NAMA for councils

ei.sdraob

:rolleyes:

CITY and county councils unable to repay loans on land bought for housing are to be bailed out by the taxpayer.

linky

when will this madness stop

add "Land Aggregation Scheme" to your vocabulary people

pumpkinsoup

ei.sdraob wrote: »

:rolleyes:


linky

when will this madness stop

add "Land Aggregation Scheme" to your vocabulary people

Loans have to be repaid. If the local authorities are left with that responsibility, they can only repay the loans by substantially increasing rates for businesses, as they've no other significant source of income. Do you think that would be a good idea? What would you propose?

murphaph

pumpkinsoup wrote: »

Loans have to be repaid. If the local authorities are left with that responsibility, they can only repay the loans by substantially increasing rates for businesses, as they've no other significant source of income. Do you think that would be a good idea? What would you propose?

Perhaps they might consider reducing wages and proposing amalgamation of councils and redundancies to save money, before just jacking up their charges.

dan_d

I don't have an alternative solution, but this has to stop somewhere, it's getting ridiculous! WIthout meaning to sound totally naive, can they not sell the land, get rid of it, and pay the difference as a loan...it's still a loan, but would be less than what's owed now.
why don't we just go the whole hog - NAMA for everyone!!

Zamboni

Maybe some of the scumbag county councillors could start handing back all the countless brown envelopes they've received over the past decade from scumbag developers.
Wouldn't cover the mess but would be a nice start.

irishtweety

If local authorities are struggling to repay these loans and cutting other services to us in order to service the loans then it seems good that a different government body - the Dept of Environment will repay the loan to the Housing Finance Agency and then the lands get transferred to this new Housing & Sustainable Communities agency as at least that way the land can still be used for other uses such as social housing or whatever.......

It seems like this new agency will then work with Nama so in actual fact for once, there might be some social element or giving something back element to at least part of Nama's role...

Journalists are just trying to sensationalise it.... Good article in Indo this morning minus the heading!!!

irishtweety

murphaph wrote: »

Perhaps they might consider reducing wages and proposing amalgamation of councils and redundancies to save money, before just jacking up their charges.

Well they should obviously consider a total review of the public sector but that's not gonna happen...

Also I think the monetary value of the loans is huge (remember we are talking land banks bought in recent years) so redundancies would just be a drop in the ocean....

Head The Wall

Maybe we shouldn't cut TD's salary or pensions either because it won't fix the 20Bn deficit.

I like your logic

ei.sdraob

pumpkinsoup wrote: »

Loans have to be repaid. If the local authorities are left with that responsibility, they can only repay the loans by substantially increasing rates for businesses, as they've no other significant source of income. Do you think that would be a good idea? What would you propose?

same manner as you solve the massive debt problem we have on the state level, except on local level

a combination of cuts and taxes:

*a) raising rates (this will make sure people and business pay more attention to local politics)
*b) cutting waste and reform
*c) restructuring the debt to be longer term and/or writing some off


they are doing c) now only

but they also need to be doing a) and b)

Cookie_Monster

Your point a) is what is still crippling business in this country. Rates have not come down at all in line with inflation and along with rent and wages are still grossly inflated. Rates need to be seriously cut in order to help promote business but this obviously will reduce income and therefore reduce services

Some councils are getting really stingy on service provision, DLRCoCo will stop collecting bins in July meaning only private operators left to do it, for example

ei.sdraob

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Your point a) is what is still crippling business in this country. Rates have not come down at all in line with inflation and along with rent and wages are still grossly inflated. Rates need to be seriously cut in order to help promote business but this obviously will reduce income and therefore reduce services

Some councils are getting really stingy on service provision, DLRCoCo will stop collecting bins in July meaning only private operators left to do it, for example

Hey as business owner last thing i would want is more taxes
but lets face it, cuts in council waste,PS, welfare are not gonna materialise are they?
so that will leave increased taxes one way or another (local and national levels) on both persons and remaining businesses

its a ****ty situation but c) alone wont solve it

Tipp Man

So the clamour to provide social housing for our "most vunerable in society" has lead to county councils building up land banks via loans which they now can't afford to pay - hmm sounds very familiar, developers anybody??

This country is some mess

zootroid

It seems that everyone now is asking for a "NAMA" for their own circumstances, a bailout at the expense of others because they made mistakes. It really irks me, and is proof that once one interest group gets a bailout, it sets a precedent so that every other interest group demands one.

