Following the release of the government’s Housing plan on Thursday, Minister Darragh O’Brien says the goals set out for this year and next won’t be possible until we have the human resources.
The plan of action is to build up to 300,000 homes by 2023, however, O’Brien told Newstalk Breakfast this morning that this cannot be done unless there is a surge of new employees in the sector.
He estimated that around 10% of Ireland’s construction employees fled for the UK and Europe during the pandemic lockdowns looking for work - but that there is hope that with the creation of 27,000 new jobs in the industry, this will tempt many of them back with the promise of “real opportunities” here.
“We need to build up capacity in the sector,” he said.
“The sector actually has contracted by about 10% in human resources because of the pandemic – many people in the sector left and went to continental Europe and Britain.
“Thankfully some of them are coming back. This plan will create 27,000 new construction jobs. There are real opportunities here in construction for people to come back in.”
He said recent predictions that would see a huge volume of new homes built over the next year or so are simply “not true”.
“For those who are saying that straight away we could build 30,000 or 40,000 homes this year and next, unfortunately, that is not the case,” he said.
“It is not true that that could be done because we need those human resources, those women and men, to come back into the sector.
“We need extra workers in the sector."
However, he told RTE’s Morning Ireland that the new plans will benefit thousands of people with its measures on affordability after ten years of people feeling “locked out” of the housing market.
“I know there are people who feel like they have no stake in the Irish housing sector and they can’t get their own home - they’re my absolute priority and this government’s priority,” he said.
“In fairness, the plan is very detailed, there are 213 different actions in it and I think people will take time over today and tomorrow to look into the details of it.
“The affordability side of it is very strong, I have had contact from a lot of people again who say they feel very positive in what we’re bringing forward in relation to the suite of options to be able to buy your own home at an affordable rate, like the home first shared equity plan which isn’t inflationary and won’t be.
“But more importantly the direct build of affordable housing, we haven’t had affordable housing in this state for over a decade, and really what I’ve done here is, put three different options when I include cost rental to long term state-backed rents which are going to be all over the country.
These plans ensure that “we’re going to be able to build homes at a rate never seen before.”
In terms of social housing, O’Brien said they’re looking at building “on average 10,000 new homes a year over the term of the plan.”
