FF/FG/Green Government - Part 3

Cluedo Monopoly

The illegal nursing home rip off is Q1 on Leaders Questions.

The coalition of chaos is doing it's level best to alienate and piss off every age group in the electorate.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120182193#Comment_120182193

Mortgage interest rates hit the high teens in the early 1980s. It was not a time for a family to be buying a house, and was far more difficult to finance than it is today.

Just look at the couple on tv last night. They were living with his parents in the family home until recently until they moved into the apartment owned by his parents. WTF? They had some cheek complaining about affordability coming from a landlord family.

"Mortgage interest rates hit the high teens in the early 1980s. It was not a time for a family to be buying a house, and was far more difficult to finance than it is today"

Yet - home ownership rates in 1981 (74.4%) was higher than 2021 (70%)

1981 taken from here

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp1hii/cp1hii/tr/

2021 taken from here

https://tradingeconomics.com/ireland/home-ownership-rate#:~:text=Home%20Ownership%20Rate%20in%20Ireland%20averaged%2072.95%20percent%20from%202003,of%2068.60%20percent%20in%202014.

Interest rates were high but so was wage inflation. A lot of that generation would say the first few years were painful until inflation worked its magic.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120182954#Comment_120182954

Home ownership rates went up in the 1990s, that was the period when it was easy to buy a house, but the 1980s were not an easy time, many a family couldn't put food on the table, and there were no holidays, or nights out or anything like that.

US3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120183439#Comment_120183439

No nights out ? Every pub in the country was packed like sardines on the weekends, and most doing pretty well on weekdays too 😂

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120183439#Comment_120183439

"Home ownership rates went up in the 1990s" - indeed, nobody said otherwise, but home ownership rates were higher in 1981 than in 2021. So if that "was not the time to buy a house" I don't know what today is

Larbre34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120183738#Comment_120183738

Thats cos of drink driving and smoking policies since, nothing else.

US3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120184155#Comment_120184155

Nothing got to do with people not being able to afford a few €7 pints no ? Rent wasn't 50% of anyone's wages in the 80s or 90s.

Cluedo Monopoly

The FFG approach to so many issues is that if you can afford the costs, time and stress surrounding litigation, you will get your legal entitlements eventually through an out-of-court settlement. If you cannot afford it, tough cookie.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120184859#Comment_120184859

Mortgages were hitting 70% of wages with the interest rate rises. I remember those times and the fear people had, people starting out in the early 1980s had it far worse than people starting out now.

maccored

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120187955#Comment_120187955

your favourite rag disagrees - https://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/property-mortgages/more-difficult-to-buy-a-home-now-than-in-the-1980s-36321280.html

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120187990#Comment_120187990

I got as far as the Nevin Economic Research Institute and laughed.

US3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120187955#Comment_120187955

How could you even type out such nonsense. You haven't a clue what you are talking about 😂

jmcc

Ireland Thinks/Sindo poll:

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/fine-gael-sees-support-drop-after-bruising-month-for-leo-varadkars-party-in-latest-opinion-poll-42327821.html

Usual caveats apply. Margin of Error is +/- 2.9% so this movement for FG is outside that.

Regards...jmcc

rolling boh

There will only be a change of government if the opposition can offer a viable option all these protests could just fragment the votes with a real dolly mixture of small groups getting a seat or two thus letting the present government scrape in again .

Augme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120202571#Comment_120202571

The position of Fianna Fail will be very interesting. They've achieved noth8ng in terms of additional voter support since being in government from FG. At some stage FF need to make s decision on what they stand for and where there future lies.

rolling boh

Would they shack up with SF though especially as the smaller party hard to see that .Sticking with FG seems more likely after all they are very similar and a merger in the next few years is possible .As things stand we have far too many indos and small groups to put anything together at some stage a big change will have to happen .

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120188179#Comment_120188179

It's absolute gibberish isn't it?

My sister's hubby was able to buy their first home in the 80's, a three up two down, and all on his very modest factory wage. They wanted for nothing in other areas too, like holidays and nights out on the weekend. They were able to have three kids as well.

Good luck with any of that shit today.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120202473#Comment_120202473

I see that FG are still above their general election levels of support. Strange that, as I thought that all of the current problems were bringing armageddon for them in this poll.

These polls are telling us nothing, other than a holding pattern until a general election is called, and decisions have to be made. They are not that far off their 2019 local election levels either.

Bishop of hope

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120202597#Comment_120202597

As with all party's their position will have to be outlined as it was before the last election, but most likely flexible as coalition with other party's seem their lot for the future.

A dying party when compared to their heyday really, fighting hard to hold on to any semblance of their past identity and being relevant in the future political landscape, other than a supporting role in coalition.

FG battling the same fight too.

Only one party at present growing and that's SF. Will that continue? Their test will have to be a term or two in govt, then it will be interesting to see if they can fight the voter apathy that has beset FF, FG and Labour.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120213440#Comment_120213440

Are Sinn Fein growing?

https://pollingindicator.com/

Sinn Fein support peaked at around 36% last summer, and has since been in a slow but steady decline to around 32%, a decline that is outside the margin of error, and seen across a number of different polling companies.

