Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Social Democrats for tabling another well-intentioned motion on housing. Unfortunately, the motion, as presented, while well-intentioned, simply underpins the false narrative that has been advanced by Governments for the past ten years. It is nothing more than a deluded application of centralised policies to follow the groupthink of all the parties in this House that this will solve the problem. Continuously speaking about the effects of the housing crisis, and a continuous failure to diagnose the cause, is the central theme in housing. People are sick to death of hearing it. Government, and those aspiring to be in government, must engage with all stakeholders in housing. The dead hand of government is the central cause of this crisis. Government planning policy and its application continues to undermine housing supply. The Government has issued two further sets of guidelines in the past couple of weeks for public consultation, which demonstrates that it has no idea how to solve the crisis. Opposition parties bring forward motions that theoretically work very well on paper but practically are unimplementable.

It would appear that the lepers of the housing industry in Ireland are the developers. These are the people who can deliver housing and nobody on any side of this House is engaging or listening to them. Senior politicians in Government are held hostage by their senior civil servants and the Planning Regulator; it appears they have Stockholm syndrome. In times past we were told by a regulator that the Irish banks were well capitalised. We had a regulator who was asleep at the wheel. The Planning Regulator is now asleep at the wheel. All the supply issues are of his making. We have a Minister whose issue is not that he is unable to identify the problem but that he is afraid to tackle the cause. In order to solve the greatest shitshow this country has ever seen, the Minister needs to grow a pair and start immediately implementing policies that are required to make supply happen. The regulator is playing the music and the Minister is dancing to the tune while Opposition parties and the fourth estate clap along. It is a simple case of Nero fiddling as Rome burns. It is about time the rubbish stopped or we will never be able to break free from this rental limbo in which the Government has put us. The affordability or viability crisis will also never be over unless we change how we do things. That means taking real, decisive action that works. Change means policies that work. It means strong leadership and standing up and being counted when faced with officials who will not listen.

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