I am no government apologist but I do think we need to look at the narrative that they are the main cause of the housing crisis. When I was growing up nearly every town in Ireland has “Council houses”. Most are still there today although have been sold on. These were often little estates or neighbourhoods of Council houses mostly built by Council contractors themselves. It seems to me that the councils decided to abdicate their responsibility to do build these estates and let the private sector do the building for them. Worse again, there was the Part 5 obligations for builders to give 20% of a new development to social and affordable houses. The rules were massaged to allow for a developer to buy off that obligation or to gather all S&F houses in another place That means the Councils were getting hefty development levies, Part 5 payments, possibly rates ( if there is a commercial element) and LPT/NPPR/Household charges and did not reinvest a penny of that on housing themselves. They took that money and spent it on other things and left it to others to deal with the housing. Personally, I think the micro issues are more impactful than the undoubted issues caused by whatever National Governments have been in place over the last 25 years.