Housing has been front and centre this week with the Cabinet passing the Planning and Development Bill on Tuesday with a view to alleviating pressure on the planning system while 300 students marched in Dublin city centre on Wednesday to call for increased investment in student accommodation.
But what causes housing crises, how bad is Ireland's when compared globally and what solutions are available to improve the current situation?
Katie Hannon spoke to Philip Lawton, Assistant Professor in Global Urbanism at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) to find out.
Can the Planning and Development Bill improve the current situation?
The Planning and Development Bill, which passed cabinet this week, seeks to make the planning system capable of delivering faster decisions while also being easier to navigate for the public and construction industry.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he wanted to reduce the number of "vexatious" judicial reviews, adding that faster decisions and more timely reviews would flow from the reforms.
An Bórd Pleanala, which will be renamed an Coimisiún Pleanála under the new Bill, spent 97% of its legal budget on judicial reviews in 2022.
Critics of the current planning system say NIMBYs are responsible for an increasing number of such reviews but Philip Lawton, Assistant Professor in Global Urbanism at TCD says the levels of judicial reviews impeding the planning system are overstated.
"In 2021 there was 38,314 planning applications made and 88.5% were granted planning permissions. Can we really turn around and say that NIMBYs are blocking housing? When that's the stat," Mr Lawton told Katie Hannon on Upfront: The Podcast this week.
LISTEN: Philip Lawton speaks to Katie Hannon about the housing crisis and how to solve it
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NIMBY refers to people or groups that object to new developments in their area.
"There is a set of assumptions that if you are interested in one type of housing model and you want to try and promote that and you are opposed to say build to rent, you are therefore labelled a NIMBY."
How does Ireland’s housing situation compare globally?
"It's important for us to situate what's happening here within wider global processes," Mr Lawton said.
"It's not just a crisis in terms of housing, it's a number of different things. If you look at anywhere from San Francisco to Dublin, into other European cities, you can go back 20 or 30 years and look at the sudden growth in their economies."
Mr Lawton believes a major cause of the housing crisis in Ireland has been the success of our tech and creative industries with high wage positions in cities driving up the cost of accommodation.
"Since the late 1990s we see the growth of the tech economy. Within cities that are experiencing growth in those areas we also see a crisis in terms of housing. Housing starts to be dictated largely by people working in those industries."
"It's a genuine crisis and it's of enormous proportions," Mr Lawton said.
What housing models work elsewhere?
The 'Vienna model’ is often cited as the model of housing that Ireland should be looking to for inspiration. The Vienna housing model is internationally regarded for its continued provision of sustainable, high quality residential developments.
"It's the land question and the public ownership of land. From 1923 to 1934 the state delivered 64,000 housing units via 400 apartment blocks. It ensures about 43% of housing within Vienna is protected from the market rate. It's means tested, but it ensures that there's a form of safety net," Mr Lawton says.
"It's much more normal for people to live in public housing or social housing. That stigmatisation that you often associate with, with public housing in the UK, Ireland and the US isn't as much of an issue."
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Listen to Philip Lawton from Trinity College chatting to Katie Hannon on Upfront: The Podcast here, on Spotify or on Apple Podcasts.
