The housing crisis is solvable — if we just got on with it

If all the local authorities were collecting €250,000 per year from levies, they’d be in a much better position to effectively implement programmes, writes Alan O'Neill

Mount Melleray Abbey

There are 167,000 vacant buildings and 75 ghost estates in the country, so any time we’re walking down the road and see another derelict building most of us say: "Someone should do something about that."

"Someone" being the local authorities. I hear so many people say there should be a levy on derelict buildings in Ireland without knowing that there already is one.