The housing problem hasn’t disappeared, even if it was temporarily bumped off the agenda during the pandemic, well-known architect Dermot Bannon has said.
Speaking on last night’s The Late Late Show, Bannon discussed the ongoing housing crisis which has been thrown back into the spotlight in recent weeks.
“It was the biggest thing on everybody’s tongue in the election, which was just before Covid. It was ‘housing, housing, housing’,” he said. “Covid hit, and it didn’t go away. It’s still a huge problem.
“It’s still a massive issue for everybody. From people trying to buy homes, to homelessness, it’s there. And we do need to tackle it, and we need to tackle it head on now.”
As for why he believes there’s such an issue, he said the main problem appears to be supply.
“We need to build so many units per year - we’re not building them. There’s a backlog,” he said.
“So once that happens, if you don’t build enough units in one year, you’ve got that deficit the following year, and the following year, and the following year. And that’s been happening now for the last ten years. We have a huge deficit. And our population is growing. And it is just down to that.
“If we had more homes, there wouldn’t be as much pressure on the sale price of every home. There wouldn’t be as much pressure on the sale price of land. There wouldn’t be as much pressure on everything. We need to be building.”
He discussed how although building was previously increasing, lockdowns have shut building sites, further worsening the problem.
Moreover, he said a serious approach needs to be taken while viewing this issue, describing housing as a human right.
“Just say you injured yourself, right? And you were taking refuge in a field. What’s the first thing you’d do? Would you educate yourself, would you clean up the wound, or would you build a shelter and then sort out everything else? You’d build out a shelter,” he said.
“Education is a right in this country, healthcare is a right in this country. I really don’t see why housing isn’t further up there.
“Nobody says: ‘we were really lucky, ten years ago we bought our education policy and now we’re fine, kids are in the right school’.
"It’s all about when you got onto the property ladder.
“There are people who bought 15 years ago who are in huge negative equity still. It seems to be a problem for every single generation, and it kind of goes in peaks and troughs, and there’s nothing sustainable about it.”
