merrion street

Minister for Housing and Planning Mr. Paudie Coffey T.D. today (27 August) welcomed the CSO Residential Property Price index.

The government recognises that certain parts of the country are experiencing the effects of the lack of supply of accommodation resulting in increased prices along with increased demand. The government reiterates its commitment to helping the construction sector through the Construction Strategy announced in May 2014.

The aim of the strategy is to help return the sector to a sustainable size and help get unemployed construction workers back to work. The central aim is to provide homes by tripling housing output by 2020 and adding up to 60,000 jobs to the construction sector over the same period. Ireland needs a competitive, innovative, dynamic, safe and sustainable construction sector; one that makes its full and proper contribution to the economy and is capable of delivering for families.

The Exchequer capital budget for 2014 has been set at €3.3 billion or 2.4% of GNP. This is a considerable level of funding, despite the difficult economic circumstances that we are facing. This capital spend has been supplemented with the announcement of the €200 million stimulus package, which included an additional €50 million which has been provided for the delivery of social housing. €20 million of this will go towards new local authority construction projects; €20 million will be used to fund the refurbishment of an additional 1,000 vacant units and €10 million will be used for the acquisition of properties in Dublin area to meet urgent homeless need.

The pace of recovery is picking up with over 31,000 jobs created in the last year. The CSO jobs figures released yesterday (26 August 2014) show that over 1.9 million people are in work, the highest since 2009. The construction sector has a key role in supporting economic development and job creation in Ireland.

Minister Coffey said, ‘The construction sector is going to play an important role in our continued economic recovery; there are still 70,000 former construction workers on the live register and a key part of reducing this number is the recently announced construction 2020 strategy which I have responsibility for. We must look to encourage an increase in the number of houses being built as there is a housing need; in particular in the Dublin Region.

He continued; ‘The number of people at work in the construction sector has started to increase again with 106,000 people now employed in the sector. The numbers employed in the sector have grown from last year when there were just 96,000 people employed. We can’t go back to boom and bust economics and we must be careful about how we manage a sustainable recovery in construction sector and guard against any overdependence on this sector to grow our economy again.’