Building 300,000 houses in the country in five years is 'fantasy' - Leitrim councillor

As the housing crisis deepens, Leitrim Councillor has taken aim at the government's target of building 300,000 new homes over five years as part of it's 'Housing for All' plan.

Cllr Felim Gurn described the plans as "fantasy by two failed governments and I don't know where they are going to get the workers; in our county development plan we have to capacity issues; Irish Water capacity, electricity capacity and then you also have the issue that they won't let people build one-off houses in rural Ireland. That issue hasn't been straightened out in 15 years."

He said the cost of building has grown so significantly, "the government itself, has pulled out of building social housing. Costs have gone through the roof. I spoke to a counterpart in Northern Ireland where you can build a three-bedroom house for £210,000 and the same three-bed house here will cost €360,000."

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He went on to say that there are almost 1000 on Leitrim's housing list and "no houses being built and no money being given to the council to buy houses. If they want to keep costs down I don't see why more houses aren't being produced by 3D printing where you don't need the labourers, especially in our cities."

Cllr Gurn continued that now Halal Mortgage, which strictly adheres to Islamic principles, ensuring no involvement of interest has now entered the Irish sector. "If you are of the Muslim relationship, you don't pay interest. What chance does someone have to buy a house that is €360,000 when a Muslim couple can go to their bank and borrow this and pay back €360,000. If an Irish person goes to the bank and takes out that loan, they end up paying up €700,000; that's an uneven playing field."

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Cllr Gurn said that he believed the number of houses that will built over the next number of years will be well below 300,000.

He said: "It's fantasy to think that they are going to build 300,000. If they were truthful it would be closer to 50,000; and we need to build at least that for the next number of years."

He concluded: "It's really the perfect storm at the moment; rents have gone through the roof, people can't get money for a deposit to buy a house and builders can't get finance out there unless they are building 60 to 100 houses."