Housing crisis escalating: Same old same old is not working

The Government saw off a motion of no confidence against Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy by 59 votes to 49, with 29 TDs abstaining. Before the vote — just — junior minister Catherine Byrne adopted the Grand Old Duke of York’s live-to-fight-another-day principle and agreed to support her embattled colleague rather than lose her job. Showing the adroitness of principle characteristic of political life she had warned she might support the motion in protest over almost 500 homes proposed for her Dublin constituency.

That she is a member of a Government facing the worst housing crisis in living memory, and it is escalating, was not enough to convince her that the shabby, vote-chasing nimby defiance might be inappropriate. It is, of course, unfair to suggest she is the only public representative to object to housing developments in their constituency, while hoping they might be accepted elsewhere. Last January Fingal County Council approved four, four-storey apartment blocks in Castleknock, despite objections from Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and former tánaiste Joan Burton. Even if this confirms all politics are local it highlights the Tadhg-an-dá-thaobh duality we demand of politicians. This localism is an impediment — especially as, in this instance, all solutions are local too.