Varadkar: "It's not the state's responsibility (to provide a home and an education)"

Possibly. I've a feeling very little will actually change. Sure SF might spend a small amount more but it's not an enormous amount. I'd say the only real difference is they'd be more aggressive about a border poll.

Fine Gael couldn't give a fuck about our appalling housing situation. The fact that there's an entire generation that will never own their own home means nothing to them. Nor does the ticking time bomb that that particular reality represents mean anything to them either.

Yet in the last 12 months alone about 130k people have been given these by the State, who knows what this year will bring.

It's a very bizarre experiment across much of Europe, especially here though.

Housing is simple to fix. Within X km of center of Dublin/Galway etc to Y km anyone can build on any land they own up to 5 stories. From Y to Q up to 4 stories and so on.

No chance any party will do that. SF will carry in the same manner the current government is.

No party will tell people they don't have a right to block development.

Do they though?

I don't think they care that much at all about what the lack of housing means to people here, except in terms of the damage that it might do to them as a party. I certainly don't believe that the impact on the homeless generation they've helped create means much to them. A generation that's been condemned to a life of renting in a sector that's notoriously viscous, extremely volatile, and has never been set up to be anything more than a temporary affair.

Fine Gael (and Fianna Fail, let's not forget them) have destroyed our private housing situation, aren't interested in a public housing solution, and hocked our renters off to the (non-existent) "mercy" of the private sector.

A monumental failure for sure. but one that's baked into the very core of their neo-liberal politics.

Words mean nothing, especially from a politician's mouth. They're very adept at saying the "right" thing and then doing the complete opposite.

It's the deed that matters in the end.

If you want to see how the likes of Fine Gael truly think about our housing, and other essential social stances, just look at the current state of them.

But nobody who's been following politics in this country should be remotely surprised at a Fine Gael politician coming out with such a viewpoint. 

He didn't come out with this viewpoint though. People are getting angry over something that didn't happen, which is exactly the point of this thread.

People have fallen for the OP's ploy of making things up to suit his own far-right agenda but reporting it as fact.

If people cannot separate fact from very obvious fiction, we're all fncked. Getting your news from boards.ie or very nasty twitter accounts like the one used in the OP is a very bad idea, it can only lead to bad things.

I get the impression from recent interviews with Leo that he is no longer preoccupied with his current job and is looking beyond it to after the election when I think he will leave politics and head off to a job outside Ireland but not necessarily in the EU. This means he is not that worried about how what he says is received - He has already mentally checked out. If I was in FG I would be wondering now who is going to be leading them after the election or even be around. Micheal Martin does not seem as jaded/bored with it all as Leo even though he has been around the block for alot longer

I think one of the problems with SF is that they oppose expensive developments even though, initially, new developments will indeed be expensive until supply increases and eventually prices come down. By blocking new developments, though expensive, SF is preventing increased supply thereby counter-productively keeping prices high.

Fifty percent marginal tax rate over a pittance of an income. FACTS! Extreme taxation rate over an extremely low level of income...

Its not given out for free... its given out for as good as free. Often the tenant will pay the token gesture " rent" with free money they get from other taxpayers

I know it was long ago.

I got to school on one of those old yellow bangers.

But it definitely isn't free now.

I don't mind paying few quid, but what really pisses me off that you sign up to pay for a service that you find out isn't running a couple of days before school starts.

And then it is nothing to do with them, go talk to Bus Eireann, go talk to Dept of Education, just to get tun around.

They preside over a fooked up system of transport, educaiton, health, housing and yet we are told how rich the country is.

Then high flying government party members refuse to engage, running hiding that they have previous engagements.

Probably like one opening pharmacies and the like.

Those fookers are going to get a kicking if they show up canvassing.