Businesses are always complaining about their rates, it seems to me that any time a council is faced with higher costs, its only solution is to raise rates rather than tackling its own costs.

I remember when I was in school a few of my friends got jobs with the corporation (local town council) picking up litter during the summer months. The job was probably the best paid you could hope for as a 16 year old, they earned a fortune. And they spent their days sitting in the sun in the park. Out of the 8 hour day, they might work 2 or 3 hours. It wouldn't surprise me if that sort of waste is still going on in the corporation.

gandalf

murphaph wrote: »

Perhaps they might consider reducing wages and proposing amalgamation of councils and redundancies to save money, before just jacking up their charges.

I'd agree with this. Why do we have to have numerous county councils. The smaller ones need to be amalgamated together and savings made from doing this.

syklops

I dont understand why we have so many county councils. To the point where they created these 'Administrative' counties, such as Dun laoighre-Rathdown. Considering we have a population approximately the same as Manchester, do we really need 28+ different councils?

I mean Greater Dublin has an approximate population of 1.7 Million, and has 5 County Councils: Dublin City, Dublin County, Dun Laoighre, Fingal and South Dublin. Connaucht with a population of apprimately 500,000 has 6 councils. One each for each of the counties, and Galway city Council. Surely some of these could be amalgamated?

namawinelake

Does anyone have a link to a copy of the "Land Aggregation Scheme"?

The Indie says that the transfers are likely to be €25m in 2010 - given that Sligo has apparently, from the same Indie article, €15m to potentially transfer, might this €25m be a huge underestimate? Also why just development land? Councils have significant stocks of houses they bought for €250k+ as "affordable housing" that might be worth half that now. Might the scale of this Scheme be in the billions?

As regards solutions, I guess we don't have the ability to bankrupt councils. It's going to cause some tension though if the rest of the country has to pick up the bill for Sligo's actions (if it is indeed true that Sligo represents €15m out of the €25m).

dromdrom

syklops wrote: »

I dont understand why we have so many county councils. To the point where they created these 'Administrative' counties, such as Dun laoighre-Rathdown. Considering we have a population approximately the same as Manchester, do we really need 28+ different councils?

I mean Greater Dublin has an approximate population of 1.7 Million, and has 5 County Councils: Dublin City, Dublin County, Dun Laoighre, Fingal and South Dublin. Connaucht with a population of apprimately 500,000 has 6 councils. One each for each of the counties, and Galway city Council. Surely some of these could be amalgamated?

Parish Pump politics, I am a blow in living in Leitrim, pop less than 28000, full county council, suggest to anyone here an amalgamation of councils and there would be a mutiny, despite the fact that the majority of the population of the county borders roscommon/longford. Total racket, county engineer, planning department,fully elected council officials, finance function, hr function, VEC, county manager etc, ridiculous state of affairs.

The_Honeybadger

deadtiger wrote: »

I'd agree with this. Why do we have to have numerous county councils. The smaller ones need to be amalgamated together and savings made from doing this.

Agreed, however most of the staff are pemanent and can't be got rid of easily, many of the contract staff have already been let go. We could end up with a HSE situation where the amalgamations would offer little by way of savings. Here in Kerry we have a county council and three town councils for Tralee, Killarney and Listowel, madness! All with their own buildings and staff, if amalgamation and effeciencies were mentioned there would be murder, no doubt the jackie healy rae brigade would be out in force (his son is the biggest beneficiary of council plant hire contracts in the county). This is the kind of thing that may save alot of money going forward if implemented properly however, very like the quango situation in some ways.

danbohan

dromdrom wrote: »

Parish Pump politics, I am a blow in living in Leitrim, pop less than 28000, full county council, suggest to anyone here an amalgamation of councils and there would be a mutiny, despite the fact that the majority of the population of the county borders roscommon/longford. Total racket, county engineer, planning department,fully elected council officials, finance function, hr function, VEC, county manager etc, ridiculous state of affairs.

true , their should be 5 councils in ireland , total , lenister munster ulster connaught and dublin ,

why in gods name do we have to pay 50 to 60k in expenses to the healy raes the stroke fahys and their like for non stop stupidity and dribble

gandalf

mickeyk wrote: »

Agreed, however most of the staff are pemanent and can't be got rid of easily, many of the contract staff have already been let go. We could end up with a HSE situation where the amalgamations would offer little by way of savings.

