Taxation the answer to our social problems

I FIND it confusing when I hear of our inability to tackle various social issues.

The reason often put forward is excessive cost. This is difficult to accept.

We live in a society with many anomalies. On the one hand we have the Minister for Justice building a ‘holiday’ home, apparently worth more than €500,000 while, on the other, there are about 5,000 people on a waiting list for a local authority house in Cork city.