The problem is that those laws are politically unpopular. We have rent control that transfers to the next tenant, so any landlord (like mine) who gave a good deal in 2016 is kicking themselves now. Stories abound of nightmare tenants living rent free for over a year, and even after trashing the place. If I owned a place in Dublin I'd try really hard to avoid becoming a landlord. All of this means there's less supply instead of more.

We also have a lot of voters for whom rising house prices are a good thing. Homeownership rates in Ireland are high compared to the rest of Europe and plenty of people were underwater from the mid-2000's until recently.

Dublin needs to get rid of height maximums in the core of the city, build a transport network not suited to the 1950's (it's shockingly car-dependent and sprawling for Europe), and maybe not trap every project in planning hell. It suffers more generally from a labrynthine complex web of agencies and politicians - how can a city this small have sixty-freakin-three councilors? We're only 1.2 million people. And yet we wind up with things like the city council drawing up plans for a bus lane without realizing someone's already got permission to put an apartment building on the same land. https://www.dublininquirer.com/2015/06/30/for-favoured-liffe...

Of course, our agency tasked with bringing in foreign investment is just pretending none of this is a problem https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/ida-chief-denies-c...

Those reading this - keep in mind that yeah, it's cheaper than SF, but wages are substantially lower too.

I actually really like Dublin, and I am grateful to the Dubs for making me feel welcome (I'm from California) but I got INCREDIBLY lucky moving here in 2013 and walking in to a flat (the economy was on its knees then). I am aware that as a tech worker who lives in a prime spot in Dublin with rent control I am part of the problem. However, I'm also moving to the midlands in a few months, so that should free up at least one flat.