Publicly-owned housing stock needs to grow by 500% in order to meet demand

Cllr. Éilis Ryan (Workers’ Party) has today (Tuesday) issued figures which reveal that Dublin’s publicly-owned housing stock is less than a sixth of what would be required to meet current demand.

Cllr. Ryan said:

“Figures released to me from Dublin City Council put the number of units owned by the city council at 4451 in 2016 – a little lower than the 2006 figure of 4559. This is in spite an almost 10% jump in population in the city over the same decade.

“However, while construction of public housing has stood still, numbers on Dublin City Council’s housing waiting list have climbed. There are now almost 20,000 households waiting for social housing in Dublin, and many more who aren’t on the list but can’t afford a secure home.”

Cllr. Ryan continued:

“It is astonishing that there six times more households either currently living in or waiting on social housing, than the number of units currently owned by Dublin City Council. It underlines the absolute detachment between repeated governments’ attempts to defund and undermine public housing, and the clear demand and need for housing provided by the state.”

She concluded:

“The willingness to ignore these figures comes from a hope at government level that many of those on Dublins’ housing lists will simply move elsewhere – to less affluent areas, preferably, where land and housing isn’t in such high demand by money grubbing developers.

“Without a rapid and total shift in policy at government level, we will witness the wholesale gentrification of the city, in which only the super-wealthy can afford to live in the city they work in and have family and social links in. This is already happening in London and San Fransisco.”