Louth TD says Sinn Féin 'has no plan for housing'

Louth Fine Gael TD Fergus O'Dowd has said that Sinn Féin "has no plan for housing, while Housing for All is clearly delivering results".

Deputy O'Dowd was commenting today following the release of the latest housing commencement data, which shows that in the year to date, commencement began on 1,456 new homes in Louth.

According to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage monthly data on the number of Commencement Notices (residential construction starts) for May 2024, commencement began on 125 new homes in Louth in May.

While it is down on the 293 new homes commenced in Louth in May 2023, and also down on the 970 commenced in April of this year, the total number of commencements from January to May of this year of 1,456 homes, already surpasses the total amount of commencements in Louth for the whole of last year when work began on 1,118 new homes.

Of the 125 new commencements in May 2024, just six were one-off homes, which is the lowest number of one-off units commenced in Louth in any month of this year. It is one higher than the five commenced in May of last year however. So far this year, work began on 62 one off homes in Louth, up from 32 in the first five months of 2023.

Nationally, 32,121 units commenced in the first five months of 2024, more than double the 12,987 units commenced in the same period of 2023. The figure for the first five months of 2024 is now 98% of the total (32,801) for the whole of 2023. In the 12 months from June 2023 to May 2024, there has been 51,935 units commenced, up 86% from 27,855 in the prior 12 months (June 2022 to May 2023).

For May 2024 there were commencement notices for 1,983 new homes. This is a reduction of 35% on May last year when 3,059 units were commenced. The Department of Housing says that this can be attributed to the introduction of the development levy waiver and the Uisce Éireann connection charge rebate which were introduced in April 2023 to fast track more development and make more projects viable.

The Department added that these measures were due to expire in April 2024 and as evidenced triggered a surge in commencement activity in April 2024 as that deadline approached. The subsequent decrease in commencement notices in May 2024 reflects, it said,  the large amount of activity fast tracked into April.

Commenting on the latest figures, Deputy Fergus O'Dowd said that, “supply of housing is really ramping up nationally, almost 2,000 units were commenced last month, this has seen the grand total of 32,121 houses commence since the first of January.

“That’s 98% of the whole number of houses constructed last year in the first  five months of this year, which shows that the likes of the First Home Scheme and the Help to Buy scheme are having a real impact.

“Sinn Féin are in power in Northern Ireland, and they’ve admitted their own social housing targets would collapse this year. Sinn Féin has no plan for housing, while Housing for All is clearly delivering results.

“We must continue to help more people become homeowners, and we know that boosting housing supply is crucial to this goal.”