Local authorities have collected more than €60 million from developers in lieu of social housing while between 40,000 and 50,000 people are on their housing waiting lists, writes Barry O'Halloran.
Planning law requires builders to hand over 20 per cent of residential developments at a big discount to local authorities to provide social and affordable housing. But many councils have instead availed of an option to accept compensation instead of completed homes or land.
The cash has to be ring-fenced for spending on housing but many councils have yet to spend the bulk of the money. Department of the Environment figures show that the Republic's 34 local authorities collected €60.09 million from builders between 2003 and 2006.
The biggest sums were collected by Kildare County Council - more than €9.9 million; Dún Laoghaire/ Rathdown in Dublin - €7.97 million; and Meath County Council - €4.7 million.
A spokeswoman for Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown's housing division said the authority frequently used it to pay for houses or sites bought for affordable or social housing.
The authority has 3,500 people waiting for affordable housing and expects to offer 250 of them, or one in 14, a home this year.
A Meath County Council spokeswoman said the authority had yet to spend the money it had taken in but was working on plans to do so. It has 700 people on its waiting lists.
A spokesman for Kildare County Council said the sum it collected was high because the county has one of the fastest growing populations in the State and a lot of new homes had been built there over the past five years.
There are growing concerns at how local authorities are spending the money. A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said yesterday that Minister of State Noel Ahern recently asked the local authorities to account for the money they had collected from builders. The department is currently gathering this information.
According to Donal McManus, executive director of the Irish Council for Social Housing, the total number of people seeking housing from the Republic's local authorities in 2005 was 43,000.
He said yesterday that the figure had grown, but there are no current statistics to show this. "The working assumption would be that it has not decreased in that time, but that it has increased," he said.
Local authorities built or acquired a total of 15,000 social and affordable homes in the three years 2003, 2004 and 2005.
Mr McManus said he was not surprised to hear that local authorities had collected this amount in light of the high numbers of homes being built. "It does seem that local authorities are requesting cash in lieu of completed units," he said.
The Irish House Builders' Association last week accused local authorities of reneging on an agreement under which developers sold houses directly to affordable housing applicants nominated by the councils. The association said many authorities were continuing to seek cash as well as completed homes.