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Sod still not turned on Gorey housing development three years after it was announced

Cllr Fionntán Ó Suilleabháin pictured on the site in Ramsfort, Gorey where the affordable housing scheme will be going ahead. Pic: Jim Campbell

Simon Bourke
© Wexford People

The lack of houses delivered under the Affordable Homes Scheme in Wexford has been highlighted by Gorey councillor, Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin. Citing the example of a proposed 20-unit development in Ramsfort which has yet to see a sod turned three years after it was first announced, Cllr Ó Súilleabháin said that despite “all the bluster and endless announcements” not one single affordable home has been delivered by Fianna Fail’s Minister for Housing in Co Wexford.

“It's been three years since we were first told of a 20-unit Affordable Homes Scheme at a site in Ramsfort, Gorey, which is located just beside Woodlands Manor estate, and where the inner relief road will pass through onto Ballytegan,” said the Sinn Féin councillor. “Over two years ago Fianna Fáil Housing Minister, Darragh O'Brien, visited party colleagues for a photo-op nearby and made big announcements.

"We are now approaching Christmas 2023, in the middle of the worst housing emergency since the Great Starvation of the nineteenth century, and not even a sod has even been turned at the Gorey site, and not one single Affordable Home has been delivered by Fianna Fáil or Wexford County Council (WCC). The only thing that has changed is that the weeds have grown back on the site.”

An open-day held by WCC in Gorey last year attracted over a hundred local people “in desperate need of a home” who do not qualify for social housing and had expressed an interest in the government's Affordable Housing Scheme.

"I know that there are many others out there who need such a scheme, but who didn't make the open-day,” said Cllr Ó Súilleabháin who added that the focus of his party’s alternative budget is delivering affordable homes. “We made provision for an additional €1.4bn of government capital expenditure and €300m approved housing body borrowing to deliver 21,000 social, affordable rental and affordable purchase homes next year.

‘Our document also sets out how we believe a Sinn Féin government would deliver this ambitious target in a single year, by increasing investment, cutting red tape, using more vacant and derelict homes and new building technologies, and redirecting building workers to where they are needed most: the delivery of affordable homes.

‘We have also set out an emergency response to the escalating homelessness crisis with a specific measure to end homelessness for the over 55s in a single year and dramatically reduce children homelessness through the delivery of 1,000 additional social homes using emergency planning and procurement powers and new building technologies. We would also double the delivery of housing first tenancies for single people in emergency accommodation to 500,” he concluded.