Dr. Ronan Lyons:

On whether we are somehow unique in Ireland on this, the key point to note is that Ireland is the only country - not that population growth is the only determinant of housing requirement - in Europe to have faster population growth this century than last century. The context is different. We are used to stable, and often falling, population and we are now in rising population whereas other European countries had rapidly-rising populations and now either slowly-rising or falling populations. That is a unique context. We are not culturally somehow inadequate in relation to solving it. It is the context is different. We have conservative population projections. Layering on top of that, the housing targets were, until too recently, treated as ceilings - that one should not go above this number. That has only changed in the past little while. They are three elements of understanding how we have got ten to 12 years into a housing shortage.