Cllr. Ted Tynan (WP), Cork City Councillor
Cork Workers’ Party councillor Ted Tynan has called on fellow city councillors to fully endorse a motion currently before the council’s Housing Strategic Policy Committee which, if taken up by government, could give a major boost to social housing construction in Cork and throughout the country.
Cllr. Tynan said that the motion by trade union delegate to the committee Barry Murphy, was a realistic and achievable proposal to build social housing under Direct Labour Schemes. This could be achieved by re-engineering of the Loan Grant and Subsidies currently available to Approved Housing Bodies to access funding which can be taken off the state’s balance sheet.
“If this scheme were implemented it could bring a huge number of new housing units on stream in a relatively short period of time. It would also create significant employment for building workers and training opportunities for new apprentices.
Cllr. Tynan said, “Clearly we can’t rely on the private sector to create affordable housing. All they have succeeded in doing is to fuel a housing bubble and make vast profits for themselves and their bankers.”
However the Workers’ Party councillor expressed concern that some elements in local authority management were hostile to the concept of Direct Labour and appeared to favour private sector for-profit development. He pointed out that already this week a similar motion by his fellow Workers’ Party councillor in Dublin, Éilis Ryan had come under attack from city management there.
“While everyone now acknowledges that there is a massive housing crisis in this country some would rather block viable housing developments because of their bias against socially progressive and publicly run schemes”, said Cllr. Tynan.