{"id":474157,"date":"2026-05-30T04:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T04:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/474157\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T04:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T04:12:13","slug":"harris-pushes-back-on-claim-irish-housing-crisis-among-most-severe-in-europe-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/474157\/","title":{"rendered":"Harris pushes back on claim Irish housing crisis among \u2018most severe\u2019 in Europe \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris<\/a> has defended the Government<\/a> from accusations that the country\u2019s housing crisis<\/a> is among the \u201cmost severe\u201d and \u201cmost complicated\u201d in Europe.<\/p>\n

Italian MEP Irene Tinagli, chair of the European Parliament<\/a>\u2019s housing committee who has been on a fact-finding mission across Ireland in recent days, made the observation. <\/p>\n

She said evictions, institutional investors and the growth of short-term lets were all contributing to the pressure on housing.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the turning of a sod on 410 houses in Bishopstown in Cork<\/a> city on Friday, Harris said that while he had not seen her exact comments the completions of new homes in Ireland \u201care well above the European average\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact [it is] one of the very highest, so I don\u2019t know the context of that [comment]. I also know that when I go to Europe, and I go to Brussels at least once a month, housing is a challenge in all member states.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ireland is due to hold a summit on housing during its European Union<\/a> presidency, he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a housing emergency in this country. There is too many young people who find the social contract broken and that is why I think there needs to be zero tolerance in relation to bureaucracy and downright nonsense. That is why we need to update the rural housing guidelines to have a consistent approach,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat is why we need to continue to back schemes like the Help to Buy<\/a> which others want to get rid of, which I think is ludicrous.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter what role you play in the State, whether it is local or national government, a State agency, the housing emergency isn\u2019t the job of someone else. It involves everyone coming together.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said there had been encouraging data on housing completions and welcomed the 410 homes due to be built at the development in Cork which had accessed funding through the Home Building Finance Ireland<\/a> agency. <\/p>\n

The T\u00e1naiste also reiterated his commitment to overhauling rural housing rules to make it easier for families to build one-off homes.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Planning rules for one-off housing to be eased under new proposalsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of people in this country who just want to be able to get on with it and build their own home. I am not talking about people building a holiday home. I am talking about somebody who is from a community and wanting to build a home perhaps on their own family land or on development land nearby and at the moment the planning system is completely inconsistent,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cEnabling people to live in their own community is a very important part of balanced regional development. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo what we intend to do in the month of June is to agree a new national planning statement that will basically simplify the process and reduce the bureaucracy but also help to have a consistent approach across local authorities. [The current system] is not fair and is holding people back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris has defended the Government from accusations that the country\u2019s housing crisis is among the \u201cmost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[46,11450,1523,42,30557,88518,3662,43,70,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-474157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-cork","tag-european-parliament","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-help-to-buy","tag-home-building-finance-ireland","tag-housing-crisis","tag-news","tag-simon-harris","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}