Irish Examiner View: Society and big business out of kilter as builder’s profits up 28% in a year

Housing, or rather the lack of it and the disproportionate, life-draining cost of it, was the decisive issue for voters under 35 in last month’s election, just as it was for some of their parents and grandparents. That disenchantment with a failing, unchallenged system means that once-unimaginable Leinster House alliances may materialise.

The parties shackled to the philosophies that midwifed the housing crisis might yet have one last throw of the dice. It is though, in the cold light of day, unrealistic to hope that an alliance between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil might embrace a new housing policy so any subsequent election — and who would bet against another one this year? — would be defined by the housing and homelessness scandals but probably even more forcefully.