The Government’s proposal to relax planning rules to allow people build cabins in the bottom of their gardens is “tinkering around the edges” of the housing crisis, according to Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald.
Ms McDonald said “we still have sky high house prices” with Central Statistics Office figures showing prices €200,000 higher than a decade ago.
“We still have rip off rents, shocking levels of homelessness, and today, a report reveals the extent to which international students are being pressurised for sex in return for rent-free housing, surely a new low,” Ms McDonald said.
Speaking in the Dáil, she said of the Government’s housing policy that “after all the high-level meetings, your big centre piece idea, it seems, is to relax planning rules to allow people to build cabins in the bottom of their gardens”.
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This follows revelations that the Department of Housing is developing a proposal under which planning exemptions are being considered which would exempt free-standing modular or cabin-style homes from planning permission.
Under current regulations, extensions of up to 40sq m to a home can be built without planning permission, whereas habitable structures of this size must have approval if they are not attached to the home itself.
Minister of State for Local Government and Planning John Cummins has said that he does not view the proposal as a solution to the rental crisis.
“Personally, I don’t see this as a rental measure. I see it as the ability of people to be able to have that intergenerational movement that will allow people to live independently,” Mr Cummins told RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show.
Mr Cummins said the only change he was suggesting was that the current restrictions would remain in place but the structure would not have to be attached to the main building.
“All of these matters are something that will have to be discussed as part of the public consultation that we’ll have in relation to this. I also look forward to engaging with members of the Opposition in the context of the Joint Oireachtas Committee,” Mr Cummins said.
Ms McDonald acknowledged that “greater flexibility is needed in this, and we will work with the Minister to get the regulations in place, but to cast this up as the solution to the housing crisis simply highlights just how broken and how failed your response to the housing crisis is”.
Earlier, Social Democrats housing spokesman Rory Hearne said the Government’s housing plans were sold to the electorate on the basis of a misleading claim that its policies were working.
During a private member’s debate on housing he said “we hear today that it is saying to a generation stuck at home to try a cabin out the back”.
“The Government is giving investor funds tax breaks and higher rents and sheds out the back for our locked-out generation. This is ‘let them eat cake’ stuff, only for the Government it’s ‘let them live in sheds’,” Mr Hearne said.
The party’s Dublin South-Central TD Jen Cummins said she “read about the international students who have been asked for sex for rent, the absolute horror and disgrace that this is”.
[ What are the new rules on garden cabins and can you build one?Opens in new window ]
In her constituency rents are approximately €1,250 per month for a one-bedroom student room with a shared kitchen, she said. “For a self-funded student this is completely unaffordable. Student accommodation is vitally important for students in our economy. It must be appropriate and affordable.”
Labour housing spokesman Conor Sheehan said “the fact that the Government wants to move people out of their houses and into log cabins is farcical and ridiculous”.
“Is this really the best the Government can offer? It is saying it can’t house people properly but will move them into the shed,” Mr Sheehan said.
But Independent Kerry TD Danny Healy-Rae said “this is a wonderful idea”. He and his brother had been looking for this for years. “This is a real attempt at housing people that can happen very quickly”.