Well unfortunately that will have to change and it will have to change sooner rather than later. These positions are there to provide services to the public. If they are being duplicated then they are not doing this. Resources that could be used to provide front line services are being eaten up keeping people in jobs who are not required. Its like the Public Service has been inverted. Instead of it providing a Service to the taxpayers, the taxpayers are provide it with a service by keeping too many people in jobs and sacrificing actual front line services.

We need a government who can tackle this permanent issue and if the Croke Park deal is rejected then they will have the green light to proceed.

Here in Kerry we have a county council and three town councils for Tralee, Killarney and Listowel, madness! All with their own buildings and staff, if amalgamation and effeciencies were mentioned there would be murder, no doubt the jackie healy rae brigade would be out in force (his son is the biggest beneficiary of council plant hire contracts in the county). This is the kind of thing that may save alot of money going forward if implemented properly however, very like the quango situation in some ways.

You see this is the problem. The people are looking at the small picture. Just think about how services will improve if instead of 4 buildings and sets of admin staff you only have one. Their would be more money for roads, civic improvements, business rates could come down and accordingly foster more employment.

The_Honeybadger

deadtiger wrote: »

Well unfortunately that will have to change and it will have to change sooner rather than later. These positions are there to provide services to the public. If they are being duplicated then they are not doing this. Resources that could be used to provide front line services are being eaten up keeping people in jobs who are not required. Its like the Public Service has been inverted. Instead of it providing a Service to the taxpayers, the taxpayers are provide it with a service by keeping too many people in jobs and sacrificing actual front line services.

We need a government who can tackle this permanent issue and if the Croke Park deal is rejected then they will have the green light to proceed.

You see this is the problem. The people are looking at the small picture. Just think about how services will improve if instead of 4 buildings and sets of admin staff you only have one. Their would be more money for roads, civic improvements, business rates could come down and accordingly foster more employment.

+1

We need a government with the balls to tackle the vested interests head on, I won't be holding my breath however. This is a very good time to look at how we do things in this country and try to emulate best practice from our eu peers, it would be in everybody's interest in the long run, but try telling that to an istitutionalised county council administrator who would be unemployable outside their current role. Like I said its the same problem faced when the health boards merged. Can't see this government, or any proposed alternative stepping up to the plate on this one.

gandalf

To be honest why even bother looking at what other countries do. What we need to do is look at how we deliver services to the taxpayer in the best possible fashion to ensure the majority of those resources are used on the services and not on administering those services. Given the current circumstances this is the ideal time to do it. Basically its delivering services to the majority of workers in the state for the best possible value. That is the model that should be adapted across ever facet of the PS.

dan_d

Because a lot of the other countries in the EU have extremely efficient public service systems, which have been in place for centuries. They've refined the best ways of offering the services, down to a fine art. None of them is perfect, but if we could even come a few steps closer to how they operate in any of, say, Spain,France, Germany, Austria...to name a few.....we'd have a far better service than we have now.
If we go off gung ho and try and do it ourselves, it will in all likelihood fail miserably, due to the fact that people in power only have their self interest at heart in this country.

The_Honeybadger

No harm in looking at how the most efficient sytems in europe work, maybe take some ideas from them, obviously the case of Ireland is as an individual country in its own right, and our plan for the future will be prescriptive.

gandalf

dan_d wrote: »

Because a lot of the other countries in the EU have extremely efficient public service systems, which have been in place for centuries. They've refined the best ways of offering the services, down to a fine art. None of them is perfect, but if we could even come a few steps closer to how they operate in any of, say, Spain,France, Germany, Austria...to name a few.....we'd have a far better service than we have now.
If we go off gung ho and try and do it ourselves, it will in all likelihood fail miserably, due to the fact that people in power only have their self interest at heart in this country.

Sorry I don't think I articulated what I meant to post properly. I'd have a fear that the vested powers would attempt to use the other EU countries examples to funnel even more resources into an already administratively bloated Public server.

Of course we can emulate streamlined systems that other countries use. Also it couldn't be a gung ho effort. It would require a proper plan and a clear and defined objective at the end with a proper time line for the changes.

