"average Dublin house prices should fall to ‘the €300,000 mark" according to Many Lou McD.

renting is normal in those countries long term. Here we have zero plan for how people live their entire lives in a rental

All Sf have to do is make an effort, the Govt have no interest in even that.

That's the govts problem, no one else, it's like they are uninterested in being re-elected or governance in general.

Thats nothing to do with either party in govt, just the people in it are tired, uninterested and largely not a patch on the people of either party 20 years ago. That's a problem not confined to those parties or this country either.

Just heard Eoin talking out of his . . . on RTE Radio. I haven't laughed so much in a long time.

Got to say fair play Sarah for telling them who was asking the questions.

They won't rest until foreign multinationals leave and head to countries that seem to have their act together.

Then SF can appeal to those who have no interest in putting in a days work or contributing to society.

Mary L is a font of nonsense and wishy washy jargon just like all the rest.

None of them can solve.any issues here. All they do is put in the.time, talk s$ite and take what they can until.its time to retire.

Yes but affordability and rental rates related to economic earnings are completely out of whack in many of them as well, as is supply of any type, not to the extreme levels of ireland though.

I'm only in my 40s but I remember a time when FF and FG considered themselves to be entrepreneurial parties, really showing my age there.

Like many others I have my own business, took an idea that shouldn't have worked, was told wouldn't work and through sheer dogged determination build a business from scratch, cold calling, scrimping and a willingness to make it work no matter what.

I would be a very lonely person talking about that at a cabinet meeting now or in the Dáil in general.

How are people going to start meaningful, employment and revenue generating businesses when a half million will not guarantee a 3 bed house.

Not going to happen, and people are going to avoid that route, too much now at stake.

I see you've edited your post to include rent. Which was the original plan after the crash.

I rent, where will I live in retirement? Im 31 and this keeps me awake at night with fear.

Our birthrate is down circa 25% since mid-90s from 2 to 1.6 expected. The big drop happened in the 70s/ 80s.

Our birthrate is still above Germany which has all those housing laws you talked about.

Every european country saw massive declining birthrates either in the 70s (the more liberal countries Germany, Netherlands and so on) or the 1980s the (then) more conservative countries such as Portugal or Ireland. Every European country is facing that pension time bombs and its not true to say the housing crisis brought this about. It might be a factor, but its one of many and not a primary factor.

Having said that - and you kind of touched on this earlier - but its not just that the housing stock has remained static (with rising populations) but also that social norms have changed. Parts of Dublin like Cabra or Donnycarney. Traditionally these were three bedroom houses, with a toilet downstairs and no bath. First thing any young person does with one of these old houses is turn the smallest bedroom into a bathroom. Then when same person gets married, has kids - they wont have more than two. There's only two bedrooms. If you have a boy and a girl, you've a problem. Social norm, they can no longer be in the same room after age 6 or 7.

Back in the day, there could easily have been 8 or 10 kids in these houses. Or more even, I knew one woman who said there was 17 kids in the family, and it was one of those houses.

Not always that simple for various reasons.