LAST UPDATE | 24 Mar 2023

SINN FÉIN SPOKESPERSON on Housing, Eoin Ó Broin has accused the government of deliberately distorting social housing need figures in order to “justify their inadequate social housing delivery targets”. 

The comments were made after the Housing Agency published their annual Summary of Social Housing Assessment 2022.

The report shows that last year there were 57,842 households on local authority social housing waiting lists.

“On the back of this report, the Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien is claiming that, since 2016, there has been a 36.8% drop in social housing need. His claim is based on the fact that since that year the number of households on council waiting lists fell by 33,758,” Ó Broin said today.

“What the Minister is not telling people is that, from 2016, the number of social housing applicants living in the private rented sector on short two-year leases subsidised by the Housing Assistance Payment has exploded from 16,493 to 59,490. 

“Social housing applicants in receipt of HAP are not included in the council list figures.”

Since 2016, the number of households in short-term four-year Rental Accommodation Scheme leases fell slightly from 20,306 to 16,723, Ó Broin continued.

“HAP and RAS tenants do not have their long-term housing needs met. They are no different to social housing applicants in receipt of Rent Supplement who are included in the council waiting list figures.”

“When HAP and RAS tenants are added to the overall social housing need figures, it shows that there are currently 134,055 households in need of social housing, an increase of 4.4% on 2016.

“The removal of HAP and RAS tenants from the social housing need figures is deeply dishonest. Government is deliberately massaging social housing figures.

“They are doing this to justify their inadequate social housing delivery targets. 

“The current government social housing targets are not based on an honest and objective assessment of social housing need.”

Data for 2022 was collected based on social housing waiting lists on 1 November, and showed a decrease of 2.4% compared to November 2021, or 1,405 fewer households on the list.

The report notes:

“Households currently living in local authority rented or Approved Housing Body (AHB) accommodation, or accommodation provided under the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP), the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) or the Social Housing Capital Expenditure Programme (SHCEP) or any household on a transfer list, are not included in the total number.”

Older people waiting for housing

The report also found that the proportion of households with a main applicant over 60 years of age has been growing year on year and now makes up 11.9% of total households on social housing waiting lists.

The number of people aged 70+ on the social housing waiting list in 2022 increased to over 2,000 for the first time, reaching 2,023 people.

“These figures are extremely concerning and reflect what we are seeing on the ground,” said ALONE CEO Seán Moynihan.

“We are also seeing that older people are struggling more to access social housing that is equipped to their needs. We are working with several social housing tenants, for example, that cannot manage the stairs in their apartment complexes and are essentially trapped in their own homes but cannot be transferred due to lack of availability.”

He continued, “We need an increasing percentage of social housing to be developed for older people to match our changing demographics. Ireland is getting older, and we are renting for longer.”

“With more than one in four applicants on the social housing waiting list aged 50+, the need to provide age-appropriate housing for older people is not going away.”

The report also found that one-adult households remain the biggest household grouping on the waiting list and grew from 54.9% of the total in 2021 to 56.0% in 2022.

In 2022 there were 572 households living in direct provision seeking to access social housing.
22.3% of households on the list had been waiting for more than 7 years.