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Housing Crisis
Harris says he's meeting too many local councils who think they've 'done enough' on housing
Harris called out local authorities, stating there’s too much sluggishness in parts of the system.
SIMON HARRIS HAS issued a warning to local councils stating that he is meeting too many of them that think they’ve “done enough” on housing.
Speaking to The Journal’s The Candidate podcast, Harris called out local authorities, stating:
“There’s too much sluggishness in parts of the system, in terms of zoning land. So, when I meet people who build homes, access to zoned serviced land is really, really important.
“And I’m meeting too many local authorities, who think they’ve done enough. ‘Ah sure we have a housing emergency, but we’ve done enough here’. Quite frankly, no one’s done enough. If it’s an emergency, it’s an emergency,” he said.
The Tánaiste went on to say that there the situation can’t be allowed where local authorities aren’t providing more serviced zoned land.
Calling it a key issue, he said “we can’t have a situation where people are telling me that they can’t build homes because of things like delays in Irish Water connections or ESB connections. We’ve provided a lot of funding to both those organisations”.
Taoiseach Micheal Martin lashed out at councils for not moving fast enough to zone land for housing.
“Many councils are dragging their feet on this,” Martin said last September. The Taoiseach said he had spoken to a number of council bosses about the matter.
Aside from calling out the sluggishness of local authorities, Harris outlined that he has no plans to roll out stamp duty relief to first-time-buyers, but did commit to reviewing the Help-to-Buy scheme and its thresholds.
He also told The Journal that he wants to see the Renters’ Tax Credit increase above €1,000.
Touching on the issue of house prices and whether he would like to see them fall, Harris said it was a “hard question to know at what point do house prices even out”.
“What I definitely know is if you want to certainly stop the growth in house prices or see some degree of stabilisation, you need to build a hell of a lot more homes,” he said, acknowledging the country is in the midst of a “national emergency” when it comes to housing.
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