Rory Hearne: 'There are over 4,000 vacant and derelict homes across Meath that should be homes'

The Social Democrats' European Candidate for the Midlands North-West region, Rory Hearne, held a public meeting on housing in Trim on Saturday.

The theme of the meeting was ‘Solving the Housing Crisis and a Fairer Ireland’ and he was joined in the discusson by Social Democrat Councillor for the Trim Municipal District, Ronan Moore.

In recent weeks Hearne 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.

“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 homes 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.”