AN TAOISEACH Micheál Martin has announced that the Government will appoint a ‘housing czar’ to oversee housing policy in Ireland.
The Taoiseach said that the main purpose of the appointment was to speed up the delivery of housing in the country. It is expected that the titular housing czar will be in place by the end of this month.
Mr Martin said on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme: “We’ve already made the decisions on that. We’re setting up the strategic housing office within the Department of Housing and a person has been identified and obviously the minister will announce that very, very shortly.
“That will again be the objective, of being on big sites and in big areas to unblock any sort of barriers or blockages getting in the way of developments coming through,” the Taoiseach added.
Housing is a ‘top priority’ for the Government according to Mr Martin, who said that he would make a decision on rent pressure zones ‘very shortly’. This will follow the completion of a review by the National Planning Framework, which is expected to be published soon.
The Fianna Fáil leader said that this decision will facilitate government intervention into local authorities to designate more land for housing. He also said that planning has been a roadblock which the Government hopes to rectify with the Planning Act.
“We did need to unblock the planning issue,” he said. “That’s accepted and it will take a while to implement it, such is the enormity of the plan.
“There will be statutory timelines. Without question, planning and delivery is the biggest issue facing us as a country across the public service and across agencies and so forth.
“That’s why we are saying in terms of water and in terms of the grid, these are more fundamental enablers of housing that we’re very focused on in terms of the capital plan.”
Protecting capital funding was ‘critical’, the Taoiseach said, so that there could be more spending on infrastructure to enable sustained growth. Mr Martin added that within the coming weeks, the National Planning Framework will be taken to Cabinet.
