OPINION: If housing is an emergency, start acting like it

A letter in the Irish Independent last week caught my eye, entitled: “We need the same urgent approach to housing that we had for the pandemic”. The letter briefly referenced a comment made during RTÉ’s Brendan O’Connor Show, that the Government needs an “all-hands-on-deck” emergency approach as occurred during the financial crash, Brexit, and Covid.

I’ve all but tuned out of the housing “debate” at this point, as my own dream of ever owning a home on a single income dwindles every time I open the Daft.ie app. The reason this particular headline caught my eye, however was because earlier in the week, I’d just finished listening to former housing Minister Eoghan Murphy’s memoir, ‘Running from Office’.

Allow me to digress for a bit. I’m not even sure what the appeal of the book was, aside from my being partial to a political memoir in general. I can’t say that I’d ever had any strong feelings towards the former Minister, believing him to be uncaring at best, inept at worst, and certainly incapably of inspiring any great hope of his fixing the crisis. The book had, surprisingly, received rave reviews in the Irish press when released last year. If I’d been hoping for some juicy Irish political gossip, I was in for a disappointment, save for the reminder of just how unhealthily cosy the relationship is between Irish media and politicians. But it did reveal a lot about the man himself, which is kinda the whole point of a memoir, I suppose.

Because the author himself had narrated the book, written in the first person, it was hard at times to reconcile the fact that Murphy was actually talking about himself. The epitome of privately educated middle-class south Dubliner, with the accent to match, the thought process behind Murphy’s decision to enter politics could be best summed up as naked personal ambition, with a dusting of social conscience, underpinned by very little lived experience. While he throws his eye back over his mindset and decisions with more than a touch of self-deprecation, tongue lodged in cheek, the Messiah complex is at times, quite evident.

The book, however, was highly unusual in one aspect, and all the more commendable for it. Murphy unequivocally owned his failure in both his ambition, and the role of Minister for Housing, laying out his own vulnerabilities, inadequacies and helplessness with little sugar-coating. And ironically, over the course of the book, the reader realises that it was less of a failure on his own part, and instead, far more of a reflection on both the Taoiseach of the time, his own colleagues and on the permanent government of senior Department civil servants - the people who really run this country.

After his promotion to Minister for Housing – an issue which he appears to have had little knowledge of, or interest in – Murphy’s first surprise was discovering the breadth of his portfolio, and realising with dismay that as well as housing, he had responsibility for Irish Water, local government, water pollution and the weather. Inheriting his predecessor Simon Coveney’s housing plan, Rebuilding Ireland, he undertook a full review, reaching outside his party for ideas and advice. The Murphy review was radical, and recommended wholesale action, including declaring a housing emergency, and treating it as such, but ultimately, it and he was shot down, in favour of keeping peace and harmony within Fine Gael and the government. His wings clipped, Murphy was forced to continue with an outdated, unfit for purpose plan. Even before Covid, he knew it was not enough, and that the government was, despite its public claims to the contrary, doing everything but prioritising housing.

Murphy eventually – and understandably - had a breakdown of sorts, and spent his last stint as a TD plotting his exit. Five years after he left the Housing portfolio, homeless numbers have doubled, house prices have rocketed, supply remains critically low, and still no emergency has been declared. What chance did he ever have?

So given the timing, this letter in the Independent caught my eye. And the discussion between O’Connor and Irish Examiner journalist Mick Clifford, ironically, looped back to Murphy’s assertion that a true, Brexit-style emergency approach to housing was needed.

But instead, we have a new government, and the approach to housing remains devastatingly, infuriatingly piecemeal. Tinkering around the edges, doing lots of little things in the futile hope they will add up to change. Words, unmatched by sincerity or meaningful action. A complete lack of urgency or care.

On the front page of the same newspaper, the main headline read “single earners locked out of urban housing market”. That too caught my eye, because it is unusual to see the plight of single people highlighted. Unlike Murphy, I am not blind to my own privilege. I am unlikely to ever become homeless. (The bar is low, eh?) But like the 46-year-old teacher featured in the cover piece, I work in a role that helps to fulfil the state’s own duty towards its people, and yet the privileged class deem us unworthy of even that most basic of comforts; the security of a home to call our own.