The government has come under pressure to end the Strategic Housing Development process following an announcement earlier this week.

Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy indicated the process will continue beyond the end of the year.

The Green Party has condemned the decision, criticising the process for mainly focusing on one and two bed apartments.

Green Party Councillor for Glencullen/Sandyford, Deirdre Ní Fhloinn said: "These apartments are also being built to rent; at one apartment development in Dundrum that was bought in its entirety by a single investor, rents are 2,800 euro for a two-bed apartment. Without substantial strengthening of tenants' rights in legislation, these developments are not able to provide the stable and secure homes people affected by the housing and homelessness crisis need.

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"Further, the SHDs granted to date have largely not been built, which sterilises land and makes development unviable for any lands nearby built to lower densities and more modest returns.

"Minister Murphy is now extending this failed experiment that has simply lined the pockets of developers and investors and done nothing to provide affordable housing in communities around Ireland."

Green Party Deputy Leader and TD for Dublin Rathdown Catherine Martin TD added: "The Strategic Housing Development process bypasses local planning authorities, and local communities, depriving them of a meaningful role in local planning applications.

"We need to empower and resource local planning authorities to deal with the volume of work required to build the houses needed to end this housing crisis – but bypassing the democratic and locally engaged elements of local Government planning, which is what the SHD process does, is not the way to do this. The Government needs to recognise that the SHD process has been a failure and to properly resource local authorities instead."

(CM/JG)