Letters to the Editor: Government perpetuating ongoing crisis in housing

I might as well be entering a raffle with Elon Musk to head to Mars as I would be of owning a home in Montenotte or Macroom, writes one correspondent.

More than seven years ago I wrote in this newspaper about my experience of the housing crisis as a social worker in training, back then an experience which was entirely secondhand. The problem was acute, and while the proposed solutions from outside the Government were many, we were assured by those within, that the market would solve everything. A restrained drizzle of social housing here, a sprinkle of co-living there, and a shovel load of the private market would provide for our every need. This problem couldn’t be solved overnight we were told, but help was on the way. Sure what could go wrong?

Nearly a decade on, enter Fianna Fáil, With the euphoria of a man who had just climbed the steps of the Hogan Stand, the Taoiseach spoke about how the government were now going to tackle the housing crisis, like 12 years of ineptitude by Fine Gael and more recently by themselves was best forgotten.