Jesuit homeless activist slams continued Govt housing failures

The last government’s failure to meet its housing targets, represented in a 6.7% decrease in housing delivery in 2024, is “a massive housing failure” according to a leading Jesuit homeless activist, who said that he has “no confidence” in the new Government because of its lack of “radical action” when it comes to tackling the issue.

Speaking to The Irish Catholic in the aftermath of the latest Central Statistics Office figures on housing in 2024, which recorded 30,330 homes built in 2024, down from the initial target of around 40,000, Fr Peter McVerry SJ said that the figures represent an obvious failure on the part of the Government.

“It’s obviously a failure,” he said. “They didn’t even reach the target and the target was far too low anyway – all the experts are saying that we need 50,000 to meet the expanding population. So the targets are too low and they didn’t even meet the targets.

“This Government have been in office for 5 years. Fine Gael have been in Government for fourteen years. Fianna Fáil have been in government for much of that time as well. Here at the end of it we have record homelessness, record house prices, record rents, what else can you call it except a massive housing failure?”

Ideology-driven approaches to the housing crisis are the main cause of the State’s housing problems according to Fr McVerry, who said that Government should embrace the public sector when it comes to addressing the issue and not rely on the private sector like it’s currently doing.

“I think the responsibility for the problems lies with the ideological position of a conservative government relying on the private sector to provide housing,” he said. “We’ve got to go back to the public sector for building public housing … that’s the only way in which we’re going to address this problem.

“For the private rented sector we need to scrap the HAP scheme and return to RAS. In both of them the Government pays the rent to the landlord but in HAP the landlord takes on the responsibility of managing the tenants, whereas in RAS the local authority manages the tenants.

“This Government isn’t going to radically change its policies – we need a radical change of policy. This Government, like the last Government, is tweaking existing policy and it’s not working.

“We need far more radical action than this Government is capable of. So I have no confidence that this Government is going to address the homeless or the housing crisis.”