Mayo View: President Higgins rightly turns up heat on housing 'disaster'

Those detracting from his remarks are misguided

by The Tallyman

It is a source of national comfort to know that our president will never shy away from calling a spade a spade.

His description of Ireland’s housing crisis as ‘a great failure’ and ‘a disaster’ was both accurate and timely – and those criticising him for his outspoken nature are misguided.

It was encouraging to hear Castlebar Councillor Michael Kilcoyne coming out in support of President Higgins after being elected cathaoirleach of Castlebar Municipal District for the fourth time in nine years.

Councillor Kilcoyne holds regular clinics at his premises at Thomas Street in the county town and the vast majority of those making appointments these days are young married couples looking to provide a permanent home for their families.

Sadly, he cannot offer them any great sense of hope at the moment because the houses are not there to allocate.

A recent report by the director of services of Mayo County Council's housing section, Tom Gilligan, revealed a total of 775 expressions of interests have been received by Mayo County Council for affordable housing.

The authority had invited members of the public to respond to a survey in respect of the issue and the results did not come as a surprise.

The downside is that it could take up to 13 years to address this need unless radical action is taken.

That's how far, in one county alone, the government has fallen behind in terms of being on top of its housing programme.

The reality is that too much trust was placed on private developers to address the need – but that backfired in spectacular fashion when the banking sector collapsed some years ago.

Now efforts to catch up, like Housing for All, is dressed up in spin but has very little substance once the surface is scratched.

Thus President Higgins calling our legislators to heel, that the aspiration should not concern being ‘a star performer for the speculative sector’ and should instead be focused on the building of homes.

He continued: “Isn’t it something very much closer to the poor law system that we thought we were departing from. It’s a real challenge.

“I have taken as well to speaking ever more frankly in relation to housing because I think it is our great, great, great failure.”

Words of a statesman very much in tune with what's going on around him unlike many of those occupying expensive seats in Leinster House.

This observer wrote some time ago that the same degree of focus and direction should be invested in the housing crisis as was witnessed during the fight against Covid-19.

But clearly the appetite and vision is not there to do so.

And this attitude was clearly evidenced in reports that emerged in the media in the days following President Higgins remarks claiming that he had 'crossed a line' by coming out so strongly on the matter.

Utter nonsense.

At least Tánaiste Leo Varadkar had the good political sense to agree with President Higgins, admitting the housing situation is a ‘failing of successive governments’.

“The President is somebody who’s always been and often outspoken in his views. Because he’s the President, he’s above politics, above party politics and is immune in many ways of criticism and scrutiny so I’m not going to be critical of him in any way.

“I think some of what he said was true quite frankly. The housing crisis is a disaster for a lot of people,” added Deputy Varadkar.

While others like Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe insisted the government's efforts are making a different, there is evidently very little sign of it when nearly 800 people in Mayo are openly expressing an interest in affordable housing.

Let's wait and see just how serious the government is in terms of addressing that need.