Miriam Lord: Micheál’s field of dreams for housing faces some ugly home truths

Micheál’s Field of Dreams: Build it and they will come.

But who will come?

First-time buyers desperate to escape crippling rent or property investors keen to cash in on their misery?

In the Dáil, the hamster wheel of housing keeps on spinning. Round and round it goes with the same arguments from the Opposition and the same answers from the Government.

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The frustration on both sides is obvious.

The Taoiseach stands by his single-word remedy: supply. The only way to solve the housing crisis – and Micheál Martin has no difficulty agreeing with his critics that we are in the middle of a crisis – is by building loads more houses as quickly as possible. Thirty-three thousand “starts” needed every year for the foreseeable.

But what happens in the meantime?

The ugly gap between identifying the problem and fixing it formed Wednesday’s Dáil battleground. The Sinn Féin leader and the Social Democrats co-leader zoomed in on the well-documented predicament of renters stranded in a cutthroat zone with no means of buying their way out.

Mary Lou McDonald and Catherine Murphy began with a clear advantage. They know younger people (along with family and friends who care about them) are in deep despair over housing. This is the burning issue of their time and they want their politicians to help.

So both women pleaded with the Taoiseach to take urgent short-term action to curb spiralling rent and house prices. In response, Micheál almost sounded apologetic when referring them for the umpteenth time to his Government’s cure for the current sickness in the market – it’s called supply.

As for those “desperately seeking to put a roof over their heads” (as McDonald said) or “desperately trying to buy their own houses” (Murphy), what can be done for them now?

For they are out there in their fuming droves. Waiting and listening.

Instagrammable indignation

If ever there was an occasion for Mary Lou and her scriptwriter to plunder their extensive and extensively relied upon soundbite locker, it was now. Mary Lou rose to the challenge, producing a bravura performance of Instagrammable indignation.

Cuckoo funds using sweetheart tax deals to massively outbid buyers looking for family homes before renting those homes back to them at extortionate rates. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael making homeownership a pipe dream for an entire generation. A staggering increase in rip-off rents. A social disaster.

And where is all this happening, Taoiseach? On your watch.

Cut rents by means of a tax credit, demanded an impassioned McDonald. Put a ban on runaway rent increases, “and for God’s sake do these things for the renters of this country!”

Catherine Murphy left the punchy video-clip flourishes to her Sinn Féin counterpart and she spoke quietly, more in sorrow than anger

Slowly, patiently, Micheál Martin explained about the need to increase supply above all else. He flourished the Daft report the Sinn Féin leader cited when quoting the alarming figures for rent rises – with average rents in parts of Dublin over the €2,000 threshold now.

He read a line from the report’s key conclusions. “‘As ever, the solution remains in the construction of large numbers of market and cost-rental housing to cater for tenants of all incomes.’ That is THEIR conclusion.”

“Twang!” He flicked his fingers off the pages.

The Government’s Housing for All strategy is the right one, he said. “We now need to get on with it and allow the houses to be built.”

Yet what happens in the meantime to renters languishing in the cutthroat zone? What about that ugly gap?

Quiet desperation

Catherine Murphy left the punchy video-clip flourishes to her Sinn Féin counterpart and she spoke quietly, more in sorrow than anger. She was equally if not more effective, her words capturing the sense of frustration and quiet desperation felt by so many caught up in this crisis.

What did the Taoiseach have to say to people trying to buy a house? “Tell them to stop complaining or to shop around?”

While he said bulk-buying of private homes by investment vehicles has been blocked, she told a different story. “Ordinary workers can shop around for an eternity but increasingly they feel they are chasing shadows. ”

So, while accepting “rents are too high for people”, Micheál repeated that only building more houses will end this mess. And while the Government is powering ahead with the biggest building programme in the history of the State, there is also a place for private sector investors in bringing about the solution.

An exasperated Murphy, who represents the commuter-belt constituency of Kildare North, did not disagree. "It's a big part of the solution, but it has to have constraints put on it."

She put her hands out and asked the Taoiseach: “Do you ever question that you could be getting this wrong? Like, Fianna Fáil have got it wrong before. ”

No surprise in a reply going back to supplies. Housing supply is the key. “It’s happening. Thirty-one thousand starts . . .”

“I know we need supply. But affordable supply,” said the Soc Dem co-leader. Worried TDs on the Coalition side of the House know this too because they aren’t blind to the immediate problem either.

In the ugly gap on the way to Micheál’s field of dreams, is there nothing his Government can do to help?