'Your housing policy has failed': Opposition criticises Government after housing report

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald: 'Lots of us have been telling you for the longest time that your housing policy has failed.' File Picture: Maxwells

Taoiseach Simon Harris has said the Government will publish the Housing Commission report after the Dáil heard it contains details of “systemic failure” and “damning indictments” of the Government’s housing policy.

The report, which has been submitted to Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien and seen by the Irish Examiner called for a radical strategic reset of housing policy and found that the core issues are "ineffective decision-making and reactive policy-making where risk aversion dominates".

It also says that several decades of interventions in the housing sector have not solved "fundamentally systemic failures".

“Housing targets and housing output will need to increase,” said Mr Harris. “I’m very clear on that. I don’t need any commission to tell me that, don’t need any report to tell me that. It is the position of the Government that housing targets will increase and that work is well under way.” 

Housing was already set to dominate in the Dáil on Tuesday, with almost two and a half hours set aside in Government business for statements on its Housing for All plan, and a further two hours for a Sinn Féin motion on housing. The issue featured heavily as the Dáil proceedings got under way with Leaders’ Questions.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said the report shows we must see a “turn away from the disastrous housing policies of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil”.

“None of the ideas [from the commission] are new ideas,” she said. “Lots of us have been telling you for the longest time that your housing policy has failed.”

Labour leader Ivana Bacik said the commission’s report shows that the Government’s measures and policies are not working and not delivering for all those locked out of housing today.

“The housing crisis is the civil rights issue of this generation,” she said. “Yet week-in-week-out all we hear from Government is self-congratulation, saying that your policies and your housing plans are working. Taoiseach, that is not the reality.”  

Mr Harris said that “any fair analysis” of the situation would show progress when it comes to housing supply.

“You see it in every town, you see it in every village, you see it in every county, housing supply is increasing,” he said.

“I’m conscious that when it comes to a housing debate, we can get lost in figures and statistics. But of course, behind each of these new homes is the opportunity for hope and for security for a couple, for a family, and indeed for their future.” 

Mr Harris said the commission’s report was about “what we do next” to boost supply into the future.

Wind turbines

Independents Sean Canney and Richard O’Donoghue also raised wind turbines with the Taoiseach during Leaders’ Questions, calling on Mr Harris to listen to people who had gathered outside the Dáil from around the country from community action groups.

“I’m not against wind turbines,” said Mr O’Donoghue.

However, I am against wind turbines that do not allow people have a night’s sleep.” 

The pair said that community concerns had to be listened to and families were frustrated by the noise from nearby turbines that are stopping their children from sleeping.

Mr O’Donoghue urged the Government to “follow the science” and revise guidelines to reduce the decibel level allowed.

Rural Independent TD Richard O’Donoghue. File Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

The Taoiseach said he would meet with these groups as his diary allowed, but added that renewable energy is needed.

“When it comes to climate, we need to try and bring communities with us,” he said. “Because we want to protect those families, that baby struggling to sleep, we want them to have a community and a planet to inherit.” 

He added that the Government to revise the 2006 wind guidelines “for once and for all”.