I don’t know how many farmers I have met over the years who recounted at length the hoops they had to jump through to get planning permission for a house on their land.

The difficulty of the process seems to vary from time to time and from county to county, but a common thread is the applicant’s connection with the area and, in many cases, evidence of a connection with farming is looked for, and in some cases, even an indication that the applicant will live in the house themselves and undertake not to sell it for at least five years.

The powers of the planning authority to impose conditions before granting planning permission are very wide.

In the context of the uproar over the sale of the housing estate in Maynooth, it is astonishing that permission has allowed for such a large-scale sale of family houses.

Local authorities are closely supervised by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

Since the drop in interest rates and the recovery in economic growth over the last 10 years, the cost of repaying a mortgage is significantly less in many cases – about half as much – as the cost of renting a similar house.

This doesn’t make objective sense. To tilt the balance so far that it is much cheaper over the long-term to buy an asset than rent the same asset for a limited period is clearly an anomaly.

To then give significant tax advantages to those buying in bulk to rent out to families at higher prices than the cost of a mortgage with no tax reliefs is a fundamental policy mistake, especially when there is widespread public acceptance that individual family home ownership is a desirable social model.

It’s easy to blame the politicians who put this model in place, but where are the economists and political advisers whose job it is to think about these policy and economic issues and advise ministers accordingly? This is a serious administrative failure, compounded by political naivety. We have many examples of well-built county council houses all over the country, sold at a pittance to those lucky enough to be occupying them at the time. Another misjudgement.