Only an ambitious, urgent plan can fix housing crisis
As Simon Harris returned home last week from Paris, where he was meeting members of Team Ireland ahead of the Paralympic Games, he was offered a grim reminder of the task that faces him should he be re-elected Taoiseach in the coming election. Figures published by the Department of Housing on Friday showed there were now record numbers of people in emergency accommodation — up to a disheartening new high of 14,429, including 4,401 children who are starting a new school year with no home to call their own.
The number of children affected is now almost as great as the entirety of people in emergency accommodation in the 2011 census — the same year that Fine Gael returned to government with Labour. The party has been in power in various coalitions ever since. Each successive taoiseach only seems to inherit a bigger headache.
The challenge is set to grow along with the population. The Taoiseach may have boasted at last weekend’s Béal na Bláth commemoration that more social housing is being built than at any time since 1975, but the statistic masks the fact that the population has increased by nearly two million since then. It is expected to increase by a further million people by 2040.
The Housing Minister, Fianna Fáil’s Darragh O’Brien, has now written to all local authorities, urging them to assess which zoned lands might be suitable for residential development.
Hearing this, voters are bound to ask: Why now?
Cynics will no doubt conclude that the timing has all to do with the coming election.
Ministers have known the scale of the crisis for years, after all, and the Government’s final proposals on how to bring together the public and private sectors to ensure supply keeps up with demand will not appear until October, by which time the country may be heading to the polls.
Any opposition party which claims to have a magic wand to solve Ireland’s housing crisis once and for all isn’t being honest with the Irish people either; but it was noteworthy that Mr O’Brien declared in his letter to local authorities that it would be “appropriate to start considering the most suitable locations” for new housing.
The word “start” is curious. The process should not be beginning. It ought to be well under way.
The Taoiseach must be judged on what he manages to achieve going forward. The energy he has brought to Government since taking office may yet bear fruit. He insists that the target of 250,000 new homes over the next five years, as set out in the National Planning Framework, will be met, even if that figure is simply to keep up with present demand and doesn’t take account of future pressures which are projected to arise.
His proposed new Department of Infrastructure, which is designed to co-ordinate the transport, water, waste and other needs of new communities as they’re built, is also welcome. Such joined-up thinking has often been absent.
The best time to begin this work was years ago, but the second best time is right now. Families in despair at the prospect of ever escaping the nightmare of emergency accommodation do not have the luxury of waiting. The Government has all the resources and expertise at its disposal to be making much more ambitious progress.