Housing crisis needs tobe tackled urgently

A housing crisis in a country with lots of vacant homes. It would seem a joke if it were not so serious.

This is deeply ironic given the manic developer-led house-building of the Celtic Tiger years, the subsequent collapse of the buyers’ market, leaving thousands of empty finished and unfinished houses throughout the country, and the fetish encouraged in Irish society around the issue of having your own home.

There were 56,000 people on the waiting list for local authority housing in 2008; there are now believed to be about 100,000 waiting now. Lists have gone up by an average of 42%. Among the longest housing lists per head of population are those for Dublin city and Cork city.