Catch-22: ESRI calls for more foreign workers to build houses

Good morning.

It’s a catch-22. To build more houses, we need more workers. But if they come, we need more houses to put them in. Otherwise the additional workers will drive up demand, and therefore rents and house prices. This is a problem beyond Government spin and Opposition sloganeering, and it will not be solved quickly.

Our lead story today lays out the finding of an ESRI study in detail.

“Ireland will need an influx of foreign workers to meet the State’s housing targets,” Eoin Burke-Kennedy writes. “And that, it warns, may add to rental pressures and housing demand generally in the short term.”

Cabinet set to approve water supply referendum outline

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Varadkar positions Fine Gael as the party of tax cuts

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Miriam Lord: Mary Lou McDonald takes ‘sitting TD’ a little too far

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Abortion laws may not pass Oireachtas in time for January target

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With all the focus on Brexit recently, and the efforts to contain the problem politically, housing may have fallen off the immediate political agenda. The Government points reasonably to the increasing level of new home completions this year, and the numbers are projected to rise again next year.

But as the ESRI numbers make clear, demand is going to keep increasing at a spanking pace. One Opposition TD told me recently that he sees the problem seeping deeper and deeper into the middle class. For all the excitement about tax cuts at the weekend, this will remain a pressing problem for the Coalition.

Those proposed tax cuts, floated by Leo Varadkar at the Fine Gael ardfheis at the weekend, were the subject of a fierce attack by Mary Lou McDonald in the Dáil yesterday.

To say this was predictable would be an understatement, and Varadkar had his response ready, baiting Mary Lou for quaffing champagne while “hobnobbing with the super rich” at a Sinn Féin fundraiser in New York two weeks ago.

On the same day, he pointed out, other party leaders were at the Armistice Day commemorations and later at the presidential inauguration. If Mary Lou had not anticipated such a retort, she needs to do her homework a little better.

Marie O'Halloran's Dáil report is here.

Mary Lou’s bad day

All in, it was not the easiest of days for Mary Lou yesterday. Apart from the Taoiseach’s jibes, she got in a row with former Fianna Fáil minister Mary Hanafin during a photo of past and present women TDs taken in the chamber yesterday morning.

Hanafin was directed to a front row seat by the ushers (it was a photo, not a Dáil sitting), but Mary Lou insisted the seat was hers and dug her heels in until Hanafin relented.

This is not the sort of thing that usually happens at these events, where cross-party and female solidarity is normally the order of the day. The ladies’ lunch afterwards fairly zinged with talk of the incident, as you can imagine.

Then later Mary Lou had to meet Mairia Cahill. That didn't go well either, as Harry McGee reports here.

Miriam has the full account of the Sinn Féin leader's travails.

Delay over abortion?

Elsewhere on our front page, our new colleague on the political team, Jennifer Bray, makes her page one debut in a piece that casts doubt on the chances of the abortion services being up and running by January 1st as promised.

As Jennifer reports, a not especially speedy legislative passage now threatens the end-of-year deadline, and a number of late-night sittings may have to be scheduled in a bid to get the Bill before the Seanad before the Christmas recess. That will add to the festive spirit, alright.

Were the Bill not to be passed by the Oireachtas before Christmas it would be embarrassing for the Government and for Minister for Health Simon Harris - though hardly a disaster. The Oireachtas could pass it when it returns in January. Assuming the confidence-and-supply talks don’t collapse and precipitate a general election . . . let’s not even go there.

Best reads

Kathy Sheridan doesn't join in the sudden lionisation of Theresa May.

London Editor Denis Staunton has the latest on Mrs May's struggles with her own party.

The broadband process will not be abandoned, it seems. Not now, anyway

Clifford Cloonan's series on China continues.

Laura Kennedy has a grown-up piece about no-platforming in universities.

Donald Trump stands with the Saudis.

Paul Melia in the Irish Independent writes about the rising costs facing families, as the Government warns of carbon tax increases.

Playbook

In the Dáil, there’s four hours of debate about Brexit to look forward to this evening. Oh yes. Four.

Before that, there’s defence questions this morning, Leaders’ Questions and Taoiseach’s questions.

In the Seanad, the judicial appointments Bill is back after further lengthy - and testy - exchanges yesterday between Michael McDowell and Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan.

At the committees, Minister for Children Katherine Zappone and representatives of the Scouts are at the children’s committee, while the justice committee will examine Labour’s proposed Bill forcing companies to disclose their gender pay gap.

Full details of all Oireachtas business is here.

Elsewhere, British prime minister Theresa May is in Brussels to swig champagne with Jean Claude Juncker.

The Westminster Northern Ireland committee will discuss the restoration of the Northern Ireland executive and Brexit.

Tune in to our podcast later where all the above, along with other matters diverting and diverse, will be examined with customary erudition.

Wrap up well if you’re going out. Remember that it is the feast of the Presentation in the Temple. Say “what ho!” to Jacob Rees-Mogg if you meet him, and do tease him about not being able to count. And whatever you do, have an utterly, utterly fruity day.