[dbspin]

>There's plenty of money for people to pay for houses. But there has been no building for the last decade while the population has exploded.

Alas that money is not in the hands of those who need them.

I'd suggest that it is absolutely clear that it is essential for the state to build and provide housing, given that there is a massive crisis which the market is utterly incapable of addressing.

[injb]

>> Alas that money is not in the hands of those who need them.

Well literally everyone needs a home so I have to disagree. No matter who has the money, they need a home. It's not like only a small number of people in Ireland have money.

The issue now is supply. When there isn't enough of something it always gets expensive. The fix is not necessarily to build more cheap homes, it's just to build more homes, period. Even if they're only affordable to middle class people, that's fine because it will free up the cheaper places they're living in now.

>> I'd suggest that it is absolutely clear that it is essential for the state to build and provide housing, given that there is a massive crisis which the market is utterly incapable of addressing.

Why do think the state is capable of addressing it better than the market?

[dbspin]

> Why do think the state is capable of addressing it better than the market?

Because the status quo isn't working. There are by contrast state housing provided solutions that are working to allow people to live affordably, even in expensive european countries. See Vienna

https://www.politico.eu/article/vienna-social-housing-archit...

> Well literally everyone needs a home so I have to disagree. No matter who has the money, they need a home.

Agreed. Everyone needs and should have a right to a home. However if you have means in Ireland you are likely not in danger of homelessness, likely not living in a literal slum, and can to a much greater extent protect yourself from abusive behaviour from rentiers. You're not in the emergency situation many of us find ourselves in currently.

> The fix is not necessarily to build more cheap homes, it's just to build more homes, period.

Absolutely. We need to build a vast amount of new homes. Most of these need to be much more affordable than the existing supply - which is currently out of the reach of an entire generation - https://www.irishtimes.com/your-money/2023/03/07/housing-cos...

[injb]

>>> Because the status quo isn't working

I don't think I can follow your logic here. The private sector isn't building houses, and the government isn't building houses. No one is building houses. How can you use this to conclude that only the government building houses can work?

Presumably there are compelling economic reasons why private builders aren't building enough, but I don't see why the government is not subject to those same reasons.

Worrying about affordability when there's a chronic shortage is focusing on a symptom rather than on the problem itself. They're only unaffordable because there aren't enough. Whenever there isn't enough of something, money decides who gets it and who goes without. That might seem unfair and that's a whole discussion on it's own but the bottom line is that there isn't a fair solution as long as there are more families than homes.

[robertlagrant]

> the market is utterly incapable of addressing

Based on what evidence?