For the fourth year in a row the Government has failed to meet its social housing delivery targets. Figures for output by local authority were published this week, and they show that the Government achieved about 91 per cent of its own target of 10,000 new social houses. That may not look like a bad result – but as always, the devil is in the detail.

To create a stable stock of social housing, how it is delivered and by whom is as important as how much was built.

Of the 9,088 new social houses delivered last year – and that language is important because delivered is not the same as built – just 1,600 – or 17 per cent – were directly built by local authorities. Councils in Dún Laoghaire Rathdown, south Dublin, Cork city and Kildare all managed to directly build more than 100 new houses. Another 10 local authorities achieved less than 10 per cent of their annual direct build target, with Kerry at the higher end with 8.7 per cent (25 houses). Tipperary hit just 1.8 per cent of its target, building three new houses.

Thirteen of the 31 local authorities in the State missed their overall social housing output target, which includes social housing acquired from all sources, not just directly built – with Limerick, Sligo and Longford delivering less than half of their objective. Longford fared particularly badly, achieving 15 per cent – or 12 houses – of what it was asked to deliver. Together, these 13 councils delivered 3,864 social houses (only 659 of which were directly built). For context, the combined social housing waiting list for these 13 locations is........

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