Claiming that immigration may negatively impact the availability of housing is a ‘far-right red herring’, the Social Democrats’ housing spokesman has said.
The remarks were made on Virgin Media’s ‘The Tonight Show’ on Wednesday night, during a discussion about the issue of housing supply versus demand.
Dan O’Brien, who is Chief Economist at the Institute of International and European Affairs and a senior fellow at UCD, said he was “slightly critical” of those whose “mantra” on housing has been “supply, supply, supply,” with comparatively “little discussion” about addressing housing demand. He said that the demand which drives house prices is linked in part to the high rate of immigration Ireland has seen in recent years.
“It’s not a fashionable thing to say, but I think there has to be some look at the scale of immigration that we’ve had recently,” he said.
“Because no matter how much benefit immigration brings to an economy, it also affects housing demand for everyone living here, whether they’re Irish or foreign. I think that element of it wasn’t explored, and I think it’s something that we need to have a discussion about in public debate here.”
At this point presenter Gavan Reilly pointed out that between 2011 and 2022, more than 550,000 people were added to the domestic resident population, but the overall pool of dwellings only expanded by 110,000 units, which he said is “space, roughly speaking, for 2.4 people per unit.”
“You’re looking at space for somewhere between 250,000 and 300,000 people, while the population increased by 550,000,” he said.
Reilly asked Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne if he felt that Irish debate was “shying away” from the demand issue, which has “made the crisis so acute”.
“No, I don’t think we are,” replied Hearne, adding that the claim that immigration drives housing scarcity is a “red herring” with a “far-right” element to it.
“I think there’s very clear recognition that our population has grown,” the Dublin North-West TD said.
“Our population has been growing for many years, and I think the much bigger issue here is, what is the solution to supply? Because demand is there from our population, from our economy.
“I think it’s completely just a red herring, and we know there’s a certain far-right element to this as well, blaming the immigrants for the housing crisis.”
He added: “The housing crisis has been caused by ten years of housing policy that has been completely over-reliant on the private market and institutional funds rather than the state actually developing new ways to deliver housing.”
The link to the full Virgin Media debate segment can be viewed here.