Dessie Ellis, Sinn Féin spokesperson for Housing, has welcomed the publication of a new report by the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESC), entitled 'Social Housing at the Crossroads'.

He added that a lot of the report was "a vindication of the kind of policies on housing which Sinn Féin had been pushing for over a number of years".

Mr Ellis explained: "The report rightly recognises we are at a crucial point for housing in Ireland. We can begin to turn back the tide and start to provide for people's needs as a priority or we can continue into the mire dismantling local authority housing and throwing the scraps to the private profit market with ever increasing subsidisation by the public purse.

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"Sinn Féin has long argued that local authorities much establish housing bodies under their control to access low cost finance in order to build homes. This report finds this to be a crucial ingredient for how we tackle the shortage in social housing.

"The report also states the importance that government tackle rising rents through regulation but also the provision of rental properties particularly by the local authorities at cost price outside of the traditional social housing system.

"These two measures would have a significant impact on the crisis of rising rents as well as providing good quality new housing tackling the cause of the recent rises into the future. Sinn Féin has also argued for rent regulation as a crucial step in making housing affordable and stopping families being made homeless."

He continued: "The other main recommendation of the report is a significant shift in government opinion on its role in driving development which would provide significant numbers of new social housing and rental properties generally.

"This new dedication interacting with the previous suggestions would be a really important step in finally addressing a social housing crisis which has rage on as the government feigned ignorance for years."

(JP/IT)