Modals of Obligation

Article excerpt · target grammar marked

The lesson Ireland is learning, painfully, is that prolonged policy failure does not stay contained within the policy domain. Policymakers should have intervened far sooner — rents rose 90 per cent in a decade.

Grammar Reference · Modals of Obligation

Must — strong

Use must for strong personal or moral obligation. The government must build more social housing. Never add to after must.

Should / Ought to

Use should or ought to for moral expectation or advice. Landlords ought to provide stable tenancies.

Should have / Ought

For unfulfilled past obligation: Ministers should have acted sooner on rising rents. — criticism of a past choice.

Need not / Mustn't

Need not = no necessity. Mustn't = prohibition. Tenants need not leave silently. They mustn't sign away their rights.

01Exercise 1 — Form · Write the Correct Form

Modals of Obligation

1.The government build at least 50,000 social homes per year to meet current demand.

2.Ministers introduced rent controls years before the crisis reached its current scale.

3.Tenants who have paid rent consistently accept a no-fault eviction without legal advice.

4.Institutional investors acquire entire apartment complexes if stricter regulations were enforced.

5.The Irish public treat the Eurobarometer findings as a mandate for urgent change.

6.A newly qualified teacher spend her entire monthly salary on rent — this is unsustainable.

02Exercise 2 — Transform

rewrite with the new structure

1.It was necessary for the government to revise the eviction ban. (use: should)

2.There is no necessity for tenants to leave without taking legal advice. (use: need not)

3.It is the moral duty of investors to offer secure long-term tenancies. (use: ought to)

4.It was wrong to allow 58 per cent of new homes to be bought by investment funds. (use: should not have)

5.It is logically necessary that official homelessness figures be revised upward. (use: must)

6.There is a strong obligation on policymakers to act before the next eviction wave. (use: must)

7.It was unnecessary for social housing to be sold into private ownership on such a scale. (use: need not have)

8.The responsible course for government is to impose limits on institutional land purchases. (use: ought to)

03Exercise 3 — About You

in your notebook

Personalise: complete five sentences about yourself using the target grammar.

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