Irish Property Market chat II - *read mod note post #1 before posting*

PropBuyer101

Beigepaint wrote: »

Total nonsense. Can we put aside your creative writing homework and return to the facts?

Rural housing costs a fortune - whether it’s roads, water, power lines etc - all of this maintenance costs a fortune. Then we have the carbon taxes your countrymen are paying for your neighbours to shuttle their kids around.

It costs you nothing so you think it’s free. That’s called an externality.

Nobody but farmers should be living any more than 3km from a village, town, settlement.

Nobody but farmers should be living any more than 3km from a village, town, settlement. so whats your idea for the future of this country so - people competing for a small bit of real estate and crammed in like ants fighting over square feet - i cant believe the ridiculous of this statement. tell me whats your idea for the future of this country? where are people going to live when we run out of space? inspire us with your creativity. sky rise buildings that wont last 50 years before they collapse? whats the vision?

Hubertj

schmittel wrote: »

Are you really saying that whilst you recognise it is a bad deal, we cannot expect our elected representatives to recognise it is a bad deal, and thus we should be just accept that they will vote for these deals?!

And on top of that, we have councillors who recognised it was a bad deal, and voted against it, but you are saying they should not have done so? Should they just have realised that the other councillors were of lower intelligence and with poor commercial acumen, and voted with them nonetheless?

Utterly bonkers.

Those tasked with delivering the deal are not capable of interested in delivering a better deal.

So nothing at all gets built and that’s better. Utterly bonkers.

Yurt2

PropBuyer101 wrote: »

Nobody but farmers should be living any more than 3km from a village, town, settlement. so whats your idea for the future of this country so - people competing for a small bit of real estate and crammed in like ants fighting over square feet - i cant believe the ridiculous of this statement. tell me whats your idea for the future of this country? where are people going to live when we run out of space? inspire us with your creativity. sky rise buildings that wont last 50 years before they collapse? whats the vision?

I agree with the bolded statement. Ireland is fairly unique in Western Europe the extent to which we've allowed people with no connection to the land to lash up houses willy nilly in the countryside. Provision of services (national broadband plan anyone?), the cost of roads, environmental burden, electricity prices and even the price of a postage stamp are negatively affected by this dispersed settlement pattern.

Not sure why people rush to call Blade Runner cities on pushing back on one-offs. How about, I dunno, live on the direct outskirts of a village instead of a pebble dashed monstrosity plonked in the middle of nowhere chewing up what could be good farmland or wilded land?

am_zarathustra

PropBuyer101 wrote: »

Nobody but farmers should be living any more than 3km from a village, town, settlement. so whats your idea for the future of this country so - people competing for a small bit of real estate and crammed in like ants fighting over square feet - i cant believe the ridiculous of this statement. tell me whats your idea for the future of this country? where are people going to live when we run out of space? inspire us with your creativity. sky rise buildings that wont last 50 years before they collapse? whats the vision?

It's not a binary option between high rise and a country cottage. I grew up in a love detached bungalow, on a road of lovely detached bungalows, in a town, 5 minutes walk from a shop and with plenty of space to run around. Towns/villages will die off if one off housing is allowed continue. We need to get people back into the towns/villages to keep a sense of community.

The ecological side is phenomenally well studied and there are myriad papers on this. Google is your friend if you don't believe people on here. The government arent tightening rules for the craic.

Bass Reeves

PropBuyer101 wrote: »

Nobody but farmers should be living any more than 3km from a village, town, settlement. so whats your idea for the future of this country so - people competing for a small bit of real estate and crammed in like ants fighting over square feet - i cant believe the ridiculous of this statement. tell me whats your idea for the future of this country? where are people going to live when we run out of space? inspire us with your creativity. sky rise buildings that wont last 50 years before they collapse? whats the vision?

I be happy with 3 clicks. I have 8 acres within 2clicks of one village and 60 acres with in 2clicks of another village, it a small town in matter of fact.

I only want 2-3 sites for my kids

cnocbui

Beigepaint wrote: »

Total nonsense. Can we put aside your creative writing homework and return to the facts?

Rural housing costs a fortune - whether it’s roads, water, power lines etc - all of this maintenance costs a fortune. Then we have the carbon taxes your countrymen are paying for your neighbours to shuttle their kids around.

It costs you nothing so you think it’s free. That’s called an externality.

