Sinn Fein TD accuses minister of ‘taking from Trump playbook’ over housing

A Sinn Fein TD has accused Government minister Peter Burke of “watching a lot of Donald Trump” after the Fine Gael TD claimed that Ireland has record levels of home ownership.

Pearse Doherty, the party’s finance spokesperson, said home ownership rates in Ireland have been falling.

It comes as a Savills report found that population growth in Ireland exceeded the delivery of new homes by almost four to one.

The new analysis by Savills found that Ireland is an “outlier” in the severity of its housing supply challenge.

Looking at population growth in comparison with housing delivery between 2015 and 2023, the analysis shows that 3.8 people were added to the population for every one new unit of housing delivered, a ratio of nearly four to one.

It said this is by far the worst among the countries analysed and 14% higher than the next worse country, Spain, which saw 3.4 new people per one new unit delivered, followed by Canada with a ratio of 2.9.

Ireland’s ratio was 80% worse than that of the UK (2.1 ratio) and double that of Australia (1.9 ratio).

On Thursday morning, Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke said homebuilding is at “record levels”.

However, Mr Doherty said the Savills report is “nothing new”.

“Every day we’re hearing another story in terms of the failures of this government in relation to housing, whether it’s house prices that are running away, whether it is students that are forced to take to the streets and handing out leaflets hoping that they have a place to live during their academic year,” the Donegal TD said.

“The unaffordability issue has got worse in the last year, from another report yesterday, and again another report today showing that home ownership is a serious issue.

“We’re not keeping in line with population growth.

“I heard Peter Burke today. He’s obviously been watching a lot of Donald Trump over the last while because he’s taking from his playbook.

“He claimed in modern Ireland that we have record levels of home ownership. Home ownership under this government has been falling and that is a fact.

“The reports are saying very, very clearly what’s happened here. The amount of homes that are being built is not at the magnitude or the scale that is required in relation to dealing with the crisis that we have.

“The number of homes that are coming on to the market are a fraction of those that are being built in any given year, because obviously there is a large part of the build-to-rent sector which has been part of that, and other sectors as well.

“What we need is a step change, as the (Housing) Commission said. And that step change is a change in government.

“I have no faith whatsoever that this government will be able to handle this issue. We have 13 years in government, and we’ve come through boom and bust, we have billions of euro surplus, and still every single year, this crisis gets worse, gets deeper.”

Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe was critical of Mr Doherty’s comments.

He said: “The rhetoric from Sinn Fein only seeks to underline the fact that while they may be strong on rhetoric, they are short on credible plans and short on explanations regarding how they would pay for those plans.”

He added that the Government is aware of the importance of building more homes and increasing supply.

“We have seen, since the government was formed, over 110,000 homes have either been built or been completed,” the Fine Gael minister added.

“We have, over the last 12 months, 50,000 homes at the moment that are in various different stages of being built.

“But we know we need to build more.

“We know that our country needs more homes, that it needs more homes to cope with a country and a population that continues to grow, and that is what we are doing.

“We have Housing For All. We have a plan that, while it has been successful in delivering more homes, we also know, and the report today reminds us of the fact that more homes will be built and need to be built, and that’s what the government is committed to doing.”