I'M IN the process of making a landmark decision this week. I am trying to decide whether or not to buy a house in this country. I was mulling over this big question when An Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance told us, with great fanfare, about all the money they have to spend on improving our infrastructure, our roads and the housing situation over the next seven years, but their polished performances have not lessened my quandary.

They tell us that Euro21bn has been set aside to address the need for social and affordable housing in Ireland over the next seven years. But this means nothing to those of us who earn a decent salary and still have to decide whether to suffer the hell of commuting or buy in one of the many areas of outer Dublin suburbia often beset by social problems and crime. On The Breakfast Show on Newstalk during the week, I asked Brian Cowen what is in the National Development Plan for this generation of thirtysomethings facing the same decision as I am. He told me that the government is investing in new trains and roads. Great.

The government's plan cited poor quality of life for us Celtic warriors as being one of the main reasons why it feels it has to lash money at the country for the next seven years. They got that one right. Quality of life for most people trying to live and work in urban areas is rubbish. We cannot expect to own a home close to where we work, unless we are prepared to sink ourselves in debt for a doll size apartment and hope the crash doesn't happen. Instead we either rent, or buy in one of the badly planned suburbs with their soulless housing estates, poor transport links and general lack of facilities.

A friend of mine who owned her own apartment in Dublin is planning her second baby and has had to sell up and move to a 'commuter town' in order to have, what she feels, is a proper home to rear her family in. But what kind of life is she facing? A two-hour commute on the train every day to Dublin, leaving at 6am and getting back home after eight. How can she be expected to raise children, hold down a job and stay sane? At least the National Development Plan will give her a comfortable train sometime over the next seven years.

Another friend earns a very respectable salary in central Dublin, but despite being in her mid 30s, she has no intention of buying a home either. Her bank has told her that they will loan her enough to allow her to buy an apartment in a distinctly dodgy part of the city, somewhere she has no desire to live. So when the choice is between quality of life and owning a home, she chose life.

It is because of the crazy planning system we had in this country during boom time in the 1990s that so many of us face the choice between a life of slavery to commuting and a life of not being able to own a property in the place where we want to live. The urban sprawl around Ireland has not been met with commensurate transport and infrastructural developments.

This is borne out in one example that comes easily to mind. There was once a quaint village outside the madness of the M50, which was considered a refuge from the city. But now we have all been tricked into referring to Lucan in Dublin, which is miles from the city centre, as being part of suburbia.

I lived in Lucan for a short period about seven years ago. Despite having lived there for about four months, I continued to regularly get lost on the way home. Every housing estate was the same, every roundabout was the same and there was just one shop where the battle-hardy traffic soldiers went in the evenings.

The hollow-eyed M50 slaves would congregate in this 'convenience store' to get what they needed to build them up for the battleground on the roads the next morning. Perhaps it has changed over the last seven years, but I am not willing to move out there to find out.

So is this the new reality of life in Ireland?

Condemned to live in your car and put up with inadequate public transport or just settle for renting a home so that your life becomes more important than commuting? Whatever decision I eventually make, there is one thing I am sure of, the government did not provide me with any answers in their big flashy National Development Plan last week.