Mr. Odran Reid:

I will be brief and make just a handful of quick points. I will do a quick edit of what I was going to say.

Ireland is used to housing crises, and we have been surviving in one for quite a period. It is always the State that comes in and actually solves problems. Since the State has been somewhat missing from housing production, as Mr. Reynolds also referred to earlier, we have developed a dysfunctional housing market. House price inflation is in the past 30 years has been nothing short of excessive. It is 2.6 times greater than the wage rate increases, and six times the rate of inflation in the past 30 years. When we see this, we must ask why. We are aware there are issues around construction, but the significant price factor is the price of land.

When we looking at the town centre first policy, we look at the development of community and the development of place. Housing is one aspect of this. Where we put the housing is critically important. The committee is currently looking at the living over the shop approach. A number of people have looked at this and they have all run away from it because it has been problematic. It is problematic partly because of regulation and partly because of cost. The value of living over the shop is not necessarily the quantum of development it would bring forward; it is also about what it does to the town centres particularly in rural area Ireland, and in creating a sense of vibrancy in city centres that die after 6 p.m. We also have to look at these buildings because of the volume of embedded carbon in them. It may be more expensive to do this, but we have already put the carbon in and we must also consider this.

There is a major shortage of accommodation, but going back to the issue of price structure, our young people can no longer afford housing, they cannot afford rent, and once this pandemic is over they will vote with their feet. That will be very problematic for our society. We have certainly seen this in rural Ireland when people have left and we have had depopulation. We do not necessarily want to see this again. The title of the Government policy is Housing For All, which is critically important. It must, however, be done with equity and affordability as key elements of the delivery. The late economist, John Kenneth Galbraith, said that sometimes what is called economics is very often what mirrors the need of the respectable affluent. I do not think this is necessarily what we should have as a housing policy. We did a lot of positive things around housing policy and we must continue that.