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

Very interesting map showing prices that. I see it says in Havana, Cuba, a house is only €40,500.

That got me thinking. Could we not outsource some people here to the sun, get them working remotely and it would help with our housing crises? Our President Michael D Higgins could even buy half a dozen houses there with his years salary and pensions ( almost 400k?) and rent from his property in Galway (it was reported in Nov. 2022 that "Mr. Higgins owns a few properties in Ireland including until recently two homes in Galway worth over an estimated €1 million combined" ), and still have plenty left over? We have a lot in common with Cuba, why are they so cheap. President Higgins has visited there. He praised Cuba’s literacy rates, health service and economic growth, adding Castro was “a giant among global leaders whose view was not only one of freedom for his people but for all of the oppressed and excluded peoples on the planet’’.

Or else get a few ships (our navy probably has some under-utilised ones as they are thought to only have one at sea at any one time) and import some materials and Cubans to build some houses in the Blaskets or someplace for refugees who come here, freeing up housing for Irish people?

If we want to solve this housing crises we have to think outside the box. I am surprised MLMD or MDH has not suggested it already.

You ask "Is there anybody else here who knows of a plausible explanation of why wardrobes etc in Leitrim are twice the price of wardrobes in Dublin?"

I say if the experts cannot even get the figures right on that one, what hope is there for our "experts" getting our real GDP figures right? Leprechaun economics, as one paper abroad described it. Are there not some brass name plate companies in Dublin employing a handful of staff but who do maybe 100 million worth of business / profit? Ireland's base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) tools give some foreign corporates effective tax rates of 0% to 2.5% on global profits re-routed to Ireland via their tax treaty network.

You cannot beat the market-place. If it was possible to build houses for €300k, 350k or even 400k in Dublin, someone would be doing that, and selling them. The private market can deliver jeans for €12 or €15 in Dunnes or Pennies. Amazing what private enterprise can do on tight margins.

If the government was trying to design, make , market and sell jeans we would be waiting as long as the national children's hospital and be charged €1000 a pair.

No builder, public or private, or quantity surveyor can build a new house in Dublin for €300k, 350k or even 400k, can they? Can it be done? Genuine question.

I do not think you are including things in that like site cost ( land is not "free" ) , site development costs, access roads, footpaths, development fees, landscaping, architects and engineers fees, etc. If it is a builders finish is kitchen etc included?

Wait a year or two until after the next election, it might happen soon enough.