Fergus Finlay: Harris needs to clean up the Government’s social housing mess

Taoiseach Simon Harris must insist on rules that facilitate progress while protecting accountability.

I was a political adviser for many years, and a bloody good one (sometimes, anyway!). I never thought I’d find myself offering advice to a Fine Gael Taoiseach, but someone has to show him how to make real progress with the housing crisis. It’s a crisis that affects tens of thousands of young people in Ireland — perhaps the first generation in our history that will really struggle ever to own a home of their own.

They are angry with the government and with politics in general. As someone who always believed in politics as an engine of change, I find it both sad and dangerous that the practice of politics is held in such contempt now.