They’re building a new housing estate at the back of my place. It’s 2010 in case you’re wondering. The builder called to my house nine months ago and explained the whole thing. Nice guy, but as we stood in the back garden talking about his plans I could only assume that one of us must be on acid. There are 300,000 homes lying empty across Ireland. This didn’t even make sense under the ‘so crazy it just might work’ rule.

Still though, I wished him well at the time. A few friends of mine have lost their jobs in construction so it was good to know that somebody in a hard hat was getting some work. Nine months later, I’m furious.

It’s not the 7am drills or the layer of dust that gets me. It’s all in the mind, this one. I’ve just learned this estate will be social housing.

I know what you’re thinking. Not in My Back Yard. I’ve no problem with accusations of Nimbyism as long they come nowhere near me. Which they won’t, because this isn’t just about my back yard.

I want to know why anybody is building social housing anywhere in Ireland right now. The government, through NAMA, will shortly own most of the empty housing estates around the country. There’s talk of demolition. Why isn’t there talk of using them for social housing? It’s starting to feel like Alice in Wonderland.

My wife isn’t helping.  She’s going around saying “just get pregnant girl, day have to give you a house” in a Cork teenage accent. She then points out in her own voice that you’re allowed five refusals before being relegated to the bottom of the housing list and reverts to the earlier accent for “Dats two buses away from me mams. I can’t live dare.”

I’m normally a gentle soul, but the phrase two buses from me mams is turning me into a right-wing zealot. This is a turnaround because I’ve spent some time on the loony left.

I hated Margaret Thatcher. Now, she never did anything to me except hand out three week’s dole and free accommodation when I arrived in London in the mid 80s. There’s gratitude for you.

I read the Communist Manifesto. That’s one boring read. They don’t tell you on the cover that a lot of the book is about conditions in the cotton mills 1850s Lancashire. About the only thing it explained is why people on Coronation Street are so dreary. It’s in their blood.

But the Communist Manifesto wasn’t enough to put me off being a leftie. I went on to learn things about farming co-operatives in Peru and the Cuban health system that just aren’t good for a man. I somehow managed to get upset by the privatisation of British Gas. I was able to talk about Amnesty International’s Prisoner of the Month campaign without bursting my arse laughing. I knew a lot of people who hardly ever washed their hair.

I’m still not sure exactly why I became a leftie. I do know that I took a look at the people who formed the Progressive Democrats branch in college and dedicated myself to being on the opposite side of everything they do. They were a joyless bunch with side-partings who sat in lectures wearing shirts under their round neck jumpers. You’d be surprised how evil that can look when everybody else is in a sweatshirt saying New York. I’m still glad I decided to steer clear of them.

Ultimately though, it was my father who made me go left. He was a quiet and pleasant man who could cope with anything life threw at him except for the phrase “Dad, I think I’m a communist.” It drove him bonkers. He would go red and try and try to speak but ended up saying hunna-wunna-wunna-wunna. Honestly, he did.  It was very funny to watch. What guy in his early twenties could pass up the opportunity to do that to his dad?

Well, would you look who’s after growing up to think like his father? I’m even starting to adopt his views on what he liked to call ‘layabouts’. Twenty years ago I would have looked at those houses with my Fintan O’Toole eyes.

You know, there are always victims of capitalism who deserve to get a new house for nothing close to the city centre and their mam. Not any more.  There are plenty more victims of capitalism who paid for houses in the arse end of Carlow and can’t get to sleep at night before getting up at 6am to drive to a job that might be gone by Christmas.

I’ve stopped hating Margaret Thatcher. She was right to point out the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money. In this case, it seems like they’re building houses we don’t need with money we don’t have.

That said, I don’t want to piss off the people in city hall. The way things are going the whole place might want to live in one these houses by next year. I might go in and put my name down tomorrow.