Louth General Election candidate Antóin Watters alarmed at rural housing allocations

Sinn Féin Councillor and General Election candidate Antóin Watters has expressed his alarm at the ‘paltry’ number of social homes that have been allocated in Louth’s rural areas over the last five years.

Cllr Watters said: “Currently there are 5,190 people on the housing list in County Louth.

"Most of them are waiting on average for around nine to 10 years for homes in urban areas like Drogheda, Dundalk and Ardee.

"That is bad enough but when you look at those waiting for homes in the rural areas it is hard to imagine they will ever be housed.

“To give you an example, I live in Cooley and there are 462 people included on that housing list who are waiting for a home in the Carlingford, Omeath and Greenore areas.

"Over the past five years there has been a paltry 23 homes allocated and that figure is alarming.

Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald launches the party's three Louth candidates

Ruairí Ó Murchú, Joanna Byrne and Antóin Watters are running as General Election Louth candidates

"There is no end in sight for these 462 people who have been waiting for decades for properties to become available.

“Drogheda Rural and Mid-Louth fare no better as they are in a similar situation. It seems to be government policy to drive people into our urban centres and out of the countryside they grew up in.

“At a recent Council meeting I raised the need for the Council to assess their own land banks for potential opportunities to build affordable houses and emphasised the need to engage with developers to identify and ear mark projects.”

Earlier this month, the government published their long awaited revised housing targets which Cllr Watters described as “missing the mark of what’s needed and completely ignores rural areas.

They are promising to deliver an average of 48,000 homes a year but ignored a key recommendation of their own Housing Commission that at least 20% of these should be social and affordable.

What chance do those languishing on waiting lists for homes in rural Louth have? We in Sinn Féin recognise the dire need for social and affordable housing and will not neglect rural areas.

“In rural Louth and across the State planning laws are restrictive, driving many of the next generation into urban settlements away from the communities they grew up in.

"Sinn Féin’s Housing Plan includes the building of 60,000 self-build rural homes (state-wide) accompanied by meaningful reform of planning laws to solve problems faced by those wanting to build on their own land in their own communities.

“Only a change of government will give people in Cooley, Mid-Louth and Drogheda Rural the hope that they can at last have a home of their own in their own communities.”