Fine Gael says there is a "degree of consensus" about what needs to be done; the left-wing parties claim a fundamental disagreement with the market-driven premise of official policy; but everyone is agreed on one thing - house prices are a big issue in local and European elections.
Labour's housing spokesman, Eamon Gilmore, thinks the accommodation crisis has succeeded mass unemployment as the dominant issue at the end of the decade. His party estimates that 135,000 people are unable to secure a home, and Mr Gilmore argues that only the sort of concerted effort that reformed the whole economy in the past decade will work now.
"To me, housing is as great a problem now as unemployment was in the 1980s, and just as that required a very conscious decision in favour of change, involving everybody from Government to the social partners, large-scale intervention is now required on housing."
Labour has made arguably the biggest investment in the issue by way of its housing commission, the report of which was published in late April. The document runs to 60 pages, but Mr Gilmore is prepared to boil down party policy to a few priorities.
These include "very high investment" in social housing, to the order of 10,000 new units a year; a minimum 20 per cent of all new private developments to be set aside as "affordable housing"; a system of "fair price certification" to try to correct a situation in which "four years ago, the average house price was about four times the average industrial wage - now it's eight times"; and the introduction of a licensing system for the rental sector, to control standards, rents and security of tenure. Fine Gael's spokesman, Brian Hayes, believes a consensus is developing around the issue. And to illustrate the point, Fine Gael too is demanding 10,000 new units a year, as well as a "ring-fenced" proportion of affordable housing in new developments - albeit 15 per cent rather than Labour's 20. The model is there already in Britain's Town & Country Act, he says, while Dublin's docklands development offers an Irish precedent. The main thing is that the provision should be enshrined in law: "As housing densities increase, developers' profits are going to double. So it's only fair." Speaking at the party's recent Euro-elections launch, John Bruton said the task of building sufficient houses over the next decade was the biggest infrastructural requirement since the foundation of the State. But Brian Hayes suggests Fine Gael's greatest criticism of the Government is lack of urgency: "The issue is not being driven by the Taoiseach. We're calling for the establishment of a Cabinet sub-committee, chaired by the Taoiseach and meeting weekly, to deal with the problem. Something like John Bruton did with the drugs issue when we were in Government." The Government's own response to the second Bacon report was the recent Action on Housing Prices initiative, which identified a three-pronged approach - to increase the supply of serviced land, reduce investor demand and assist lower-income buyers. The measures included short-term allocations under the serviced land initiative; changes in stamp duty and the shared ownership scheme; and a pledge to issue new guidelines to local authorities promoting higher densities in housing developments. The Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, said the Government's "overriding concern" was to improve access to the market for the first-time buyer.
The Progressive Democrats have been carefully building policy platforms separate from the Government in recent times, but housing is one of the exceptions, largely because Bobby Molloy is the junior minister responsible for the area. This fact was reflected in his star turn at the party conference in late April, when he was able to announce a £2 billion Government plan to build 32,000 units of social housing over the next four years, at a cost of between £50,000 and £70,000 each.
Like Labour, the Green Party has a fundamental disagreement with the Bacon reports, and looks to the early 1970s for a better model. "I know it's outdated, but we prefer the Kenny report to Bacon," says Cllr Dan Boyle, the party's economics spokesman. "Kenny was about the control of land for the public good; whereas Bacon treats housing as an economic rather than a social issue. It's based on a flawed premise as far as we're concerned."
One of the specific things the party would like to see is developers made to account publicly for the cost of each housing unit, so that customers would at least know the mark-up: "They tried it in the 1970s, and it was dropped pretty fast. But it's now needed more than ever." In more general terms, the Greens want greater emphasis on the rented sector, with incentives "refocused" to have the well-being of tenants rather than developers in mind. Another major criticism of Government policy is that support for voluntary housing is "not even close" to keeping pace with house price inflation. The Greens would effectively index-link this.
The Socialist Party wants an end to "speculation and profiteering" by developers. As well as demanding major investment in local authority homes and measures to keep prices in line with construction costs. The party's sole TD, Joe Higgins, would like to see development land in urban areas acquired at "agricultural prices" for local authority use.
Sinn Fein's policies include community involvement in the planning of new housing, better maintenance and security on local authority schemes, a ban on gazumping and the introduction of penalties for property speculators.
