'Cure' for housing illness is a sick joke

Govt must grow a spine and home in on radical plan

- 

ONE day, maybe one hundred years from now, scientists may figure out why Irish governments spent two, three or maybe more decades trying to get their heads around the housing “emergency”.

Technically, of course, it’s not an “emergency” or a “crisis”, because that implies a finite amount of time. You can't really be in crisis mode for 25 years or more, you'd be dead of a stress-related heart attack long before that.

What we have in Ireland is more of a “housing illness” (more mental than physical).

And the big problem is that the doctors either can't or won't even agree on a diagnosis and treatment.

In medical terms, think of our efforts to cure the disease like this - you go to the doctor with a brain tumour and he cuts off your left leg.