Michael McDowell: Where’s the sense of urgency to end the housing crisis?

The good news is that up to €8 billion in finance is to be allocated to the Land Development Agency (the LDA) to kickstart an accelerated home-building programme — subject to Cabinet, and presumably, Dáil approval in the near future.

The bad news is that it has taken five years since the LDA was established to take this decision, allowing for the strange and inexcusable fact that the agency was waiting for three years for its statutory basis to be enacted by the Oireachtas in July 2021. It had previously existed only in a largely shadow form following its establishment in 2018 under the Local Government (Corporate Bodies) Act, 1973. And it took a further eight months — until March 31st, 2022 — to commence the operation of the 2021 Act. That’s how quickly the State deals with a housing emergency.

The LDA has very limited powers of compulsory purchase under the 2021 Act. Its primary focus is on developing public land or other land acquired by it other than by compulsory purchase. And this form of land acquisition by local authorities for housing under the Housing Acts is complex and cumbersome — entailing orders in the High Court.

[ More than 13,000 homes could be built under new billion-euro LDA plan ]

The Ahern years: The tiger roars

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If the LDA can use the newly promised resources to guarantee low-interest rates and sufficient capital to ensure an adequate supply of social and affordable home construction, and if this can be done in partnership with developers and landowners, so much the better — if the volume of home-building is massively increased to meet pent-up demand and tackle the ever-increasing cost of purchasing or renting for ordinary citizens. Those are big “ifs”.

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But we also need to take radical action to use derelict or under-used land and buildings in towns and cities for the provision of homes. Our recent experience in that area has been one of abject failure. Local authorities, as housing authorities, have completely failed to use their existing powers to ensure urban regeneration takes place.

It is all very well for a vague if well-intentioned media debate on re-imagining Dublin or the north inner city to take place. Unless concrete steps are taken and implemented with a sense of momentum, we will have the semi-permanent urban blight that afflicts our inner cities and towns.

[ Manifesto for a better Dublin: Charge motorists, reimagine Stephen’s Green and move RTÉ ]

O’Connell Street is but a glaring example of confusion between zoning and planning. Planning a city does not consist solely of permissive zoning and reliance on property owners to develop individual pocket handkerchief sites when and as they wish in accordance with general guidelines. Planning is not the mere provision of a framework for market forces; planning is the means whereby an envisaged outcome will be brought about. The same applies, albeit to a lesser extent, to the use of all development land for urban expansion.

The constitutional status of housing, health and education provision in no way inhibits resourcing of programmes in those areas

Nothing in the Constitution inhibits or prevents the Oireachtas from tackling the housing crisis head-on. Present failures do not originate in, or stem from, any provision of the Constitution. They stem from a chronic debilitating disease in our organs of State which manifests in delay, lack of financial control, lack of oversight, unwillingness to take responsibility and, above all, hesitancy to drive policy programmes with energy and urgency.

The constitutional status of housing, health and education provision in no way inhibits resourcing of programmes in those areas.

The often-neglected provisions of Article 45 of the Constitution make clear that the directive principles of social policy set out in the article were intentionally made the care exclusively of the Oireachtas, and the courts were expressly excluded from becoming involved in their implementation by reference to any provision, whether in Article 45 or elsewhere, of the constitution.

Constitutional non-involvement of the judiciary in determining policy does not relegate health or housing to a lesser order of importance

Hugely important areas of policy, including those on employment and the means of livelihood, ownership and control of community resources to serve the common good, control of monopolist and anti-competitive market forces, support for and supplementation of private enterprise, and the social distribution of property and agricultural land ownership, were made areas where the Oireachtas was given the constitutionally exclusive right and duty to make and implement policy.

[ Eoin Ó Broin: A constitutional right to housing could restore faith in our political system ]

Constitutional non-involvement of the judiciary in determining policy does not relegate health or housing to a lesser order of importance. It emphasises the importance of the legislature and government as the democratic and accountable organs of our State for deciding and implementing the very essence of our political processes.

It is for the legislature, not the courts, to determine the raising and allocation of adequate resources and their implementation between competing policy demands; the people choose their legislators and can dismiss them for policy failure and misjudgment.

Bunreacht na hÉireann is not some national Christmas tree on which to hang political baubles and tinsel. Proposals to involve the courts, judges and lawyers in housing are a misconceived excuse for political failure.