One of the first policy targets announced by the new Taoiseach Simon Harris was that 250,000 new homes would be completed in the next five years. Although he was careful to stress later that this did not mean a steady average of 50,000 a year, overall, this is about 50 per cent higher than the targets set in Housing for All, which were for something like 33,000 homes per year during the 2020s. But even as this new target was published, it was clear that it was well below underlying social requirements. As I wrote when describing the need for…