raned teams in the world i.e. France, Belguim and Portugal.
@Injustice Cop: he was odious to me & nasty and is routinely. I’ll say what I like and dont regard him as anything like a decent Irishman
strange username you have there, ironic.
Well done indeed ladies .
Brilliant result. Really attacked today and that goal v England gave them the emputis to push on in this game. Super venue also.
Brilliant! Well done everyone – delighted for you all
Great result for Mna na hEireann
To be fair. This was a great win against a top women’s team. Maybe now they realise that they are better then they think and give them a boost for the next time. Well done ladies.
Well done, great to see them finally getting a well-deserved win. Hope sign of things to come for them.
@ S Suilleabhain: You are pathetic. On an article concerning a great victory for our Women’s National Team you somehow have to bring completely unrelated politics into. How does it feel to have failed so miserable in life? There ar3 people all around you, from every part of the country have successfully made a decent life for themselves under the same circumstances you had to live under. You are a bitter failure. The soo wrong you take responsibility for your life the sooner things will improve for you. As long as you bitterly whinge and moan you will always be a miserable failure. Wise up.
Coolaboola
Great performance. I’m having a piece of humble pie for lunch!
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