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.

Byrne’s wrestle with her conscience served one valuable purpose though. It provided one of those irrelevant sideshows beloved of besieged regimes. Just as the Grand Old Duke of York recognised prudence as the better part of valour, he would have happily stoked her fears so the only details that matter might not get the attention they deserve. Though only one of many metrics in play, the Central Statistics Office offers one. It recorded that over 14,500 homes were built last year. A significant improvement on the, according to the Building Control Management System, 2,076 homes delivered in 2016. Whether or not the new quango — the Land Development Agency -— makes a positive contribution to that growth remains to be seen, especially as no real measures to confront land prices or encourage a greater availability of credit has been taken.

When Central Bank curtailed mortgage lending in early 2015 house price inflation was running close to 20% in Dublin and rising unsustainably elsewhere. That measure slowed inflation but put home ownership beyond the reach of far too many people. Rents soar as those who might otherwise buy compete for the rental sector’s scarce crumbs. Many Dublin families, and some outside Dublin too, pay more in rent than they would for a mortgage they are denied by CB rules.

There will be many self-serving suggestions little more than variations on the theme that has created the housing crisis before it is, if it ever is, resolved. Sadly, this suggests that Fr Peter McVerry’s charge that the Government is idealogically incapable of resolving it seems far closer to truth than is palatable. This is a deepening crisis and radical, disruptive change of heart is urgently needed — and not just to resolve this crisis but to show centrist politics still work. It is also time to robustly follow the money to establish who benefits from this utterly contrived inequity and hardship.