Everyone knows that our dysfunctional housing market has let down too many people, right across Ireland. Getting access to affordable, secure housing is impossible for too many people, and hinders their ability to take up work or to start a family. There is no easy solution, but there is no doubt that the only solution is for the State to be at the forefront of actions to deliver affordable housing for all. The private market has failed us too many times. The Labour Party believes that Ireland’s housing problems can be solved. We can build an Ireland where every child grows up in decent housing in a good neighborhood. Our economy has now fully recovered from the crash. But a Government obsessed with economic numbers has lost sight of our need for social progress. And the Government is obsessed with relying on market forces rather than taking the necessary initiatives to build sustainable communities. A range of State-led measures are needed, including taxes and levies, to strongly motivate those with available land to develop housing on it now, and to eliminate profiteering. At the same time, it is clear that the main source of affordable housing has to be the State.

Housing is a basic human need, not something optional. As such, a market approach to housing will inevitably fail, as it has failed in Ireland and elsewhere, again and again. People’s need to be housed is not flexible(in economic terms, demand for housing is “inelastic”). When there is an insufficient supply of housing, as there is now in Ireland, people end up paying more than they can really afford, because the alternative homelessness is worse. This is a deeply unjust and unsustainable situation. The private housing market has failed Ireland too many times. To end the boom and bust cycle once for all, the State must take a leading role in the construction and provision of housing. Housing is an essential public good. When a market has repeatedly failed it is incumbent on the State to intervene and address the dysfunction.