Higgins hits out at Ireland’s housing 'disaster' in impassioned speech
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President Michael D Higgins has expressed his anger at Ireland’s housing “disaster” on Tuesday, describing it as “our great, great, great failure”.
In remarks made during a visit to the addiction charity Tiglin’s facility at Jigginstown Manor in Kildare, the president made an impassioned speech where he said he often asks himself “how republican is what we’ve created?” and said it was “sometimes very much closer to the poor law system we thought we were departing”.
“It’s a real challenge, I have taken to speaking ever more frankly in relation to housing because I think it is our great, great, great failure,” he said. “It isn’t a crisis anymore, it’s a disaster.
He also criticised the state of accommodation for members of the Travelling community, calling it “immoral, wrong [and] irresponsible” and made a direct appeal to county managers in councils to take action.
Responding to the president’s comments, a spokesperson for Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien said the minister “is very aware of the many challenges which exist in housing”, and pointed to targets contained within the Government’s Housing for All plan.
“Increasing supply of all types of housing — social, affordable purchase, cost rental and private is at the heart of the Housing for All policy,” the spokesperson said.
“We need to get to a point where an average of at least 33,000 homes are being delivered each year and that’s what the four pathways in Housing for All are focused on.”
Mr O'Brien's spokesperson said the positive trends were being seen in housing commencements, completions and planning permissions, and that the plan contains 18 separate actions to tackle homelessness.
The spokesperson added: “These actions are being progressed as a matter of priority to try to reverse the upward trend which we have seen recently in homelessness figures. Huge challenges remain, the minister does not underestimate these challenges, but is working with his department, with NGOs and stakeholders to address them.”
While Tuesday’s intervention was made in a forceful manner, this is not the first time the president has referenced the housing crisis publicly. In his Christmas and New Years’ message in 2017, President Higgins said it would be another festive season overshadowed by homelessness and “those deprived of a secure and permanent shelter”.
“We are challenged, I suggest, to turn this time of celebration into a sustained commitment of awareness and care for those for whom each day is an act of survival,” he said at the time.
In 2018, during a speech at the Galway International Arts Festival, the president called for a wider debate about “all the constituent parts of our housing system”.
“How many homes should be constructed every year?” he asked. “How should construction be financed? How should living spaces be designed?
“What mix of housing tenure do we collectively believe is appropriate? What kind of ownership structures, whether it be municipal, private or collective? Let us widen the debate and engage seriously with a full range of the policy answers to these questions, being willing to eschew any ideological obstacles to the widest possible range of policies.”