According to national housing charity Threshold, Ireland must treble its present supply of social and affordable rental homes if it is to permanently address its housing problem, reports Breaking News.
The call was received during their seminar, “Changing Our Housing System,” which was taking place at Dublin’s Richmond Education and Event Centre.
Darragh O’Brien, the Minister of Housing, introduced it. Speakers and guests included Dr. Richard Waldron, Senior Lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast’s School of Natural and Built Environment, as well as political figures from the Labour Party, Green Party, Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, People Before Profit, and Social Democrats, reports Breaking News.
According to Ann-Marie O’Reilly, national advocacy manager at Threshold, alternative models should be taken into consideration because the housing system in Ireland isn’t satisfying everyone’s requirements. She specifically emphasised the unitary housing system, which is presently prevalent in a number of other European nations:
“Insecurity of tenure and unaffordable rents continue to be among the top issues Threshold deals with, from clients. While some headway is being made, a longer-term blueprint – with the commitment of successive governments – for a new housing system is needed to tackle these challenges and provide long-lasting solutions. Earlier this year, the Housing Commission recommended that the Government ‘increase the proportion of social and cost-rental housing to 20 per cent of the national stock.’ By reaching this 20 per cent target, competition would be created for the private rental sector,” reports Breaking News.
“Currently, social and cost-rental housing accounts for approximately 9 per cent of the total housing stock, or around 182,000 residential units. To reach the 20 per cent target, this would need to more than double to over 360,000 units. This would result in a different housing system, known as a Unitary Housing System, or an integrated market. This type of housing system has the potential to improve access, affordability and security across all tenures. Many of us have heard of the Vienna Model, which is a unitary system. But it’s not just Vienna. Countries such as Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands operate unitary housing systems,” reports Breaking News.
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