At the end of the day the workers of this country deserve proper services for the taxes that they pay. If it means that some privileged workers who are now surplus to requirements have to lose their jobs to deliver this services and ensure the front-line get the resources they should have then so be it.

danman

Does most of this not stem from the policy of 20% of developments must be allocated to social housing?

I think it is 20%, not sure.

These houses were for the "Most Vulnerable"
My own sister moved into a 3 bed house and paid €80/month rent.
She then had the option of buying this house at a discount price.

All the while, my wife and I were working our arses off to try to buy a house.

I'm not jealous of my sister, she didn't do anything underhand.
But this notion of fairness, that seems to be constantly shouted. Only seems to be fairness for those on either side of the economic spectrum.

Those of us in the middle, just get fecked.

But the 20% policy (?), was a factor in this.
The councils had to buy the social housing.

Here in Donegal, there is still a large housing list. So these houses are still in demand.
If they don't charge a more appropriate rent for these houses, how can the councils ever expect to repay the loans used to buy them in the first place.

syklops

danman wrote: »

Does most of this not stem from the policy of 20% of developments must be allocated to social housing?

I think it is 20%, not sure.

These houses were for the "Most Vulnerable"
My own sister moved into a 3 bed house and paid €80/month rent.
She then had the option of buying this house at a discount price.

All the while, my wife and I were working our arses off to try to buy a house.

I'm not jealous of my sister, she didn't do anything underhand.
But this notion of fairness, that seems to be constantly shouted. Only seems to be fairness for those on either side of the economic spectrum.

Those of us in the middle, just get fecked.

But the 20% policy (?), was a factor in this.
The councils had to buy the social housing.

Here in Donegal, there is still a large housing list. So these houses are still in demand.
If they don't charge a more appropriate rent for these houses, how can the councils ever expect to repay the loans used to buy them in the first place.

I never really understood affordable housing. If a person or 2 people want to buy a house they should save up like everyone else. If they are both low paid and cant get a deposit together then tough. They should have thought about that when they were picking their careers. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but thats how it should be.

SkepticOne

syklops wrote: »

I never really understood affordable housing. If a person or 2 people want to buy a house they should save up like everyone else. If they are both low paid and cant get a deposit together then tough. They should have thought about that when they were picking their careers. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but thats how it should be.

However the developer then only gets the amount they can afford, not that amount plus 50%.

Affordable housing is a way of paying developers above the market price of houses.

syklops

SkepticOne wrote: »

However the developer then only gets the amount they can afford, not that amount plus 50%.

Affordable housing is a way of paying developers above the market price of houses.

Well that makes it even more daft. Do the people who are on affordable housing also go into shops and say "Im on affordable food, and so can only pay for half the carton of milk"?

resueman

ei.sdraob wrote: »

:rolleyes:


linky

when will this madness stop

add "Land Aggregation Scheme" to your vocabulary people

Can I ask is the Galway City Council debt independent from Galway County debt or will Galway County Council suffer for the mess that Galway City has got itself into??

resueman

Can I ask is the Galway City Council debt independent from Galway County debt or will Galway County Council suffer for the mess that Galway City has got itself into??

HellFireClub

pumpkinsoup wrote: »

Loans have to be repaid. If the local authorities are left with that responsibility, they can only repay the loans by substantially increasing rates for businesses, as they've no other significant source of income. Do you think that would be a good idea? What would you propose?

Here's what I'd propose... Drag the backward "for the file", beaurocracy that is the local authority set up in Ireland, kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. Sack at least 50% of the blubbering bufoons that are in the local authorities, let go of the bullsh*tting wasters that are employed there.

How come private enterprises can make a healthy profit at bin collecting but local authorities can lose tens of millions at the same thing, can someone explain that to me???

Vizzy

HellFireClub wrote: »

Here's what I'd propose... Drag the backward "for the file", beaurocracy that is the local authority set up in Ireland, kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. Sack at least 50% of the blubbering bufoons that are in the local authorities, let go of the bullsh*tting wasters that are employed there.

How come private enterprises can make a healthy profit at bin collecting but local authorities can lose tens of millions at the same thing, can someone explain that to me???

Because local authorities operate a waiver scheme whereby they charge less to the lower paid and these people typically will not be customers of private companies.
In some local authorities this will amount to 25%+ of income which is gone before you start.