Irish Examiner View: Public needs less talk, more action on housing

We have discussed any number of potential solutions to the housing crisis for too long.

A generation of craftsmen blown to the four corners of the earth because their jobs here vanished overnight during the financial crash. File Picture: Rui Vieira/PA Wire

In recent times, little has excited the Irish psyche as much as the housing crisis.

Since the financial crash of 2008 — when a building boom imploded and almost brought the country to its knees — we have had neither the enthusiasm nor ability to match the heady house-building figures we saw achieved nearly 20 years ago, and that has frustrated and maddened us.

A Cabinet meeting today will — yet again — discuss the means of restoring house building to a position where it merely fulfils the country’s swiftly changing needs. That meeting will also discuss options with regard to refurbishing vacant and derelict properties for use as primary homes.

The legacies of the early noughties building boom are still there to see — a generation of craftsmen blown to the four corners of the earth because their jobs here vanished overnight; an unpalatable mess of unfinished projects and others so shoddily finished they were unfit for habitation; and the thousands of young buyers left with debt they are unlikely to ever clear.

It is understandable that — as a nation — we never want to visit such times again. Ahead of a general election within the next two years, the current Government, however, does want to be responsible for sorting the current mess out without making any long-term disastrous policy blunders.

While the Government has taken its time to try to find solutions to our current building and accommodation predicaments, we must remember that the 2008 crash was not just an Irish one, it was global. So, too, the fact that there are similar housing crises across Europe right now.

Throw in an unprecedented international refugee crisis fuelled by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, coupled with turmoil in Syria and Afghanistan, as well as those economic migrants simply looking to the first world for succour, and we find ourselves in the midst of a perfect storm.

We have discussed any number of potential solutions for too long. What we have not done is act on them.

While the many tentative attempts to address the issues have been welcome, they have not achieved anything like the results necessary.

It is time to be brave and resolute. We need visionary solutions, but seem to lack the direction necessary for the job at hand. 

We found the answers before, so why not now?