Ms Patricia King:

I thank the committee for the invitation to attend today. The work of the Housing Commission was undertaken in a systemic way. The report is a comprehensive study setting out the as-is position relating to each of the subject headings, researched analysis on same and followed by the commission’s recommendations and an action list for each. There were five subcommittees within the commission and I chaired the public consultation and stakeholder engagement subcommittee.

The public consultation involved a number of survey polls carried out by RedC on behalf of the commission, together with a call for submissions. Well over 2,000 submissions were received. Most of these were illustrative of the hardship families and individuals are experiencing during this housing crisis.

While the commission met the Minister for housing on more than one occasion, a meeting also took place with the Taoiseach of the day at his request in 2023. Stakeholder engagement included meetings with several local authority CEOs, Secretaries General of the relevant Departments, specified key officials, CEOs of utility companies and other NGOs of interest. These engagements, together with the terms of reference, informed the commission’s approach. This is well illustrated in the executive summary in section 1, from which I will give some examples. It identified that over several decades a range of interventions to deal with housing have not resolved failures that are fundamentally systemic. A major issue of concern to the commission is Ireland’s housing deficit. It is critical that this deficit is addressed through emergency action. Ineffective decision-making and reactive policymaking where risk aversion dominates impact housing dynamics and undermine affordability in the housing system. These problems have arisen due to the failure to successfully treat housing as a critical social and economic priority. That is evident in a lack of consistency in housing policy which undermines confidence. Finally, we said in the executive summary that only a radical reset of housing policy will work.