There was a time when Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats were concerned about the issue of affordable housing, particularly for first-time buyers. Alarmed by runaway house price inflation in the mid-1990s, the Government - within months of taking office in 1997 - commissioned economic consultant Dr Peter Bacon to recommend a series of well-targeted measures to curb the steeply upward trend.
These included making more serviced land available for residential development, promoting higher densities in appropriate locations and withdrawing tax relief from investors who were seen to be over-heating the market. The aim, as then minister for the environment Noel Dempsey said eight years ago this month, was to "dampen down house price increases and ensure continued access to home ownership for a very large proportion of our population".
Implementation of the first Bacon report had a moderating impact on property inflation, at least for a time. It was followed by two further reports in 1999 and 2000, which made further recommendations, and by measures in the 2000 Planning Act providing for the designation of Strategic Development Zones (SDZs) to "fast-track" housing provision and the allocation, under Part V of the Act, of up to 20 per cent of residential development sites for "social and affordable housing".
However, the record shows that the SDZ route has been followed very rarely and that Part V has failed to deliver what was promised - especially after being eviscerated by Mr Dempsey's successor, Martin Cullen, at the behest of the construction industry; as a result, many local authorities prefer to take cash rather than houses from developers, and the production of affordable housing has fallen well short of targets.
Meanwhile, house prices have continued to soar, putting homes of their own beyond the reach of first-time buyers - particularly in Dublin. Indeed, it was because new homes had become so expensive that many young couples fled the capital to buy better-value homes in the hugely expanded commuter belt. The full extent of that phenomenon will be revealed by the 2006 Census when preliminary results are published in July.
The average price paid for a Dublin property in January was €373,096,compared to €243,826 outside Dublin, according to the most recent survey by Permanent TSB and the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). Prices went up by 10.2 per cent over the past year, prompting a series of warnings about the dangers of a property price bubble, most recently by the ESRI yesterday.
Yet Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is unperturbed. The property market is doing just fine, in his view - a complacency in the face of the facts that seems designed to appeal to those already in possession of a home of their own. For the many who are not, it is just tough luck, and the Government won't be taking any radical new initiative to relieve their plight. Prospective first-time purchasers, as well as the 40,000-plus on local authority waiting lists, have every reason to feel betrayed.