Yesterday Fianna Fáil released figures showing the number of people on social housing lists around the country has hit 130,000.
But lecturer in housing at Dublin Institute of Technology, Lorcan Sirr, says the real total is lower because the figures are skewed by duplicates and those who only registered in order to qualify for some rental supplements.
Dr Sirr says if Irish construction companies won't take on social housing projects, then we need to look to Europe.
“Bypass the Irish construction industry if they're not willing to build – and you tender in Europe, you bundle land together, the same way as we build garda stations and court houses and schools” he said.
“We don't build one school at a time, we bundle five or half a dozen together, we put them in a contract worth more than five million – in which case it has to be advertised in Europe – and we get European tenders”.
“This is what we do with roads, this is why we have BAM building roads and a Spanish company…build our M6”.
“There's no reason why we can't do this with social housing – indeed with all housing” he added.
