In a column in January, I compared the current peak in housing construction to the rate of construction in the country since 1950. While the construction rate last year hit 1.7 per cent, its highest since 2009, such a rate of construction usually marks the low point, not the high point, in construction cycles: the only time over the last half-century until the crash that the construction rate was lower than in 2022 was 1988, at the low-point of a five-year construction downturn. The housing requirement in Ireland is substantial, at least compared to what has been built over the…