Minister aims to end housing crisis during his term despite ‘grim’ prediction

The Housing Minister has said he aims to end the housing crisis during his term despite a “truly grim” analysis that suggested it could last for another 15 to 20 years.

A long-term assessment of Ireland’s economy and society was published by the Department of Finance on Tuesday.

It contained scenarios that included the suggestion it could take until the 2040s before housing supply eases significantly, with demand expected to peak in the early 2030s.

The government’s new housing plan is being finalised and is expected to be brought to Cabinet next week, or at the latest in two weeks’ time.

Housing Minister James Browne said that he was “totally results driven rather than targets driven” on boosting housing supply.

“I aim to end the housing crisis in my term and I believe that can be done,” he said in Dublin on Wednesday.

“As I say, the Department of Finance’s Future Forty report, they tried to land on a centre point out of almost 2,000 different scenarios and in a no-change model. I’m certainly not accepting a no-change model. We are driving change. We’ve made huge changes over the last eight months.”

He added that housing targets can “sometimes confuse matters” and that the housing department needed to be less cautious.

“We have to take risks here, we can’t be so cautious that we’re afraid to make decisions.

“I get that sense maybe in the system, that because of mistakes made in the past, people are overly cautious, people are self-censoring and are afraid to make those decisions and I’m also about giving that confidence to officials in the department, and across government as well, to be able to take a calculated risk.

“We have to keep that framework of security, of safety, of the environment in place, but not so afraid to make decisions – that we need to deliver homes – that we make new mistakes.”

Responding to the report, Ms Bacik said the report was “a truly grim analysis for every generation in this state”.

“The report is also issuing stark warnings about the high cost to us all due to your government’s failure to invest in climate action measures,” she said during Leaders’ Questions.

“Tanaiste Simon Harris might like to take particular note of the report’s finding that continued inward migration will be vital to maintain growth in the labour force. So much for his outrageous dog whistle comment last week that there are too many people coming here.”

She added: “So my message to you today is this, it would be utterly bizarre, indeed irresponsible, for your government to take as inevitable this projection that the housing crisis will continue for a decade or more.

“Regrettably, you have taken this bizarre approach for some time, because in the face of successive damning reports about lack of public investment by your government you’ve acted as if you’ve no power to change outcomes.

“But Minister, you and your Cabinet colleagues are not bystanders. You need to let go of neo-liberal ideology. You need to step up, show some ambition, show some urgency”.

Minister Jack Chambers said the report from the Department of Finance was not “a projection”, as policy has changed on infrastructure on housing.

“We have a new housing plan being published in the coming weeks, we’ll have significant infrastructure reforms being published in the coming weeks, all to enable greater delivery of more homes and more infrastructure right across our economy.”

Ms Bacik replied: “We all know government housing policy has abjectly failed. You failed to deliver homes, you failed to meet your own targets.

“We saw vastly elevated and indeed false targets last year, and thousands of people in homelessness, and it’s absolutely shocking to see so many children, in particular, without a home in an Ireland that is wealthy.”

Mr Chambers said: “You can attack the government and talk about failure repeatedly, but ultimately your approach – which would probably impose greater regulation, more stringency, more rules on the market – we would have less housing supply.”