Professor Rory Hearne, lecturer in housing policy in Maynooth University and former People before Profit general election candidate and avowed Trotskyite, has proposed that the State set up a company to build public housing. It would directly employ all of the labour and build an additional 10,000 houses a year within 3 years.
It is one of the most stupid ideas I've read in a long time. In an economy at maximum capacity and with full employment all his proposal would do is shift capacity from the private sector to the public sector. Am I missing something here?
He says that "The Irish State has a proud history of delivering public housing and it must do it again" but that delivery of housing was done at a massive social and economic cost. It was a key part of the policies that kept this country poor for over 40 years and condemned generations of young people to emigration. In fact it was that emigration that ensured that there were no housing shortages in previous decades. It takes a special kind of wilful ideological blindness not to see that.
It is one of the most stupid ideas I've read in a long time. In an economy at maximum capacity and with full employment all his proposal would do is shift capacity from the private sector to the public sector. Am I missing something here?
He says that "The Irish State has a proud history of delivering public housing and it must do it again" but that delivery of housing was done at a massive social and economic cost. It was a key part of the policies that kept this country poor for over 40 years and condemned generations of young people to emigration. In fact it was that emigration that ensured that there were no housing shortages in previous decades. It takes a special kind of wilful ideological blindness not to see that.
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