Chutzpah and Housing

That's the word that springs to mind when looking at some of today's headlines. "Ahern stands by performance on social housing" and "Minister vows to curb property speculator greed" appear together in today's Irish Independent.  So the Minister responsible for housing is looking for credit for promising to do something now that he has failed to do in the past.  Then again if the government's performance on social and affordable housing was as good as what was promised there would be no need to go after any speculators. 

Labour's Eamon Gilmore is absolutely right to condemn the government for watering down Part V of the Planning and Development Act which was meant to guarantee that 20pc of constructed dwellings would be earmarked for social and affordable housing.  Labour promises to change the law to ensure that developers sort out their obligations before planning permission is granted.  Meanwhile Noel Ahern has pledged to lobby Finance Minister Brian Cowen to introduce measures to rein in speculative buyers in the budget. "I  would like Finance to squeeze out some of the speculators" he says.

This is mere tinkering and will not convince anyone.  Fianna Fáil is and has been for decades the  builders' party.   A useful reminder of just how close the links between the party and the leading players in the construction industry appeared in a recent issue of Village.  The ruling party is bankrolled by the biggest builders in the country.  There have been so many tax breaks for construction over the years that one could classify it as a form of corporate welfare.  Much of this activity would have happened anyway and government action overheated the sector and created a property bubble.  The trouble with bubbles is that they tend to burst rather than gently deflate. 

There is an audacity, insolence and impertinence that characterises the position of Noel Ahern and most other members of the government and the word chutzpah, deriving from Hebrew and Yiddish, combines all these elements along with gall, brazen nerve, arrogance and sheer effrontery.  According to the writer in Wikipedia, the word in Hebrew is used in an angry and indignant fashion to describe someone who has transgressed certain boundaries, while in English the word can sometimes be used admiringly.  A bit like the term "cute hoor" I suppose.

Update: Larry Johnson over at TPMCafe is also struck by Chutzpah.  In his case it's caused by what Republican staff members of the House Intelligence Committee say about Iran.