Dr. Seán Healy:

We had come to it before the Central Bank changed its position. It was mentioned in the analysis we produced on the night of the budget. If the cause of the problem is principally the lack of supply, we fail to see how this initiative will impact on it. Accordingly, it is pointless in tackling the cause. According to the Government, there are 89,000 households, not individuals, on housing waiting lists. There will be a new count soon. The last time we thought the numbers would have been halved, but, in actual fact, they had not gone down at all, even though the Government used a different methodology. The 89,000 households are, for the most part, in the private rental sector or homeless. The Government has a plan to deal with the issue. The plan is welcome as it is the biggest for some time. However, only 47,000 units will be produced under it by 2021. That will still bring us only half way in dealing with the current problem, without any increase in the number of households. There will, however, be an increase in the numbers on housing waiting lists because the demographics are changing. It seemed to us that a different approach was required. Despite all the pushing and shoving, the private sector did not seem to be able to generate a huge number of new builds. We were proposing something different. Perhaps the best way to deal with the problem is to look at it from the other side and see if we can take the 89,000 households out of the equation by building social housing for them. Once they are taken out of the equation, one will have had a reduction of 89,000 households in the number looking for private rental accommodation. That should change the equation and, I hope, bring supply and demand much closer to each other. It is not rocket science. This is economics course No. 101.