Change in thinking on housing, health needed

THEY say that flirting with madness is well and good, it’s when the madness starts flirting back we should be worried. And we should indeed be concerned as we begin a new year with precisely the same problems as we began the last; applying precisely the same failed solutions which – as if we needed reminding– is a sign of lunacy.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has laid a timely marker on the Government, warning that he is not prepared to automatically reboot the ‘confidence and supply’ agreement unless there is significant change in dealing with the housing and health crises.

He did so just as outgoing chairman of the Government’s Housing Agency Conor Skehan also poked the bear somewhat, by suggesting that some families were leapfrogging the system by becoming homeless and staying in hotels. His point was that the Government could have “unwittingly” enticed people to exploit the housing allocations system, by prioritising self-declared homelessness, in order to make their way up the housing list. If there are loopholes that facilitate such an unfair advantage then they must be urgently addressed.

This does not get the Government off the hook for its inexcusable failure to address the housing shortage.

But Mr Skehan is correct to warn against deliberately conflating the issues of homelessness and the housing crisis. Recent figures pointed out that we may actually need to provide 50,000 houses a year to keep abreast of the scale of the demand with rises in population.

But there are many parts to this. Soaring costs have deterred builders. When you factor in rocketing rents, you fan the flames even higher. Accommodating various needs requires a multi-faceted approach that has been sorely lacking. People on middle incomes have virtually no prospect of owning a home in the capital with values rising as they are. Borrowings based on three-and-a-half times the income for the average family will not be sufficient.

MUCH of the focus has been on providing social houses, which are badly needed, but the need to build affordable homes is just as pressing. In 2015, when the then-housing minister Alan Kelly insisted 50pc of social housing available in Dublin city and county must be allocated to homeless people, he was inadvertently creating problems down the line. Until then, 10pc of social housing was set aside for the homeless in Dublin city. A gap was created where people had an incentive to declare themselves homeless.

It is again worth repeating, this does not account for the homeless crisis, nor housing shortage, but it does point to a failure in policy. Those at risk of homelessness should declare it and give authorities time to react, as opposed to expecting an instant response. There must be a safety net, and there must be State support, but priorities need setting.

We need imaginative, proactive responses on housing. For developers, significant ‘use it or lose it’ levies need to be implemented to force contractors hoarding land banks to get building. Similarly, compulsory purchase orders ought to be open to local authorities to acquire and develop derelict sites. High streets all over Ireland have vacant over-the-shop space that could be converted.

The same depressing lack of initiative, and readiness to live with failure is reflected in the health service. Once more yesterday we set a dismal new record, with the number of people in hospital emergency departments or on wards waiting for a bed hitting 656. We do not need any more policy groups or reports to obsess about our problems.

We need more beds in hospitals, just as we need more houses built – both social and affordable.

There will be no change in outcomes unless there is a change in thinking. And the biggest mistake the Government could make this year is to think the public believes it is making progress when it is going backwards on both health and housing.