I am not sure where in that post Matt said we have an identical...

I am not sure where in that post Matt said we have an identical situation to Ireland.

From his post, I took that one should always be skeptical of claims of a housing shortage. California and Florida had imaginary housing shortages in ~2004-5.

http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/rb/RB_304HJRB.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/25/business/25boom.html?pagewanted=2

And assuming the below graph is correct, we don't compare as favourably to the Americans in this regard.

http://www.whocrashedtheeconomy.com/blog/category/uk-economy/