solve the housing problem easily...some solutions?

Ban councils and commercial interests from purchasing existing housing and make them build. It should save the taxpayer 40-50% as councils don't pay vat on materials or development charges and the like, which make up a verly large portion of the total cost. Germany banned REITs and other funds from buying existing housing. If they want them, they have to build them from scratch.

New Zealand managed to stimulate the construction of an extra 27,000 homes by relaxing planning restrictions. Do the same here, wind back on the councils powers to impose myriad conditions on houses that drive up costs and dilute the means by which nimbys and other vested interests can object to or block accommodation from being built.

You seem to expect an instant quick fix to something where that is clearly impossible. Very little time has passed since NZ introduced these measures and Auckland isn't the only place they apply to. You jumping the gun crying failure, several years too soon. Anything that increases supply should eventualy lead to lower prices, this is a fundamental tenet of economics, but expectations there have to be realistic as prices can't sustainably fall below the cost to build and supply.

Just to confirm I'm getting this right - you are an Irish person living in NZ and saying population growth is the real problem, implying NZ should never have let you and other immigrants in?

I'd start with limiting the numbers we take in seeking asylum.

Stop councils from buying up existing housing stock.

Getting rid of the current coalition, they only serve REITs and big developers.

It would also reduce the cost for private buyers. Plenty of people bidding on properties only to find out that they are being out bid by their own taxes!

build some seaside high rises

Bray could look like that or much beautiful with world class high rise hotels and apartments ...

city planners needs to visit island countries like Singapore to learn how to build modern cities

The ECB sets Ireland's interest rate. So they won't be changing it to suit specific conditions in the Irish housing market. Part of the give and take of being in the Eurozone. They need to look at the bigger European picuture (e.g. how Germany is doing 😀).

Although if the ECB go hard on inflation and jack up the interest rates, it could indeed take a lot of heat of out of the Irish property market, temporarily.

Don't forget the ECB had low interest rates which helped fuel the runaway housing boom pre-2008 - because of low growth in Germany and France. And in 2008, when the world was heading into the Great Recession, Ireland facing a massive housing crash, the ECB raised interest rates, over concerns about inflation in Germany: Trichet reaffirms ECB inflation line in German TV | Reuters

As a small number of poster have mentioned, you need to tackle both supply and demand. Changing planning regulations is "tinkering around the edge", and will inevitable lead to problems like Priory Hall, and other safety and environmental issues. Building more is only part of the solution. A rising population will continue to absorb new builds.

Do you mean bulldozing ghost estates etc due to the recession?

The population of Ireland in 2008 was 4.9 million. Its now over 5.1 million, and rising.

The news seems to give the impression that house building hasn't restarted properly since the recession, but look at CSO figures you can see house completions jumping up year on year from 2015.

House Building & Other Construction - CSO - Central Statistics Office

We have the second highest minimum wage in the EU and second highest hourly wage across the board.

Ireland has an unusually large percentage of children still living with their parents well into adulthood, including my household, so this vast pool acts as a counter to any expectation that demand should fall when supply picks up. The supply never increases enough to reduce this pool by more than a tiny amount.