Pope told we expect more - Apply same standards on housing

The fable of the boy who cried wolf too often but was ignored by his village is universal in European folklore. Its primary message is not to ignore a warning no matter how frequently repeated. Its secondary message, one more relevant to wolves than villagers, is that if you wait long enough defences will weaken.

Familiarity breeds contempt and the wolf gets a dinner of bored villagers. Is it possible, no matter how unattractive that admission might be, that we are at the bored-villagers stage of the housing crisis? Three sets of challenging figures suggest we may be. Outrage wanes, scandal and misery deepen.

Last week the CSO recorded that in the first quarter of 2018, 3,526 dwellings were built, suggesting a full-year total of around 14,000. However, the CSO warned that because of incomplete administrative data it cannot provide an accurate assessment. Therefore, we do not know what proportion of those houses are what might be described as affordable.

In January, the Department of Housing reported that a paltry 780 local authority houses were built last year. Only 1,027 have been built since the Rebuilding Ireland strategy was announced. This is failure on a disconcerting scale.

Fewer than one-fifth of houses promised were delivered. It also suggests that Fr Peter McVerry’s assertion that Government is ideologically incapable of resolving the crisis is all too true. Figures from Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe, describing how as many as 36,000 “viable” Nama sites have yet to be made available hardly challenges Fr McVerry’s judgement either. This concession, four years into an escalating crisis cannot be reassuring for the 9,872 adults and 3,824 children described, in June, as homeless.

Even if Nama is mired in complexity, even if the whole issue is mired in a fog of promises and conflicting figures, this is a less than inspiring response to a very real human tragedy.

That tragedy is exacerbated by what seems to be another manifestation of dysfunction in housing provision. The

relentless appetite for student accommodation in college cities has attracted investors with the kind of deep pockets that almost makes local objections irrelevant. It also, just as in some holiday villages, puts local housing beyond the reach of local people. A recent example was the decision to allow student apartments near the Lough in Cork City despite the firm opposition of local communities and politicians.

Considering these figures after what was a cathartic weekend for Ireland raises obvious but generally ignored questions.

Just as the mother and baby home horrors, just as the industrial school brutalities were facilitated by a society happy to hide its weak and vulnerable in these institutions today’s housing crisis is, at least in part, so devastating because we continue to tolerate it.

This weekend Taoiseach Leo Varadkar demanded accountability and reform from the Vatican. He was correctly firm, but his core message — we expect much, much more — has devastating relevance to the housing crisis. Sadly, and with our tacit indulgence, our Government, despite myriad warnings, seems more a sheep in wolves’ clothing than the real thing on this issue.