Social homes building costs may become 'unsustainable' and raise reliance on private sector
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Delivering social homes for all who need them would cost €35bn — up €6bn in just two years, an independent assessment has found.
Costs could become “unsustainable” and the State could be forced to rely “even further” on the private sector to meet these housing needs, the paper from the Oireachtas’ independent Parliamentary Budget Office said.
The report said that if social homes were to be built for all those with an “ongoing need” for housing in 2022, it would cost the State €35bn, an increase of €6bn on 2020, even though the number of people requiring specific State housing supports went down, due to a spike in construction costs.
“It is, however, clear that particular household types in need of housing support remain stubbornly high,” the PBO said. “Despite these overall reductions, there are still a significant number of households whose need for secure, long-term housing, is not being met fully.
"It is also evident that the cost of delivering appropriate housing by building new homes is increasing. Further delays in supply are only driving these costs up further.”
The report said 116,886 households were deemed to have an ongoing housing need at the end of 2022, comprising at least 241,425 people. It defined those with an ongoing need as those households on the social housing list and those households in receipt of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP).
In the case of the latter group, they were said to have an ongoing need as they would not have a home should their landlord evict them from their property.
At the end of 2022, there were 57,842 households on local authority social housing waiting lists along with 59,044 households on the HAP. Together, this was a reduction of nearly 5,000 households from these figures from 2020, most from local authority lists.
Simon Communities of Ireland executive director Wayne Stanley said that, particularly in the area of HAP, a fall in these numbers did not indicate there is a fall in the need for housing supports.
He also said the State slowly ramping up its construction could also be affecting the lists but said that it must continue to ramp this up considerably in the coming years.
Mr Stanley said: “The cost of not doing it is so significant. The cost will be more homelessness and more pressure in the private rental market.”
He said the Government’s target of 9,100 social homes for 2023, for example, may not even be enough to stand still in terms of the lists and probably needs to be closer to 15,000 a year.
Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said that including HAP and RAS (rental accommodation scheme) tenancies on such lists create a much clearer picture of how many social homes are needed in Ireland, than by going with just social housing waiting lists alone in the way counted by the State currently.
“I do think the ramping up in delivery of social and affordable homes to the level needed is well within the financial grasp of the State,” he said.