How did we get to a place where treating the symptom, the increased gap between earnings and and cost of property, was seen as a cure? The problem isn't lack of social housing. The problem is the cost of housing. The root cause of that is the cost of building housing and the under taxation of the existing housing stock. That's the conversation we should be having. That's what young people should be angry about.Couldn’t agree more the new waiting list is full of young workers earning good incomes who can’t afford to buy while renting at the current levels
The State should never, and I mean never, buy an existing privately owned property to use as social housing. The fact that they do is tantamount to surrendering. Any and all resources available should be used to provide new built housing. When the State buys a house, directly or through a housing body, it is reducing the stock available in the private market to young people and further pricing them out of the market. We are in the ridiculous situation where a young couple can't afford a house so the State uses their taxes to buy it and rent it to them. That's crazy.