THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS that housing is an issue that it must make progress on, according to Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe. 

A number of opposition TDs raised President Michael D Higgins’ comments yesterday where he described Ireland’s housing crisis as a “great failure” and a “disaster”. 

He added that the housing issue could no longer be classed as a crisis but a “disaster”.

“Isn’t it something very much closer to the poor law system that we thought we were departing from,” he said.

“It’s a real challenge. I have taken as well to speaking ever more frankly in relation to housing because I think it is our great, great, great failure,” said the president yesterday.

Tanáiste Leo Varadkar agreed with President Higgins stating that the housing crisis is a “social disaster” for many people.

However, Varadkar said the housing situation is a “failing of successive Governments”.

“The President is somebody who’s always been and often outspoken in his views because he’s the President, he’s above politics, above party politics and is immune in many ways of criticism and scrutiny so I’m not going to be critical of him in any way.

“I think some of what he said was true quite frankly.The housing crisis is a disaster for a lot of people,” said Varadkar.

Donohoe told the Dáil during Leaders’ Questions that the Government’s efforts are making a difference, adding that supply will help reduce rents and house prices in the longer term. 

‘Housing disaster’

People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said “workers, students, pensioners, renters, single parents, they’re just sick and tired of the false promises, the failed plans and the half measures to deal with a crushing cost of living crisis and most importantly, with a housing disaster that people are facing in this country”.

“Yesterday, as if we needed reminding, the president of this country had to come out and call you to account for what he described – absolutely rightly – as the great great failure of this Government and this Republic to deal with the housing disaster that you are presiding over,” said Boyd Barrett. 

Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl intervened during the exchange, stating that the president cannot be “dragged into” any Government controversy.

Boyd Barrett said that other TDs who made reference to the president’s comments were not “pulled up”. 

Ó Fearghail said there cannot be “analysis or debate on the statements of the president” adding that the president’s comments can be referenced, but not debated in the House.

Donohoe said the Government “absolutely appreciates the anxiety, the stress, the trauma that many people face”. 

Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty also raised the issue of housing, inadvertently referencing the president’s comments by asking if Donohoe agreed that housing is a “disaster”. 

Doherty said this Government continues to “use recycled policies that created the mess in the first place”

“Homelessness has returned to pre pandemic levels, with over 10,000 people in emergency accommodation and the Ireland of 2022, children are growing up in hotels and Airbnbs,” he said.

“This flies in the face of the shared values of the Irish people,” he added, stating that the Government has turned housing into a cash cow for private investors.

Donohoe rejected the “tone” of what Doherty was stating, adding more homes are now being completed and more planning permissions and building commencements are underway.

“You’ve been a minister now for nine years, and let me give you one fact, for every single year that you’ve been a minister, the crisis has got worse. House prices continue to rise every single year,” said Doherty. 

He said what has been allowed to happen with housing is a “social disaster”. 

Labour leader Ivana Bacik also made reference to the president’s comments on housing, telling the Dáil that it is no surprise to hear the President Higgins describe the housing situation as a housing disaster.

“It’s no wonder that he’s referring to failures in government policy,” she said, adding that it is “deeply concerning” to hear ministers, in that context, flying Budget kites about tax cuts.