13 November 2025
IPAV Welcomes New Housing Plan but Warns of Lurking and Long-Standing Impediments
Responding to the Government’s new housing plan, ‘Delivering Homes, Building Communities,’ IPAV, the Institute of Professional Auctioneers & Valuers, said it marks the most comprehensive response to date to a housing crisis more than a decade old and nearly two decades of “housing policy delinquency.”
Genevieve McGuirk, IPAV’s Chief Executive said: “It’s in the interest of society, socially and economically, that the Government succeeds, and in this we wish them well. It’s encouraging to see a more whole of government approach.”
She said the renewed emphasis on delivery is welcome. More zoning of land and infrastructure are critical, she said.
However, she warned that significant issues remain.
“The plan will need to be supported by emergency planning measures,” she said.
The fact that the role of head of the new Housing Activation Office, as recently advertised, is being pitched at the level of Deputy Secretary General within the Department of Housing is a worry, she said. “This is of lesser power than that recommended by the Housing Commission, it lacks legislative underpinning.
“This is particularly so, given the disjointed and ‘independent republic’ culture of many of the state housing delivery elements,” she said.
The Housing Commission found a core issue was ‘ineffective decision making and reactive policy making where risk aversion dominates’ . To address this it recommended a Housing Delivery Oversight Executive be established in statute for a period. This body would be ‘legislatively empowered to remove obstacles to housing delivery and would drive coordination across legislation, regulation, and administrative practices.’
Ms McGuirk said that for too long housing policy has been captured by “competing ideologies and political correctness.”
She said the last decade has been marked by policies prioritising market controls over supply side incentives. “It’s amounted to housing policy delinquency,” she said.
Citing rent controls she said there is a huge body of international evidence to show that rent controls don’t work over the longer term. They should only ever be a short-term measure while supply ramps up. “Yet they are now embedded in our system, precipitating the exodus of private landlords from the market, the very cohort which has provided supply to the majority of the private rented sector,” They have contributed hugely to pushing up rents, she said.
And she said the outlawing of bedsits in 2013 was a measure fought for by well-intentioned social justice organisations, among others, but the effect has been a diminution of available supply. “The question it begs is, has legislation and regulation delivered the perfect at the expense of the good?
“Has housing policy been captured by those who shout loudest rather than being a logical and considered response to data and market dynamics,” she suggested.
Ends