The government is hoovering up too much housing - the private working taxpayer is hurting

While it may seem like the State is buying up loads of houses one has also to remember that the housing list is still very long and can take years for a decent working family (and those unfortunate enough to be unwaged) who are priced out of the private market to get basic council accommodation to which they are entitled.

The government is getting involved in the housing sector in completely the wrong way.

What they should be doing is setting up a national house building company and building tens of thousands of houses which can then only be sold to owner occupier first time buyers.The excess supply of housing will result in prices flattening out and make it easier for people to buy. They'll still have to get a mortgage but it will mean that buying a house would be more affordable and it means that people who make and effort and just simply have their own home will have more of opportunity to do this .

Housing needs to be considered as infrastructure and that it is necessary for society to function and not purely a for profit venture, we accept that the roads, schools , hospital etc don't exist for for profit reasons and Housing needs to be in the same category as those.

All this will do is push private market higher, and more people people priced out of that on to the list.

What I will say in relation to the original topic, that of social housing and or housing charities competing with private buyers, yes this is a problem.

Other poster have hinted at the issue without saying it, right to basic accommodation, and that is what it should be, basic.

I'm sorry, but there has to be a reason for people to want to better themselves, to want more for their family & that does not exist when there is no motivation to do so because working all your lives does not mean you can earn a better standard of life for you or your family. Yeah I know that we do not need to create Ghetto's with slums, but we do need to make the social houses a lower lesser dwelling than someone who is paying € 1,000 to € 3,000 plus a month to pay for, you want 4, 5 bedrooms? pay for it.

Why? Well why shouldn't the person who is paying for it get that bit more? Why shouldn't there be a route to earning a better place for yourself, for your children, is that not the way that all previous generations have worked? Our parents wanted to give us more than they had growing up, we want to give ours more than we had.

This lesson seems to be lost and I can see why, when I was younger social houses consisted of the atypical cast concrete 2 to 3 bed terrace or semi detached depending on the area, kitchen & sitting room downstairs, few bedrooms & a bathroom upstairs, shelter, somewhere to sleep, grand if that's all you aspired to, those who wanted a bit more dug deep and moved on, now its a case of identical for all, which is fantastic at removing any stigma that might be levied towards those in social housing, but whilst doing so it also removes the betterment drive whilst simultaneously demotivating the next would be generation of homeowners.

We are very quickly heading towards an extremely socialist state form of housing supply, which is completely unsustainable.

100% agree.

With councils buying up houses in new estates we now have the mad situation that council tenants are often living in better accomodation than someone paying a high mortgage. There is no incentive for council tenants to better themselves in order to eventually not be dependent on the government to house them.

I agree that social housing should be basic and every council house should be of the same standard fitout. It should be functional and low spec. Tenants should not be allowed alter the house in anyway to their own taste - this may seem harsh but necessary.

Council houses should never ever be sold in any circumstances - once a council house it should always be a council house to ensure their stock never goes down.

Social housing should never be an attractive option or a way of life. It should always be seen as a temporary option not a house for life. There perhaps should be incentives, guidance and mentoring offered to give a pathway to social tenants to progress to leaving social housing after say 10 years which again would ensure that house is free again for another family etc.

We also need to look at the cost of building houses. Some Building regs and specs etc are driving up the costs of housing and often add nothing to the house but a higher price. At planning stage the max selling price a developer can charge should be set as a condition. Developers and construction firms should not be making the huge profits they are making. There should be basic homes available at an affordable cost to buy.

There should of course be social housing for life for those that really need it - people with certain illnesses, disabilities etc but for well able bodied people social housing should be for a limited time.

The building sector especially housing never recovered from the crash. Regardless it's the only way to get housing. But it's has to be a sustainable career.

Driving the economy into boom and bust where jobs in construction are not stable forcing people to leave and come back and businesses to open and close, makes it not viable or attractive for many people.

Reality is the govt aren't really trying to fix it.

Complete rubbish.

My friends husband just got laid off from a building company because they don't have any work for him untill November, and this is a big company.

Plenty of people would work for the government building houses if they had a chance. And why wouldn't we have the nordies building houses? They're building everything else in Dublin

Exactly. The PDs ended state provided social housing in the first place. They brought in the whole concept of rent allowance and sending social housing candidates out into the private rental sector.

The Right wing PDs privatisation, deregulation and laissez faire policies caused the crash in 2008 that has devastated the housing sector in Ireland that still has not recovered 15 years later

The 1990s-2000s were the era of neolibealism. Selling off the state silverware to reduce taxation, all leading up to the massive bubble markets in tech in the 1990s and everything else in the mid 2000s and the global crash in 2008.

Ireland became very wealthy on paper with a small subsection of high earners doing very well, but we still have the public infrastructure and services of a mid to lower tier European country while running a 10 billion euro tax surplus, while ordinary people struggle with the highest prices in Europe and crazy costs for essentials like rent and transport

Yet all the people I know in the building game are flat out.

Have you tried to get a tradesmen recently they have a backlog of people and can charge what they want.

A combination of covid and skilled young tradesmen immigrating due to a housing crisis.

I know someone in a small operation who is turning down work for the council because he has too much on.

But your telling me a big operation are telling workers they have no work for 3 months.

Are they shutting down for 3 months because how else can they know they won't pick up work until November.

If you in fact are telling the truth then that big company won't have many workers returning in November.

But again you seem to know someone in a situation that goes against reality.

If we're against council housing, where do the road sweepers, cleaners, kitchen porters and others live? Should they not be accommodated in decent, reasonably well built houses and flats with security of tenancy, and at a reasonable rate of rent that does not swallow up all their wages.

Absolutely and to do that we need to control the pricing of new houses by setting maximum selling prices and looking at building regs and standards to reduce prices. Cutting VAT on building materials and services is another one that would reduce house prices. We need to get to a stage that low paid workers can afford to buy thus creating a better life for future generations.

Each year, I shudder when I hear about the next "give-away budget". Always the same thing--more freebies, subsidies, houses, benefits for the welfare scroungers and a tax reduction of .000001% for those who keep the country running. When they can't bring themselves to raise benefits even more, they come up with an array of "bonuses" instead. An absolute joke the entire thing.