Dr. Mark Cassidy:

I agree with much of what Deputy Boyd Barrett says. I cannot agree with all of it. Let us agree there is a serious issue with the supply of housing. In the Housing for All plan there is such a high share of proposed building of social and affordable housing that it clearly reflects the nature of the problem and the fact there is not the expectation the market itself will produce these houses. Clearly, with such a problem, you need a lot of social and affordable houses to be built in order that we can house our population. There are issues with the building, development, cost and production of housing. It is absolutely nothing to do with labour and the Deputy is right about that. On the arguments for this around the planning and development issue, I am not an expert. So much has been written. Books have been written about it. The nature of the problem lies there. We need to be able to build houses better and smarter. I would not give up on the ability of the market to do that. It needs reforms within the housing sector that will allow the market to do that. That is where you will get the most efficient housing market, which is not to leave aside that there will always be a need for social and affordable housing and for the Government to build houses itself. There will always be a need for that but it needs to be side by side with an efficient, flourishing private market. There also needs to be an emphasis on creating the conditions for that private market. We have seen signs of optimism with housing supply building but in the short term, that might have glossed over some of the structural problems that need to be addressed.

I agree with so many elements of the argument but not with the idea the solution will be to remove the private element of the market. As the Deputy suggested, I would not go towards that.