After years of government reliance on the private sector it is clear that free market politics will not solve our housing crisis. To a large extent, private developers currently decide what type of housing is built, where it is built, how much is built, how much is charged to rent/buy, how long the lease is and so on. This extraordinary divestment of government responsibility has led to disaster.

We need to use public land to build social and affordable housing - this is the only certain way in the short-to-medium term to deliver housing faster and at affordable prices.

We need to build a balanced blend of affordable purchase homes, affordable rent homes and social homes on publicly owned land to ensure sustainable communities and a strong tenancy mix. The Social Democrats will legislate to prohibit the sale of state land suitable for building homes.

Rather than feeding the insatiable, winner-takes-all “market”, we must use this land to build homes that give ordinary people comfort, safety and housing security. Local and national government must prioritise the provision of social and affordable homes in socially mixed communities.

We need to introduce real protections for people who rent and people in social housing. For people to feel that they are in their home and that they are a real part of their local community they need to feel secure in the place they live, safe in the knowledge that it is their long-term home. If people are unsure if they will be in the same dwelling in six months time it leads to great personal insecurity and predictable social problems in an area due to a transient population with little attachment to the area.

It’s hard to believe that we are still fighting for the basic rights that were sought by the Land League 150 years ago but improving conditions in 2024 still boils down to security of tenure and fair rents. In both cases we need to stop sitting back hoping private developers and landlords will provide - we need active intervention from local and national government.

Similarly, in terms of social housing we need direct action from local and national government - it is bizarre that, despite repeated failure, the government still engages in wishful thinking that the private sector will provide.

Dublin City Council has been cutting back on services for years due to insufficient funding and a reliance on central government. The Council needs greater funding and independence to tackle issues like litter and dog poo. As a teacher I also feel education is needed to help with a sense of civic pride and responsibility so people pick up their waste and don’t litter - a small part of me dies when I see dog dirt in a plastic bag thrown on the ground!

In terms of making the city feel “less dirty” there is no question that dereliction and vacant retail units, particularly in the area I love, the north inner city, are a major blight that drag down the area. Retail inits cannot be allowed to sit unused for years and a carrot and stick approach is required to ensure this does not happen.

In the middle of a housing crisis, it is utterly unacceptable that properties are allowed to remain vacant without good reason. The Vacant Homes Tax is set at far too low a level and is simply neither punitive nor a deterrent. We need a vacancy tax that has an actual impact on vacancy and dereliction and this means setting the tax at a significantly higher rate.

As a dad and a teacher I know that personal responsibility is vital, as is holding people accountable for their behaviour. Enforcing the law is essential - but this is only part of the solution. Young people also need diversions and alternatives - this is where Dublin City Council can make a huge difference. The council needs to take an active role, providing communities with amenities, sports facilities and recreation centres that can help bring cohesion and a sense of purpose. There are numerous paths to making Dublin safer and they are all important.

Dublin’s roads are extremely congested. Travel times are among the slowest in any European city. We need to do much more to give people real alternatives to using their cars.

I support major investment in public transport. This means the expansion of bus routes, more frequent services, more bus lanes, greater subsidies to encourage use of public transport, safe segregated cycle lanes, an increase in Dart services and much more. 

The gridlock on Dublin’s roads is deeply frustrating, adds to unpredictable journey times and contributes to the climate change crisis we face. There is no one, single solution that will alleviate this. Instead we must implement an array of approaches to ensure people have real alternatives to taking the car.

Active travel needs priority on Dublin’s streets. We need to stop thinking of transport policy as how to move cars around the city and start thinking in terms of how to move people around the city.

We need the green man to last longer in favour of pedestrians and we need waiting times at pedestrian crossings to be cut significantly. There is nothing more frustrating than than standing with a growing crowd of people waiting for a green man at a city centre crossing as car after single occupancy car crawls by.

Cyclists need safe segregated cycle lanes. Simple as that. We don’t expect pedestrians to mingle with cars - they have footpaths. People on bikes are equally as exposed and vulnerable - they need a safe, segregated space.

As a primary school teacher I see children every day from a wide variety of different backgrounds playing and learning together, blissfully unaware of those differences. Dublin City Council can do much more at community level by facilitating events encouraging mixing and integration.

On a much deeper level, the housing crisis has been weaponised by the far-right to encourage division and conflict. The systemic problems in our housing system have nothing to do with immigrants and asylum seekers and everything to do with decades of failed policy and failure to plan for housing problems that could be seen coming for years in advance. When we finally take steps to effectively address the housing crisis we will deny the far right one of their favourite and most misused tools for whipping up hatred based on misdirection and lies.