"Mayo needs 7,000 family homes urgently” – Harry Barrett

Results from the leaked Housing Commission report show that Mayo is roughly 7,000 homes short of what it should have to house its people," according to Castlebar Independent candidate, Harry Barrett.

The Government set up the Housing Commission to advise on housing policy. Its report has been long awaited and recommends a drastic upward shift in the government’s targets for housing construction.

The leaked report suggests an underlying housing deficit in Ireland of up to 256,000 homes and Barrett maintains that when Mayo's population is taken into account that comes to about 7,000 homes.

He continued, "I am meeting families who are suffering under the weight of the rent that they have to pay, yet they cannot complain because the shortage of long-term lets in the county means that they have nowhere to go and no option but to pay.

"I am meeting young adults stuck at home unable to leave the family home and parents who are upset when their sons and daughters have immigrated to live in other countries due to the lack of affordable accommodation.

This report now puts a number on the shortage of homes in this County and I am very mindful of the damaging effects of this shortage on families and children.

"The report has recommended that they do what we all have been telling them to do for the last 20 years. It will call for a massive increase in state spending, an expanded role for the state and a major overhaul of the wasteful levels of public money spent on rent supplements.

"But more importantly, for towns like Castlebar it calls for more incentives to be given to deal with dereliction, urban development and building on brownfield sites, exactly what I have been calling for over the last 10 years,” the Independent Castlebar district candidate stated.