Michael Bolton

Across the country, only 43 properties were available for rent under the Hap program.

Simon Communities’ latest Locked Out of the Market report found no hap properties in ten of the 16 areas surveyed, including the town centres of Athlone, Leitrim and Cork and Limerick.

The report found that across the 16 areas studied, 1,178 properties were available to rent at every price point in June 2024.

This is a 26 percent increase from the 934 available properties in the June 2023 Locked Out report.

The property offering within the Hap boundaries is predominantly concentrated in Dublin.

40 of the 43 Hap properties were found in Dublin.

In Dublin, the discretionary rate is up to 50 percent in addition to the standard rate. In the rest of the country, it is limited to 35 percent.

In the 16 areas, only three plots were available within the standard HAP boundaries.

Two of these properties were in Dublin City North and the other property was in Dundalk, Co. Louth.

Simon Wayne Stanley’s managing director believes there is an urgent need for a fund to build more social housing.

“We believe we can reach up to 12,500 next year and up to 15,000 the year after that. This will require significant resources and must be part of the budget considerations.”

“We also need to ensure that homelessness is prevented and we need to ensure that additional funding is provided for homelessness prevention in the next budget to be spent in 2024.”