Let rural and Gaeltacht communities build

Sir, – David McWilliams (“From dereliction to Airbnb, the Gaeltacht is being destroyed by the housing crisis”, Opinion, October 17th) and Donncha Ó hÉallaithe (“Minister for Gaeltacht has power to alleviate housing crisis in Irish-speaking areas”, Letters, October 20th) are right: if young Irish speakers cannot find an affordable home in the Gaeltacht, the Gaeltacht will not survive. Yet the means to build those homes already exist.

Cost rental, introduced by the Affordable Housing Act 2021, sets rents that cover only the cost of building and maintaining homes. However, almost nine in 10 cost-rental homes advertised to date are in Dublin and its commuter belt; none have reached the Gaeltacht town or village that needs 10 or 20 homes.

Community-led co-operatives can fill that gap, and the finance is in place. Some 40 per cent is available through the Housing Agency’s STAR cost-rental investment scheme and about 50 per cent through low-cost lending from the Housing Finance Agency or the Council of Europe Development Bank.

The remaining 10 per cent or so comes from co-operative members or support organisations. The expertise to deliver exists in Ó Cualann and more widely across the Approved Housing Body sector.

What is needed now is the will to proceed and a solution to the question of allocation. Cost-rental homes are allocated nationally by lottery, but a local co-operative cannot be built that way.

Homes must go to people with a genuine link to the locality and, in the Gaeltacht, to Irish speakers. At present, the Minister can approve such an allocation plan only in principle at the outset. Few families will commit years of effort and their savings without certainty that they can move in.

The Minister should approve local allocation plans at the start and back pilots such as those Ó Cualann is planning for Letterfrack, Gweedore and Callan. The money and the know-how are there. Let rural and Gaeltacht communities build. – Yours, etc,

HUGH BRENNAN,

Chief executive,

Ó Cualann Cohousing Alliance CLG,

Glenageary,

County Dublin.