The Government’s decision to allow modular housing units of up to 45sq m in back gardens without planning permission is capitulation to a populist idea without proper interrogation. The last time those in power didn’t challenge vocal narratives, it didn’t end well.

The “shedsit” proposal, or auxiliary habitable dwellings as the Government now calls them, came from a lobby group which claimed it could deliver up to 350,000 small homes.

Before supporting the idea to to “remove bureaucracy and red tape”, the Government did no meaningful research into how these would bed in with building regulations (ie disability access, ventilation); fire safety (particularly in back gardens of terraced houses); infrastructure (sewage and water capacity); existing communities (parking and overlooking); title (folio and mortgage lender); the relationship between landlords and “not-tenants” but licensees (meaning the owner, as in a hotel or B&B, can enter the dwelling at any time – think about that); and the potential, if not financial incentive, to create an unpoliceable, substandard, cash-rent black market. The result will be a proliferation of more bureaucracy and red tape, not less.

This is just one narrative that politicians have casually accepted in discussions about housing. There are more.

Donald Trump briefly felt spiritually close to the mainstream media. Then Elon Musk tweeted

The economics of a gangland murder: Why drug dealer and hitman Robbie Lawlor was shot

Celebrity Super Spaces: When Dermot Bannon met Vogue Williams and her naughty artwork

How to behave at the gym: ‘Lines have been blurred on what the etiquette is’

Due to demographic changes, Ireland needs thousands of new and smaller homes each year. To achieve this, investment of at least €20 billion a year is required. Judicial reviews are holding up the delivery of tens of thousands of........

© The Irish Times