The housing crisis won’t be solved with bedsits, warns Threshold

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Housing charity Threshold has warned that bedsits will not help the Irish rental and housing crisis. 

The warning comes after a series of ideas were put forward to solve the crisis. 

According to Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy, bedsits are just a consideration.

'I think it’s important that, when I approach this review, I don’t take anything off the table too soon until I’ve looked at it properly to see if it could be part of the solution,' he told The Irish Examiner. 

'Again, this is about supply.'

'So if we can find new sources of accommodation for people that suit their needs, that are up to the required standards, the minimum standards, and are robust, if that will work for people as a supply-side measure then yes I’m going to consider it.'

The other considerations include scrapping the help-to-buy scheme, increasing the mortgage to rent scheme, building new peoperties, introducing a vacant property tax and forcing local authorities to use idle land banks. 

'It is worrying that almost a decade after the introduction of legislation to eliminate the bedsit, we are now hearing calls for their re-introduction as a response to the current accommodation shortage,' Threshold Chief Executive, John-Mark McCafferty told News Talk.

'Last year saw the publication of Rebuilding Ireland: An Action Plan on Housing and Homelessness.'

'Are we now, as a society, so bereft of ideas that the best response we can come up with is to bring back the bedsit?'

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