With all the talk about social housing projects costing tens and tens of millions of euros, what we will need is less of such boastful talk and more transparency about how the whole project will work, and where and to whom the spoils will go.

Forgive us for being somewhat cynical or perhaps even slightly sceptical, but this is really a case of once bitten, twice shy.  Past experience with projects of such magnitude does not really leave us much room for comfort.

We are not in the property business, but there seems to be something strange when the government on May Day 2018 had come out with the grand announcement that it will be building a total of around 1,200 social housing units for €110 million, including the 500 new units he had mentioned and on that day in particular.

He also said he had requested the National Social Development Fund, which manages the Individual Investor Programme funds, to provide €50 million toward those 500 of the 1,200 social housing units.

Those figures were, however, taken to serious task by the private sector, which had said it would be able to build that same number of units for approximately €72 million, i.e. €38 million less than the figure cited by the government.

Could the government really have gotten its numbers so seriously wrong?

Fast forward one year to just after May Day 2019 and the Prime Minister comes out with the even bigger announcement that the 500 social housing units being financed by the passport sales had been ‘doubled’ to 1,000 due to what he said was an ‘optimisation of resources and better planning’.  The fund will pitch in another €10 million toward the effort.

In making the announcement, the government did not explain or provide any details on how, exactly, an ‘optimisation of resources and better planning’ had resulted in being able to cram – monetarily and space-wise – double the amount of housing units, 1,000, into a space designed for 500, and for just €10 million, an expenditure increase of just 20 per cent.

Now that is some pretty good savings and we would be very curious, as are most people, to see just how the government pulled this particular rabbit out of the hat.  Could it just be that the private sector had been right all along, and the €38 million (plus another new €10 million from passport sales, which adds up to a figure just shy of €50 million) is enough to double the government’s original offering?

Had the government been shamed into reworking its figures after the miscalculations were exposed by the private sector?   Or could it just possibly be that a ruse had been exposed and the game was up?

What we need right about now is some transparency, especially when such lofty figures are being bandied about and when, considering the growing number of homeless people, we need to make absolutely sure that the State and those in need of social housing are getting the best deal, and not the fat cats contracted to build the units.