It was welcome to see the Dáil finally resuming in earnest on Wednesday and discussing important issues. As part of this, the Opposition was correct to question Taoiseach Micheál Martin about claims during the election campaign that close to 40,000 houses were built last year. In the event, the total was just over 30,330.
The charge from the Opposition was that senior ministers misled voters in relation to an important issue. Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said the leaders of the two big parties in Government had repeated “pure fiction” during the campaign and needed to set the record straight.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said there had been “no attempt to deceive” and the statements came from a " genuine belief” that the outcome would be “in the high thirties.” The outcome was " extremely disappointing”, he conceded.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are vulnerable here. It looked likely during the general election campaign that the figures would not reach the highs that ministers in the previous government were claiming. A record final quarter would have been required – at a level which always looked unlikely. Analysts and the media wondered if there was some official information not generally available which was indicating that supply had picked up late in the year. As it transpired, the outcome was even lower than most analysts had expected.
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The issue of what was claimed during the campaign is, of course, now in the past. However, there a concerning follow-up. It is the apparent failure of the new Government to accept that it needs to reconsider parts of its housing policy and accelerate its efforts in this key area. The 2024 figures showed particularly worrying trends in apartment building and – as well as meeting current demand – thousands more homes are needed to meet the backlog of young people living at home and not able to move out because of inadequate supply in recent years, a point underlined again in a report yesterday by Davy.
There is no overnight solution but the Government needs to show in its early months that it is starting to get to grips with this vital issue.
