Junior Minister Malcolm Noonan says the Government is facing the challenge of the housing crisis.
He’s been speaking to KCLR after recent figures show that the number of people experiencing homelessness across the country has hit another record high with 11,542 people using homeless services in November.
The Carlow Kilkenny TD says that money is not the issue but he says the single biggest challenge is, we are trying to play catch up, noting “We’ve had a huge population increase here in the past decade, we’ve had a decade of under supply where we’ve, you know the state policy had been not to build social housing and to rely on HAP and other mechanisms to deliver housing so we have to have a balance, an equilibrium in the housing supply and that means private investment, it also means private construction but it also requires social housing cost rental which we’re doing and looking at the rental sector as well so we’re addressing these challenges but there’s no doubt it’s going to take considerable time before we play catch up and I think the critical thing as we all see across the country is supply, supply, supply”.
He added that work is being done; “What you require as well is local authorities that are proactive, meeting their housing targets, I think Carlow and Kilkenny have been very good and the Minister has been in the constituency quite a lot over the last couple of years opening really good housing projects, really fantastic in Castlecomer, in Kilkenny, in other parts of Carlow as well and I think we’re starting to see the scale that’s required happening but it is going to take time”.
