Fresh thinking needed to fix housing crisis

The Government has dismissed even considering laws recently introduced in New Zealand banning foreigners buying homes in that country.

This is difficult to understand, especially as all its efforts to even make a dent the housing crisis have been so very ineffectual.

Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy’s office suggested that the New Zealand initiative would, under EU law, be illegal. His office, however, failed to explain how such a measure, albeit a less absolute one, is on Denmark’s statute books. Did they not know?

That office also waved their biggest stick arguing that such a move would be unconstitutional. This is by now a standard and threadbare civil servants’ dodge.

The Constitution is, as two recent referenda showed, a permanently evolving document. It can be and must be, amended if enough citizens wish it so.

Rents are at a record level and almost 10,000 people are homeless. More and more homes and apartment complexes are being bought by property funds so they can be rented to families or individuals who cannot compete with these funds in the housing market.

This is today’s colonialism.

The New Zealand law may not be the answer but Mr Murphy’s department has not even come close to finding one either.

Their failure is so complete and ongoing that they should, at this stage, consider all options. That they do not makes them partially responsible for our housing crisis.