Homelessness campaigner Fr. Peter McVerry says it will be very difficult for the State to build the 50,000 new social houses required over the next five years.

The newly established Oireachtas housing and homelessness committee issued its report yesterday, saying the Government will need to find a way to break EU rules in order to provide funding to meet this target.

Fr. Peter McVerry has said although 50,000 is a challenging goal to meet, that number is necessary in order to deal with the current crisis: “We’re really looking at 12,500 social houses each year for the next four years and that would be a record for this country.

“The biggest we have ever built is back in the 70s and 80s we were building 8,000-9,000 social houses so it’s going to be very very challenging, but it is in my mind the key recommendation unless we start investing again in social housing we will never solve the housing crisis.”