IPAV calls on Government to heed housing warnings
Pat Davitt, chief executive of the IPAV.
The Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers (IPAV) has called on the Government to heed the warnings from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) at the weekend and give priority consideration to its recommendations on changes needed to improve housing supply.
Speaking ahead of IPAV’s European Valuation Conference to be held on Wednesday at the RDS in Dublin, Chief Executive Pat Davitt said: “We can either go along with piecemeal gradual change to increase supply, which is happening, or we can be bold and make the more impactful changes recommended that will create longer term stability, and make them more quickly.” He said while there is broad consensus on most of the issues highlighted such as, the need to increase urban density, improve land use, increase construction productivity and tackle planning issues, the strong recommendation to end rent caps and replace them with more targeted housing supports for poorer households “is likely to face an ideological opposition backlash like none other.” He said all of the issues highlighted as impeding supply need far more urgent consideration.
“The Planning Bill currently working its way through the Oireachtas is crucial, but one would have worries as to whether or not its eventual shape will serve the broader public good sufficiently well to be discernibly more effective than what we have at the moment.” Mr Davitt said ‘political correctness’ and ‘political capture’ have haunted the housing policy landscape since the last financial crash to the detriment of aspiring home owners and the wider economy.
“In the first instance it has meant policy advisors have perceived builders and developers as being unworthy of policy support, carrying much blame for the financial crash, but they were largely takers not makers of decisions made elsewhere, and most suffered more than most arising from the crisis.
“Political capture has been long part of the political system whereby those who shout loudest in criticism of every action without solutions is now more elevated and intense, and is also of course an international phenomenon, which is making political decision making more difficult,” he said.
He concluded: “This is the complex and unresolved housing challenge of our times,” he said.
