Sir, – The Government continues to describe housing as an emergency, and rightly so. But the family in a hotel room, the young professional in their childhood bedroom, and the couple postponing their future see little sign of emergency governance.
If announcements were an Olympic sport, we would be world champions. Yet rhetoric is not matched by the exercise of state power. Housing cannot be left to the whims of private developers; the State must take direct responsibility for building, co-ordinating and delivering homes.
During the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, the State showed that when it chooses to act, it can centralise authority, accelerate delivery and treat national challenges with the seriousness they demand. Housing is no less pressing. The capacity exists. What is required now is the will to act.
Across Europe, governments treat housing as vital infrastructure, not aspiration. In the Netherlands, binding national targets are set and regional compliance enforced. In Germany, rent controls are legally enforceable, and planning procedures can be fast-tracked to overcome delays. In France, projects designated as Opérations d’Intérêt National are removed from local paralysis and advanced as matters of national importance.
RM Block
If housing is truly an emergency, it must be governed as one. Otherwise, we should stop using the word. – Yours, etc,
Dean Litchfield,
Dundalk,
Co Louth.