Now, the voters haven't been going back to the government, rather government support remains in or around the general election level. Rather it seems a reversal of the trend that had been seen in the first two years of this government where support for the smaller parties and independents moved to Sinn Fein, now it seems some of that is moving back.

Nothing decided yet, as it is not an election time.

Blut2

Bertie rejoining FF this week and being all over the media surely won't do them any favours. I've no idea why the party would agree to it, all its going to do is cost them votes by reminding people of all their corruption.

They spent so long and so much effort trying to emphasize they were a different party now, the bad old days and all the corrupt dinosaurs were gone etc. Just to show all that meant nothing by welcoming him back with outstretched arms.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120220127#Comment_120220127

And reminds people that errant FFG TDs are always forgiven eventually. Obviously Bertie isn't a TD but the likes of Troy and English will be ministers again if they hold the line.

jmcc

Should be fun watching all the FFG meatbots on Social Media having to defend Bertie Ahern. Wonder if Tubridy will have him on the LLS?

It should be interesting to see the next poll figures. I think that B&A is next.

Regards...jmcc

Bishop of hope

It's going to become harder for the govt to gain any traction in the popularity stakes for the foreseeable future, with rents rising sharply still. Top that off with the cost of living spiralling to levels where basic incomes can't cope with just ordinary cost of living bills, like groceries, heating and increases in mortgage payments due to the increase in interest rates. Leo admitted he hasn't a clue how many "affordable" homes have or are being built.

Hard times for the public usually leads to dissatisfaction increasing for the current govt of the time.

Blut2

Its mostly self-inflicted to be fair, in particular with regards to housing. There was a good article in the Indo last week on social housing, this was a high(low?) light:

"The ESRI reports that more than half of renters are relying on some form of housing support. This is not cheap: rent subsidies and long-term leasing cost taxpayers €1.22bn in 2021 (some €542m of which was spent accommodating more than 60,000 households on HAP) — or the cost of building nearly 5,000 new council houses."

https://archive.is/YMj0G

Half of the private rental market in the country being on housing supports is absolutely insane. Imagine how much lower rents would be for everyone if that money had been spent building social housing for those people over the last decade instead?

72sheep

"The transformation of Ireland [...] to a society where 17 per cent of the population is foreign-born represents one of the biggest social changes since independence". 17% foreign born, let that sink in. "Transformation" may be one way of describing this monumental demographic change, but there are others.

And our govmt enacted this change in the midst of a multi-decade housing crisis. 

And our govmt , desperately trying to satisfy EU targets, promised to accommodate vastly more Ukrainians than we can absorb.

But we are all racists for noticing this. (Of course it's ok for Prof McRea to notice in the IT but not for us in our communities.)

Right.

Still, at least tough guy Varadkar is over in Brussells laying down the law on EU borders, LMAO!

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2023/02/15/irelands-flirtation-with-liberalism-may-be-coming-to-an-end/

AlmightyCushion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120251166#Comment_120251166

You say that this has happened in the middle of a housing crisis but that simply isn't true. The foreign born population has been at 17% for ages. It was the same in 2011. We were talking about bulldozing ghost estates back then. Plus, this percentage included a lot of people who are Irish but were born outside of the state. I know a good few people who are foreign born who have lived most their life here and their parents are Irish. Their parents just moved abroad and had kids there and after a few years moved back.

"The number of Irish residents who were born outside Ireland continues to increase and stood at 766,770 in 2011 an increase of 25 per cent on 2006, and accounting for 17 per cent of the population."

https://www.socialjustice.ie/content/policy-issues/census-2011-ireland-first-definitive-results

72sheep

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120251317#Comment_120251317

Pre-2011 was still a FF/FG govmt. Also creating an economic environment whereby people bought homes they could never afford is not exactly the opposite of a housing crisis. Where we are now though is a housing crisis, of such severity that it's a source of shame internationally, and

- a govmt housing policy optimised for overseas investors with some trimmings for Irish insiders (see all those An Bord Pleanala 'best practices')

- a govmt immigration policy optimized to attract all and sundry

- a govmt Ukraine support policy optimized to impress EU/NATO 

- a govmt communications policy that labels poor people racists (at least they're no longer all dole cheats!)

- govmt politicians not feeling any need to declare their own property assets

Of course they are mouthing off about introducing new schemes to accelerate, facilitate, alleviate, etc. but it takes a special kind of naivety to continue believing that Varadkar and O'Gorman are fighting the good fight

Blut2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120251317#Comment_120251317

The figures not changing much between 2011 and 2023 would be largely explained by Ireland still recovering from the recession until about 2015, and corona hitting from 2020-2022. So there were really only 4-5 'normal' years of immigration in that 12 year time span, and 4-5 years when people were actually leaving the country.

The rapid increases during the Celtic Tiger years are more representative of what we can expect this decade if the border policies remain unchanged.