Housing with Heart (Social Comment)

This week’s Central Bank report delivered a seismic figure: institutional investment in Irish property is down 80%. The financial pages have their take -- volatility, retreat, global recalibration. But from where we stand, this may be the most hopeful housing news in a decade.

Let this drop in institutional interest mark not just a decline, but a reorientation.

Because for too long, the business of shelter has been stripped of its soul. Entire developments have been designed not for families, but for funds. Renters have become revenue streams. Homes became holdings.

Now, a door opens.

We’re invited to imagine again -- not just how we build, but why. Could we return to a model of housing that reflects the values of care, memory, and rootedness? One shaped not by faceless firms, but by the needs of those who live here?

This is a chance to speak in a world of shouting metrics: to say that not everything must scale, rise and yield.
Some things -- like a home-- must simply hold.