Social Democrat candidate hosts housing meeting in Trim

Social Democrats' European Candidate for the Midlands North-West region, Rory Hearne, will hold the next public meeting of his campaign in Trim this Saturday (6th April).

Joining him at the 3pm meeting in Sally Rogers Bar will be Social Democrats’ Councillor for the Trim Municipal District, Ronan Moore.

The Town Hall meeting, themed ‘Solving the Housing Crisis and a Fairer Ireland’ will set out solutions to housing and homelessness, as well as focus on the role the EU can play in achieving a healthy housing sector in Ireland.

As a housing expert and a long-standing campaigner on the housing crisis, it is no surprise that Hearne's campaign for Europe will primarily focus on housing and homelessness. He believes the housing crisis can be solved through a fairer distribution of public services, public transport and zero carbon initiatives across the country, not just in our major cities, and he believes this “fairer future” can be achieved through setting more ambitious targets on housing and investment in public services across the Midlands-Northwest.

He has called on the new Taoiseach, Simon Harris, to scrap the failed Housing for All strategy once and for all and set more ambitious targets for housing, arguing that higher targets are needed to gather more energy to fix the crisis. If elected to Europe, he will hold the Government to account for their failure to meet the most fundamental need of its citizens and call for a crucial change and commitment to housing at the heart of Europe, the European Parliament.

Speaking ahead of the Town Hall meeting, Rory said: “Central to the Government’s Housing For All plan was the delivery of two streams of public affordable housing to be delivered by local authorities, AHBs and the LDA ­­– affordable ‘cost rental’ which are lifetime affordable rental homes for those on higher incomes than social housing limits, and affordable purchase homes.

"Yet in Meath, not one affordable cost rental home was delivered in 2023, and just 70 affordable purchase homes were built. Compare that to the massive housing need in Meath – Census 2022 showed there are 24,433 adults stuck living in their parental home in Meath alone. This scale of delivery is just completely inadequate to meet the real level of need.

"In Meath also, there is, as across Ireland, the issue of vacant and derelict housing that has huge potential to be turned into homes. There are over 4,000 vacant and derelict houses across Meath that should be homes.”

“The reality is the Government’s Housing For All plan is a flawed plan as it is insufficient to meet the real level of housing need, both social and affordable housing. It is leaving a generation locked out of a home. The solutions are clear – a massive increase in investment for public housing delivery through a national home building agency, increased funding for local authorities and not-for-profit housing bodies, tenant protections from eviction and tackling vacancy and dereliction.”