But, at the same time, escalating prices have proved to be an insurmountable barrier to young voters trying to buy their first home.
Ahern needs a housing policy that will ensure a gradual cooling of the property market, thereby ensuring a soft landing for the economy. But, without control over interest rates, such an outcome is difficult to engineer. So, powerless to control prices, the government has to build affordable homes for couples who cannot afford them. And, in a bid to cut through bureaucratic red tape, it is planning to barter state-owned land in the centre of the capital with builders who agree to build cheap homes on the outskirts.
It is a flawed response to a serious problem. Choosing to trade rather than sell land is almost guaranteed to stoke controversy because the valuation process will be open to wide interpretation. It will almost certainly deliver bad value to taxpayers who own the land and create ghettoes of cheaper houses in suburbs rather than mixed, sustainable communities. If city-centre land must be sold, then surely it should be done on the open market where the best price can be achieved? The government’s argument that that approach would slow things down is less than convincing.
It should not be beyond the wit of government to devise a policy that would reward developers while also satisfying the needs for affordable housing and delivering value to taxpayers. The barter deal currently on the table is a wheeze, not a policy, and by failing to address a serious economic problem, it could prove to be a dangerous one.