Developer Lismore Homes had lodged a €468m fast-track planning application for a site at Baldoyle in Dublin 13. Under the Strategic Housing Development (SHD) scheme, the plan would see 1,007 homes built — 58 studio units, 247 one-bedroom units, 94 two-bedroom homes for three people, 563 two-bedroom for four people, and 45 three-bedroom homes.

The developer would sell 200 units to Fingal County Council for social housing for €93m, putting a price tag of around €484,000 on each home for the scheme, which will have a decision from An Bord Pleanála in July.

It then emerged that the department had objected to 10 SHDs in recent years, including two in Cork which would deliver 1,013 homes.

How, some asked, could a Government department be opposed to filling housing need during what the Government itself calls a crisis?

We know about the dearth of availability for homes because every week we see it illustrated in new and more damning ways in both traditional and social media. So, why is the Department of Education looking to frustrate the delivery?

In truth, the department has been very clear in all of its objections that large-scale housing developments without the attendant services — namely school places — would solve one issue but create another.

On Baldoyle, the department said: 

[I]t is going to further compound the projected pressure in meeting school place requirements in the area, unless a suitable school site is identified. 

It added that the developer’s assessment of need was “too crude an instrument to reliably gauge school place requirements”.

Those are, by any metric, reasonable concerns, surely?

But housing objections have become the latest in a long line of political footballs, another purity test set down with hard lines — object to housing and you are not serious about solving the housing crisis, don’t object and you are only interested in private market solutions to the crisis.

This narrative comes up in the Dáil frequently, with the Taoiseach leading the charge against Sinn Féin. In February, Mr Martin said the party consistently opposed housing developments, objecting to “around 6,000 homes”: 

I find it hard to reconcile the definition of a crisis with wholesale serial objections to projects that would give us really badly needed supply.

An analysis by TheJournal.ie found that the Taoiseach’s claim was “misleading”, that it lacked nuance, and that it ignored the fact that Fianna Fáil councillors had on occasion sided with Sinn Féin.

Because the truth is that while there are some who will, and do, object to plans that they simply do not like or want, the vast majority of objectors — be they politicians, Government departments or regular people — judge each plan on merit and look at what it will mean beyond just homes.

And that feels strange to write at a time of national crisis — that simply providing homes is not enough when providing homes on a massive scale is one of the most important things that has to be done in the next five years.

But we cannot fall into the trap of badly planning our way out of a crisis.

If the Celtic Tiger, which saw Ireland peak at 94,000 home completions in one year, has taught us anything, it is that racing to catch services up to housing is a race we will always lose.

We know this because we have seen large developments which don’t have a shop within walking distance, where car ownership is not an option but a necessity, and where school place concerns begin long before a child is born.

Asked about the department’s objection last week, Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin raised the example of Adamstown in his Dublin Mid-West constituency.

Touted as the first new town in Ireland since Shannon when it was launched in 2005, around 1,200 homes were built in the town before the crash, and construction did not resume until 2014, by which time it had become Ireland’s first ghost town.

Gone were plans for a cinema and swimming pool, but with the area locked in to a strategic development zone, the resumption of home-building did not mean that homes are built alone, they are actively pegged to services.

This means that early next year, two new supermarkets will open in the long-delayed town centre along with retail and restaurant spaces and new homes to go along with a recently-opened park and a community centre.

But, as Mr Ó Broin pointed out, the plan for a health centre will not come for another two phases in the plan and with GPs in nearby Lucan and Clondalkin already busy, residents are having to go to Meath and Kildare for these services.

Mr Ó Broin’s point was that the provision of services and the planning system need to work hand in hand.

A home in an urban centre cannot just be a place to rest one’s head with services a 15- or 20-minute drive away.

If we are serious about meeting our climate change goals, revitalising our towns and villages, and creating vibrant neighbourhoods, it is imperative that we see homebuilding as just the first piece of the puzzle.

And that means understanding that not every housing plan is good purely because it delivers homes or bad because those homes are built by private companies.

We are in multiple crises in housing, but that does not mean we cannot see a bad idea and call it so.

This week in years gone by...

1919

June 1: Éamon de Valera left Ireland for a tour of the US to raise money, support, and publicity, for his plans to secure independence from Britain.

1964

June 1: After arriving from the US in a Royal Canadian Air Force transport plan, flying the Tricolour, the president of Dáil Éireann, Éamon de Valera, spent a day resting in a Montreal area resort hotel, before beginning a two-day visit to Canada.

1984

June 4: ‘Ballyporeen does it in style’ was the front-page headline, which detailed the arrival of US president Ronald Reagan to Ireland. The Cork Examiner also ran a story on how the Republican president had met his “lookalike cousin”, 60-year-old farmer Myles Regan, during his visit.

1996

June 7: Garda Jerry McCabe is shot dead by the IRA in Limerick.

2002

June 1: The Irish Examiner reported that Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats had concluded the “essentials” of a new coalition government deal after the general election.

The report speculated that a number of Fianna Fáil ministers were up for demotion, including Síle de Valera and veterans Michael Smith and Michal Woods. Meanwhile, Seamus Brennan and Mary Hanafin had been tipped for promotion.

What to look out for this week

Tuesday

• The Taoiseach is in Brussels where European leaders are meeting to discuss the war in Ukraine and hopefully sign off on a new round of sanctions to include a ban on Russian oil.
• Meanwhile, the standing committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which brings together around 60 of the assembly’s leading members, is meeting in Dublin and will be attended by Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney.
• In the afternoon, the Oireachtas foreign affairs committee will get an update on the situation in Ukraine from Andriy Borysovych Yermak, head of the office of the president of Ukraine and Larysa Gerasko, Ukrainian ambassador.

Wednesday

• It will be a busy day in the committee rooms. The finance committee will discuss the use of Section 110 special purpose entities by Russian firms with professor Jim Stewart of Trinity College Dublin.
• The joint committee on tourism, culture, arts, sport, and media will get an update from minister Catherine Martin and junior minister Jack Chambers.
• In the Dáil, the Regional Group is bringing forward a motion on housing adaption grants for older people and people with disabilities.

Thursday

• The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (Alde), of which Fianna Fáil is a member, will hold its congress in Dublin, with hundreds of delegates, prime ministers, party leaders, and European commissioners attending.
• The conference will vote on awarding full membership to the Servant of the People, Ukraine — the party founded by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
• Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman and Transport Minister Eamon Ryan will both be taking questions in the Dáil in the morning.

Friday

• Taoiseach Micheál Martin will deliver the opening address at the Alde congress.

Did you know...

Members of the European Parliament sit in political groups organised not by nationality but by political affiliation.

There are currently seven groups:

• Group of the European People’s Party (EPP);
• Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D);
• Renew Europe Group (Renew);
• Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA);
• Identity and Democracy Group (ID);
• European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR);
• The Left group in the European Parliament (GUE/NGL).

A minimum of 25 members is needed to form a political group, and at least a quarter of EU states must be represented within the group.

• 'On The Plinth' appears each week in Tuesday's Irish Examiner (print, ePaper, and online). Keep up to speed on the major political stories by signing up here to the On The Plinth politics newsletter.