New Housing for All Plan launched

If you are expanding the population, you have to expand the number of properties. So yes if you add 400k households by 2040 then you need 400k housing units.

"Ireland covered in high-rise" LOL. You could triple the population of Ireland and still have a lower population density than Germany has today.

I see a lot of blaming of politicians, vulture funds, social housing, etc for the Irish housing crisis. The reality we are in this position because for the past 40+ years this is what the majority of Irish voters wanted. NIMBYism, low density housing, property price inflation has driven us to this point. Any Irish people voted for it at every successive election.

We dont have a functioning housing market.

Young people are more and more disillusioned by the property market and the government are going to feel that backlash the next time votes are cast.

But dont underestimate the number of homeowners in the country who have seen the value of their house increase by 5-25% over the last two years. That people gone from negative equity, people able move to lower interest rates because their LTV is better. Some of these are parents whose kids cant move out, but not all.

There are two sides to every coin, don't forget that increasing prices suits a lot of people.

I'm sure there is... how many of them want back... ? Very few I would say. Would you go back being honest with yourself? What's stopped you to date?

None of this Government plan will work and will piss off a lot of people.

So house prices went up 12% in a year and the government is going to throw a ball of money at an already overheated market. Makes perfect sense!

New helicopters all round for the developers!

We are part of the EU and have freedom of movement. So there isn't really a facility to prevent inward migration other than leaving or crashing the economy and removing demand.

We get a lot of high quality immigration that is a massive benefit to the country. I don't think there is any conspiracy, no. I think governments would find it difficult to organise a piss up in a brewery.

'The question that no one asks is why the focus is build, build and build some more. In a world facing issues like the climate crisis and the unsuitability of infinite growth economics, I find the idea of constant expansion to be counter to the often stated goal of achieving "sustainability".'

Better think about something less serious. Dublin "growth" is just a little fart compare to growth in other parts of the World - especially "developing" areas like Asia and Africa:

Still we have our own problems and in my opinions they are mostly caused by incompetent (corrupted) politicians, that suppose to be easy to fix every next General Election - but for some reason it isn't :(

I think it is because there are often short term populist type solutions to things, because that is what people demand, rather than longer term solutions. These type of things tend to have unintended side effects. Say, the rent control 4% limit. Of course everyone is going to raise the rent by 4% every year.

Ireland is suffering from a shortage of housing because there are too many humans for the housing that is available. In that sense, Ireland is indeed overpopulated. Furthermore, social services and healthcare are suffering from a demand that cannot be met. Again, this is because as things stand, there are too many people.

This is, of course, obvious, and the solution usually offered is "build more houses". This is a great solution in terms of generating economic growth, but there will come a point when it becomes untenable. We hear talk of sustainability all the time, but what is sustainable about an ever increasing population? More humans means more consumption, more pollution and more loss of environment.