Story of the week
It is finally here.
The Coalition’s long-promised new housing plan was unveiled on Thursday, and while Government politicians may hope it will be the key to solving the housing crisis, the Opposition is not surprisingly underwhelmed.
From delivering over 300,000 homes – including 72,000 social housing units – by the end of 2030 and already announced reforms to the rental sector to plans to regenerate derelict buildings to create 20,000 homes, there is much ambition (if no annual targets) in the 108-page Delivering Homes, Building Communities plan. Colm Keena has a Q&A on many of the main points here.
Meanwhile, our political correspondent, Ellen Coyne, has reported on how local authorities are being told to put long-term homeless families with children to the top of the queue for social housing, as part of a concerted Government effort to reduce the number of children in emergency accommodation. She outlines how senior Government figures now believe levels of child homelessness will be how the public judges its record on the housing crisis.
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It is not hard to see why this might be the case. According to the most recent figures, there were 5,238 homeless children in the Republic at the end of September. Charities, agencies, and professional bodies have given the housing strategy a cautious welcome, but Opposition parties have trenchantly criticised it, arguing it is a repackaged version of previous plans.
Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin described it as “the emperor with no clothes” and accused the Government of “brazenly trying to rebrand unaffordable private homes as somehow affordable”. As Marie O’Halloran reports, Opposition parties criticised the decision by the Government to abolish annual targets. Labour’s Conor Sheehan said it would make it difficult to measure the plan’s progress.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has defended this decision, while stating that data will still be available every year to show “what has actually been built”.
“Even when we had the annual targets on the [previous plan] Housing for All, and when we exceeded those targets, the response was, ‘well, we should have set the targets higher’, that they weren’t high enough. The bottom line is, we need 300,000 homes,” he said.
People seeking a home – and the Government parties – are pinning their hopes on this plan delivering as intended.
One thing is certain, as the next general election – due in 2029 – approaches, there will be much focus on exactly how many of the 300,000 homes promised for the end of the following year have materialised.
Bust up
US president Donald Trump versus the BBC was not on many people’s bingo cards for Trump’s second administration, but then how many of the extraordinary things that have emanated from the White House this year were?
The BBC has apologised him for editing a speech to make it look like he had advocated violence but rejected the president’s demand for compensation. He threatened legal action against the broadcaster for its editing of a speech he made in 2021, on the day his supporters overran the Capitol Building in Washington.
The BBC admitted on Monday the editing of the speech was an “error of judgment”. Trump’s lawyers said the BBC must retract its documentary by November 14th or face a lawsuit for “no less” than $1 billion (€860 million). The BBC has said it “sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited”, but it also added: “We strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim.”
That’s all very well but does any of this affect me?
It is stating the obvious, but if you’re someone living in the box room of your family home saving to get on the property ladder; a tenant struggling with sky-high rents, or a homeless person living in emergency accommodation hoping to secure a home; the Government’s new housing plan – and its success or otherwise – is crucial.
Banana skin
Fianna Fáil politicians are waiting on tenterhooks for the completion of the review into its diabolical presidential election bid.
It was originally supposed to be finished by this week, with proposals on how to avoid a repeat of the botched effort to get former Dublin GAA manager Jim Gavin elected due last Wednesday.
What is wrong with Ireland’s housing and planning system?
There have been renewed rumblings about the future of Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s leadership of the party, given his role in backing Mr Gavin as his preferred candidate – though there is no immediately obvious successor to Martin as leader pulling strings behind the scenes or encouraging rebels.
Fianna Fáil TDs and Senators learned at their parliamentary party meeting on Wednesday that the review will now not be completed until early December. Regardless of the review’s outcome, its delivery will likely be a tricky time for the party leader.
Winners and losers
The winner this week is Catherine Connolly, who was inaugurated as Ireland’s tenth president on Tuesday after her stunning election victory last month. The left-wing Independent politician gave every indication she will be an outspoken holder of the office, saying she will use her seven years as president to be a “catalyst for change”.
British prime minister Keir Starmer is this week’s loser, having found himself grappling with a controversy over media briefings from allies suggesting there were fears of a leadership coup from within the Labour Party.
He sought to draw a line under the matter by insisting he had been reassured that the briefing “didn’t come from Downing Street”.
The prime minister gathered his senior staff to stress that briefings against cabinet ministers were “unacceptable” after apologising to health secretary Wes Streeting – who was identified as being supposedly behind a possible heave – for what had happened. Starmer’s spokesperson also said the prime minister accepted assurances that Number 10 staff had not briefed against Mr Streeting and that he stood by his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, originally from Co Cork. All-in-all another bad week for Starmer.
The big read
In Saturday’s paper, political editor Pat Leahy looks at the uneasy calm within Fianna Fáil as the party awaits the report on its calamitous presidential election campaign.
Hear, here
On Wednesday’s Inside Politics podcast, presenter Hugh Linehan and guests explore what is wrong with the State’s housing and planning system. UCD academic Prof Orla Hegarty and Seán Keyes, the executive director of the think tank Progress Ireland, join him. They debate if tech entrepreneur John Collison’s view of the Republic’s housing problems are correct or naive.
