31st Mar 2025 14:34
(Alliance News) - The Irish minister for Housing has refused to set out the government's social housing targets for the year ahead, saying he did not want to get into "guessing numbers".
James Browne said he did not want to get into predictions or estimates, adding that he wants to "maximise" the delivery of homes.
Ireland's government said it would build 9,300 social homes in 2024, however question marks remain over whether the target will be reached.
The government's previous targets for building social homes in 2020, 2023, 2022 and 2023 were all missed.
The target for this year in the Programme for Government and Fianna Fail's general election manifesto is for the state to directly build "at least" 12,000 social homes a year.
Senior government figures have been criticised for claiming during the election campaign that close to 40,000 new homes would be built in 2024, which would have been far in excess of its own targets.
This was despite the Central Bank projecting in its September Quarterly Bulletin that completions would hit around 32,000.
Data published by the Central Statistics Office earlier this year revealed that only a total of 30,330 new homes were completed last year, below the target in the Housing for All plan of 33,450 new-builds in 2024.
Asked what is the government's estimate in building social homes for 2025, Browne told RTE Morning Ireland programme: "Oh, look, I'm not going to get into guessing numbers.
"You know figures are really important. I'm a new minister for Housing. My view is, I don't get into predictions. I don't get into estimates. What matters are the real numbers.
"My aim is to maximise the delivery of homes in this country, whether that be social, affordable or private. We need all different mix, and that's what I'll be doing.
"Rather than getting into this kind of, I suppose, endless discussions about predictions, I want to maximise delivery of homes.
"The only way we will solve the housing crisis is supply, supply, supply, and that's what I intend to do over my period as Minister for Housing."
Defending the government's stance on social housing, the Fianna Fail minister claimed that this government and the previous government has delivered the "largest amount" of social homes for decades.
"And we are are going to continue that work and effort to deliver and maximise the number of social homes," he added.
"I think we need to be clear here. The strongest delivery social homes since 1975 was recorded in 2022, when 10,250 homes were delivered, and that record was exceeded again in 2023 with 11,938 homes."
On Friday, it was confirmed that a record 15,378 people were living in emergency accommodation last month.
The latest figures from the Department of Housing show that of those living in emergency accommodation in February, a total of 4,653 were children.
Browne said the numbers were "disappointing".
"What we're also trying to do is maximise the people coming out of homelessness as well so that people are not spending an order amount of time in emergency accommodation," he added.
"We don't want people spending any amount of time in emergency accommodation, so we don't."
By Cate McCurry
Press Association: News
source: PA
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