Who are buying all the new houses?

Planning is a factor, but the fact is even despite the planning issues almost 12,000 homes are being built in Dublin every year.

Thats a lot of homes.

The problem here is that barely any of that 12,000 ever make it to the private market for sale and the govt plays a large role in gobbling up those homes and stopping them hitting the market.

This pushes prices upwards.

If most of those 12,000 homes made it to the private market and the govt kept their hands off the stock, prices would stabilise and eventually start to fall.

The govt can contract work to building firms. It doesnt have to employ staff directly. It has the money to do whatever it wants.

The potential labour force is expanding as the population increases. There is no reason why we cant grow the construction labour force and overhaul planning at the same time.

One of the problems, I have read, is that the housing situation is now so extreme that skilled construction professionals won't move here. We've dug ourselves into a hole and, even if the Government cared, would not know how to get us out of it.

In response to the issue of building vs aquisition of social housing, it doesn't really matter.

Contracting vs aquisition makes no difference in terms of resources used.

If I want a cake, I can either tender for one to be made, or buy one off the shelf. In either case, much the same resources are used up and therefore not available elsewhere. If anything the off-the-shelf one will be cheaper.

Same with social housing. A local authority can contract a firm to build social housing or purchase ready housing. It doesn't make a huge amount of difference and resources (labour, building materials, land etc.) are diverted and no longer available elsewhere (e.g. for private purcase).

Housing shortages are an issue in half the developed world at the moment. The UK needs a million properties. Whatever spare labour there is internationally have their choice. Very little any Government can do about it.

If we somehow did attract fifty or a hundred thousand construction workers they'd need housing also.

We need immigrants to fill the vacancies,help wanted notices up everywhere. Most of them come from the EU or the UK anyway or are granted work visas.

ACP recently refused planning for over 330 housing units in Fermoy. In short the planning inspector cited lack of playing fields in the plans despite this being a condition of the planning granted and the developer making commitments to honour this very condition.

The best bit is the proposed development literally adjoins playings fields covering circa 20 acres which are open to the public (approximately 3 GAA sized pitches + a public footpath around the perimeter of the grounds)

In essence, a single individual in Dublin made what seems to be a illogical recommendation about a proposed development in Cork and for reasons that seem unfathomable. It has taken the developer 4 years to get to this point. Word is he is walking away as he is **** sick of the bureaucracy.

It would have eventually added another 1,000 or so people to the towns population of 6,500 and would have given local businesses a significant boost.

The one thing that the Government can do is add some fairness to the market. At the moment the vast majority of housing is going to social housing (either directly or indirectly). This has squeezed the first time buyer and low income worker out of the market - which is unfair. They set quotas of 30% or whatever as the amount of social housing to be delivered in new developments. They should cap the % of new houses that are allowed to be purchased by local authorities and AHBs at this number. Allow the remaining 70% to be sold to private buyers so as that some sort of market exists.

It is largely optics as far as I can see. If a development was "always" going to be social housing, then prospective home buyers are less upset when the development is completed.

If, on the other hand, the development was built for the open market, and then the State, via the local authority or housing body, buys several houses, then the private buyer thinks, "Hey, that could have been mine!" and then they complain to their TD.

But it is really the same thing. It is the State diverting resources into social housing and away from the private market. Whether one or the other is pursued depends on the situation.

The workforce can be expanded. We have a rapidly growing population and full employment.

If we cant expand the labour force now, when can we?