“This is a bad day for public sector housing and those on the housing waiting list in Northern Ireland”, Workers Party spokesperson John Lowry has said. 

Reacting to the announcement by Social Development Minister Nelson McCausland  to abandon Northern Ireland Housing Executive as a state provider of housing, Mr Lowry said,

“This is a dangerous and backward step.  Experience has shown that the private sector and housing associations have failed to meet urgent housing need and where they are providers of housing they charge increasingly unaffordable rents”. 

The Workers Party will be looking very closely at the detail of these proposals in relation to the future provision of housing in Northern Ireland.

Appreciation

“I would like to place on record my Party’s appreciation of the work undertaken by the NIHE in the past 40 years, during which time they transformed both the delivery and quality of housing in Northern Ireland” said Mr Lowry.

“For the past number of years there has been a steady erosion of the central role of the NIHE and today’s announcement marks the final move to towards handing responsibility for housing provision to the private sector.

“Profit and private greed not housing need will the hallmark of any new service. Those thousands of people in housing need will find little comfort in today’s announcement” he concluded.

Issued 9th January 2013