Refusal to engage with Housing Commission report shows Minister is a tough political opponent

The Housing Commission absolutely excoriated decades of government action and inaction in the housing sector

The whole week served to show what a frustrating political adversary Mr O'Brien can be because his entire outlook is built on an optimism that's either admirable or naive, depending on the way you look at it. Picture: Sam Boal/Collins Photos

If you had been paying attention to the news last week, it will have been hard not to see reports of the Housing Commission's report.

To recap: a government-established group of experts from across the housing sector absolutely excoriated decades of government action and inaction, saying that the overall housing stock is actually around 256,000 lower than it should be.

The report calls for a radical strategic reset of government housing policy.

"The Housing Commission has identified that over several decades there have been a range of interventions to deal with housing. However, these interventions have not resolved failures that are fundamentally systemic.

"This must be addressed. The Commission’s work has identified as core issues, ineffective decision-making and reactive policy-making where risk aversion dominates.

"These issues, together with external influences impacting housing dynamics, contribute to volatility in supply, undermining affordability in the housing system."

In the face of such damning criticism, the Opposition pounced. Eoin Ó Broin of Sinn Féin was up bright and early and on RTÉ radio said he could not remember "language as critical as this produced by an independent body".  He said the report was a "damning indictment of a failing strategy". 

Social Democrat TD Cian O'Callaghan said the report "presents a scathing picture of this Government’s 'ineffective decision-making and reactive policy-making'".

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The Housing Minister, who was quick to remind us he had ordered the Commission's establishment, would surely be apoplectic. The policy he's overseeing, comprehensively derided by a group of experts. Luckily, he was due in the Dáil that afternoon to discuss his flagship Housing For All plan. 

He would have to address the commission's leaked report, surely? The answer was...kind of.

In a lengthy address on his plan, Darragh O'Brien touched on the report which had been on his desk for 13 days. It would be given a full consideration, but it didn't really matter anyway because "the majority of its recommendations are already in hand and build on the detailed plans we already have in place".

You see? A group of experts spent years on a report that makes 83 recommendations that are already being done. Everything is fine. The following day, he went even further, saying the core suggestion of an overview body on housing was "problematic".

Even when pushed by Sinn Féin on Thursday to debate the commission's report, Mr O'Brien was unbothered, getting on first name terms with Pearse Doherty and pledging to debate him "up and down, left, right and centre" on the issue.

The whole week served to show what a frustrating political adversary Mr O'Brien can be because his entire outlook is built on an optimism that's either admirable or naive, depending on the way you look at it.

In his mind, housing is improving in Ireland and it doesn't matter what any report says. If you have one statistic that shows he's wrong, he has another that shows he's right and a plan that he has single-minded belief in.

By any measure, the commission's report is not good for any government of the last 30 years as it upbraids decades of mistakes and puts the underlying deficit at 256,000 homes. But because Mr O'Brien refused point blank to engage with that premise, the Government has avoided more than a day's criticism.