Affordable Homes

“Dear Minister Roche,

In past few weeks there has been much debate about affordable housing provision in Ireland.

I would like to bring a new idea to the debate.

I believe that the Government and specifically your Department should hold a manufacturing and design competition for affordable housing.

Such a competition would utilise the market to get the highest possible performance out of our construction industry.

The idea of the competition would be that your Department would call on housing designers and manufacturers to team up and come up with a high quality, sustainably constructed house design that could be produced for under €100, 000.

Such a competition was successfully run in the UK last year by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Unless we have fresh thinking on housing affordability I think that owning a home will soon cease to be a realistic ambition for many young people.

Please feel free to contact me to discuss my proposal further.

More information on the Department for Communities and Local Government can be seen on this website:


Best regards,

Ciarán

Ciarán Cuffe TD
Dún Laoghaire Green Party
Spokesperson for Environment, Heritage and Local Government”