'There is no land left to build social housing or provide affordable homes in Ratoath'

The need for Meath County Council to redouble its efforts to secure land for the construction of social houses in the Ratoath area was raised by Cllr Nick Killian at the March meeting of Meath County Council.

"There is no land left to build social housing or provide affordable homes in Ratoath. I know the council tried to buy land but we have to try harder," said Cllr Killian.

He went on to say there were 1,700 applicants for housing in Meath in 2024 and even if half of these go through, that is still 850 being added to the list. "That is adding to our list year on year on year and as things stand, we in Meath we will not within the next ten years solve the housing crisis, despite all the promises, despite all the money that the government is talking about.

"Thankfully 73 houses are coming on stream in Ashbourne and people in my area put Ashbourne down in order to get somewhere. But we are now in a situation where we are asking people who have families in their areas to move further up the county. People don't want to do that. They want to live and grow and have their children and grow and educate them in the areas they are from.

Cllr Maria Murphy agreed with Cllr Killian's comments and said they needed more affordable homes, commenting that the "pressures in south Meath are off the chart" and she had huge concerns for young people trying to buy houses. "The current three-bed, mid-terrace in Dunboyne are €480-€500k. There was a time where Ashbourne was a bit behind that with Ratoath somewhere in the middle but now I see three-bed houses being advertised in Ashbourne at €550k. These are standard three beds. Nothing massive."

She said while there are homes being built on a number of big sites that have opened up in the area, people from Dunboyne would not be able to afford them.

Cllr Helen Meyer also suggested that they should look at holding clinics to help advise people on whether they are likely to qualify for social housing supports or not.

She pointed out that of the 116 applications received in January, 43 approved for the list, 30 not approved and 43 not processed.

Director of Services Fiona Fallon outlined that a large number of applications fail because of income and they are looking at trying to put an income calculator mechanism on the website where you can put in your income to save people the time where they are putting in applications that were never going to be approved.

Over the past year between 1st January 2024 and 31st January 2025, 55 households has their social housing needs met- this included 33 direct Meath County Council allocations, three transfers and 19 via the approved housing bodies.

Meanwhile, Cllr Brian Fitzgerald proposed that they seek approval from the Minister who has the powers to bring back into play the zoned land they had to dezone and land they had to put out to post 2027 to allow it to comply with the core strategy which he said had turned out to be a "total disaster".

Director of Services for Planning, Padraig Martin responded they had previously written to the Minister about this and could write about but what the Minister would say is that the National Planning Framework (NPF) review is happening. He said it is as "frustrating for the planning department" as it is for councillors that they had not yet seen the final published document and that they need guidance and figures as it has to translate down to their own documents.

He said that in terms of implementing the updated figures when they get them, this would be through the review of the county development plan which is a ten year plan.

Cllr Alan Tobin suggested that they invite the Minister for Housing to come and visit Meath to have a "frank and honest" conversation around housing in Meath and put forward some proposals on actions they could take.