The Irish Times view on housing completions: one bite at a time

The latest figures for housing completions showing a 10 per cent increase on this time last year are good news for the Government, whose efforts to address the housing shortage appeared to have stalled.

The last budget was notable for the lack of any eye-catching initiatives on housing, with the focus firmly on the cost of living. That said, there were significant sums allocated to existing social housing and starter homes programmes.

But there has been little in the way of policy announcements since. Just a few relatively small changes, including ending the purchase of new homes for social housing. The diary looks pretty empty in this regard, with the next big set-piece being the annual report on progress made under the current housing plan, Delivering Homes, Building Communities.

This would suggest that the Government has adopted an increasingly incrementalist approach both to the problem and to the optics surrounding it. In reality, there is no other viable option, given its size, scale and complexity. To quote the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

In this vein, Minister for Housing James Browne’s response to the latest figures, which showed that 26,833 homes were completed between January and September, has been measured. He described them as “encouraging”. And indeed they are.

But encouraging figures are not enough for the Opposition, with Sinn Féin pointing out correctly that the Government has little chance of hitting the annual target of 50,000 homes a year that are required under the housing plan to deliver 300,000 homes by the end of the decade.

It would be asking too much of Opposition parties to accept that the most recent figures, which are among the highest for nine-month completions on record, suggest that real progress is being made in the long, slow job of grinding out the housing deficit.

That is no harm either, as the danger with incrementalism is complacency.