Saturday’s election has left Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil on the floor and in a state of shock. Like everybody else, including Sinn Féin, they simply didn’t see the political tsunami until it hit them.
However, when they cease to be winded and come to their full senses, they will realise that the only way Sinn Féin will not become the driving force in the next government is by the two parties coming to an arrangement of some kind for the government of Ireland over the next five years.
If, as appears to be the case, both of them have a deep-rooted conviction that the policies of Sinn Féin would damage the country, they are under a moral and political duty as democrats to use the seats that the people have given them, if necessary with the support of the Greens, or the Social Democrats, or Labour, or else the body of like-minded Independents, to provide an alternative government.
So while it is sensible to let Mary Lou McDonald go through the futile motions of trying to assemble a government without either of them, in the end they must face up to this moral and political democratic responsibility.
They should also face up to the fact that their mutual recrimination prior to last Saturday switched off the electorate. In truth, they have more in common than divides them on any issue of national policy or international politics.
They should also recognise that the electorate wanted change. If they are to cooperate together in government, it cannot be just more of the same.
Constitution excuse
I have spoken and written for years now that market forces cannot by themselves address the issue of housing and urban planning. I have also consistently pointed out that the Constitution is no barrier whatsoever to radically different policy choices or to State intervention to tackle homelessness.
Under existing planning and development laws, local authorities have ample power to compulsorily purchase land including areas where it is necessary to “secure, facilitate or carry out the development and renewal of areas in need of physical, social or economic regeneration” and to provide for housing, public or private, on lands the subject of a compulsory purchase order.
There are ample public powers to reshape our cities and to ensure that underused land is taken into public ownership even for the purpose of ensuring that it is developed for subsequent occupation by private owners.
Perhaps one of the greatest myths is that the State is somehow debarred from taking an active role in reshaping our urban environment by the constitutionally protected property rights of existing owners.
It really does matter whether Irish people are excluded from home ownership and condemned to rent their homes at rents that prevent them from saving to buy their own
The skyline in Dublin is a forest of cranes building offices, hotels and student residences. All of these activities enjoy massive tax breaks – one way or the other.
An entire generation of people has come to the perfectly reasonable conclusion that the outgoing government was content to allow them spend huge sums on inflated rent bills while denying them access to borrowing facilities that would enable them to become homeowners.
Real estate investment trusts, many of them foreign, are encouraged, it would appear, to buy up houses and apartments to rent to hard-pressed younger citizens and families.
It really does matter whether Irish people are excluded from home ownership and condemned to rent their homes at rents that prevent them from saving to buy their own.
Housing tsar
What we need now is a housing tsar. We need someone who will take the Custom House and the relevant local authorities by the scruff of their necks and ensure that urban home building, whether social, affordable or private, is prioritised.
I mention the Custom House because it is the centre of the network of prefects now known as city and county chief executives (formerly managers) who between them have responsibility for planning the adequate provision of our collective housing needs.
Most people simply cannot understand how the Dublin City Manager, an enthusiastic kayaker, can apparently prioritise the building of a white-water rafting centre in a basin right beside the Custom House at a cost of €20 million or €30 million while his council has not adequately used its statutory powers to acquire underused or obsolescent areas of the city for major home construction. We have a housing crisis, not a canoeing crisis.
We need someone who understands that citizens' rights come before those of land hoarders, vulture funds and REITs
Nor is there any rational explanation why Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has left all the land it acquired for housing at Shanganagh Castle, which it agreed to purchase from the Department of Justice 15 years ago, vacant and unused.
We need a radical in charge of the Custom House, the department that closed down 10,000 bedsits in 2013. We need someone who understands the appalling underperformance of that department and the local authorities. We need someone whose colleagues at the cabinet table understand there is a crisis. We need someone who knows that all socio-economic classes are demanding radical action to give them and their children the prospect of a decent life.
We need someone who understands that citizens’ rights come before those of land hoarders, vulture funds and REITs. We need someone who understands that property rights are intended for the protection and wellbeing of the majority – not the few.
So if a new government is to take office, we need radical change in the Custom House and in city and county halls. And we need a person to drive that radical change.
We are now approaching the centenary of the burning of the Custom House by the forces of revolution. We shouldn’t be surprised if people are demanding a metaphorical destruction of a system that has abjectly failed us.