Dublin South West representative Se\u00e1n Crowe TD has described the proposed cost of temporary modular housing as stretching credibility.<\/p>\n
Crowe was responding to news that 22 of the new modular units proposed for Ballymun will reportedly cost a total of \u20ac4.2 million and about \u20ac15,000 per house more than a regularly built 3 bed house. He was speaking after Focus Ireland said that 72 families were made homeless in October and over 1,500 children are now living in emergency accommodation.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of us who have campaigned for an emergency response to the housing crisis accepted that modular housing could play a part in relieving homelessness.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe roll out of this type of housing was always going to be controversial but with the overall cost of the site in Ballymun, and the fact that it had already been identified and planned for regular housing, is causing considerable disquiet among many housing activists.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Department of Environment has said that only 20 social houses were built in the first six months of this year to meet the current housing crisis. That is completely unacceptable.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody accepts that we need an immediate boost in supply particularly in urban areas like Dublin, but the overall financial cost of erecting these modular units is stretching credibility and doesn\u2019t instil much confidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need housing immediately for the hundreds of families and over a thousand children who are currently stuck in hotels and B&B’s, but short term accommodation which is more expensive than building a normal brick and mortar house that will last for decades, makes little sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cNews that these units will be costing approximately \u20ac15,000 more than the Department of Environment say a new social housing build would cost is exploitive, and raises serious questions about the plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf modular housing is to be used to help homeless families then it needs to be well planned, but also not block the construction of long term brick and mortar social housing which is so desperately needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cSouth Dublin County Council also proposes to introduce approximately 30 modular units in its jurisdiction and it needs to adopt a different and more enlightened approach. We need communities to buy into the idea of temporary modular housing but the approach in Ballymun has all the hallmarks of what you shouldn\u2019t do.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly also needs to go back to the drawing board and review this proposal as it is seriously flawed and even harder to justify.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West representative Se\u00e1n Crowe TD has described the proposed cost of temporary modular housing as stretching credibility. Crowe was responding to news that 22 of the new modular units proposed for Ballymun will reportedly cost a total of \u20ac4.2 million and about \u20ac15,000 per house more than a regularly built 3 bed house. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[178,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homelessness","category-housing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2415,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2414\/revisions\/2415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}