Housing

Analysis: How the private housing marketing got hooked on state cash to function

With so many different state schemes to make housing affordable for developers, renters and buyers, the Irish market looks set to be reliant on taxpayers’ money for a long time

Not only is the state boosting investment in social housing, billions of euro have been committed to make private-market housing more affordable

Darragh O’Brien wasn’t always a fan of the truism “there is no silver bullet”.

In 2018, he said these were “weasel words” when criticising Leo Varadkar for claiming there is no big solution to the housing crisis.

Varadkar was right, of course. There is no one-off fix. As Minister for Housing, O’Brien is fully aware of that.

Since entering office, O’Brien has even adopted “silver bullet” into his repertoire. He has the phrase loaded for ...