Nobody but farmers should be living any more than 3km from a village, town, settlement.

All complete garbage. Did you know that the damge caused to a road by a vehicle is a function of it's weight, and that the relationship is not linear? It's not even exponential; it's not even cubed, it's an incredible 4th power relationship.

That means that the large milk tanker that blasts up and down past my house most days to collect milk from the farms, does around 160,000 times as much damage as a car. Each tractor that passes my house does 900 times as much damage as my car. A single tractor driving past my driveway does more damage than my car would do in two years.

So on a slow day, with only 8 tractor passings and one milk tanker - Thats about 165,000 times as much damage to the road as my car does.

Now as for water - rural dwellings like farms and one-off houses usually have wells which the owners pay for themselves; in provisioning, maintainace and running costs. The cost to your precious pocket is a big fat zero.

The power lines mention is an equally ignorant hoot.



This is an ESB crew upgrading the power lines because my son installed a Rizen 9 processor and a new graphics card in his gaming development rig - knocked out the whole road.

Only kidding. They were installing a new transformer for some power hungry equipment that was recently installed at that farm.

So just like the damage to roads, the elctricity infrastructure maintainance and uprgardeing is all down to the needs and practices of farms. One off houses don't even move the needle.

Your thinking is founded on a basis of pure ignorance.

Yurt2

cnocbui wrote: »

All complete garbage. Did you know that the damge caused to a road by a vehicle is a function of it's weight, and that the relationship is not linear? It's not even exponential; it's not even cubed, it's an incredible 4th power relationship.

That means that the large milk tanker that blasts up and down past my house most days to collect milk from the farms, does around 160,000 times as much damage as a car. Each tractor that passes my house does 900 times as much damage as my car. A single tractor driving past my driveway does more damage than my car would do in two years.

So on a slow day, with only 8 tractor passings and one milk tanker - Thats about 165,000 times as much damage to the road as my car does..

Garbage as you'd say yourself:


"An analysis of this data and an approximate local authority one-off housing rate based on 2011 POWCAR data reveals that there is a clear correlation between high levels of per capita spend on road maintenance and high rates of rural one-off housing within local authority areas. For example, 10 of the 31 local authorities in Ireland are estimated to have greater than half of housing classed as rural one-offs. All of these local authorities have an annual per capita spend on road maintenance of between €144 and €336 (€194 average). In contrast to this, 6 local authorities have a rural one-off rate less than 4% with per capita annual spend on road maintenance of between €49 and €92 (€60 average)."

cnocbui wrote: »

The power lines mention is an equally ignorant hoot.



This is an ESB crew upgrading the power lines because my son installed a Rizen 9 processor and a new graphics card in his gaming development rig - knocked out the whole road.

Only kidding. They were installing a new transformer for some power hungry equipment that was recently installed at that farm.

So just like the damage to roads, the elctricity infrastructure maintainance and uprgardeing is all down to the needs and practices of farms. One off houses don't even move the needle.

Your thinking is founded on a basis of pure ignorance.

Once again, garbage as you'd say:


"Due to the low density of population and housing, Ireland has the most extensive network per customer in the EU, resulting in high transmission losses. ESB networks is forced to maintain more than three times the length of distribution circuit per customer as compared to, for example, the UK. To avoid voltage drop over this extended network, at least one transformer for every square kilometre is needed in almost 75% of Ireland. This means that Ireland has almost one-third the number of transformers as in the UK despite having a total distribution network of just half the size and 6% of its population"



https://kildare.ie/CountyCouncil/YourCouncil/Publications/Planning/DevelopmentPlans/KildareCountyDevelopmentPlan2017-2023/Kildare%20Rural%20Housing%20Report%20Airo%20March%202016.pdf

Courtesy of: the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis and the All Ireland Research Observatory.

Next time you call something garbage and try to turn reality on its head, do some homework instead of talking about your kid's graphics card (which has nothing to do with the price of turnips). The economic externialities of one off housing and the burdens shifted elsewhere are overwhelmingly documented at this juncture. If you're going to be aggressive and rubbish other posters on proven reality, at least come prepared and not with photos of your boreen.

Bass Reeves

Yurt! wrote: »

Garbage as you'd say yourself:


"An analysis of this data and an approximate local authority one-off housing rate based on 2011 POWCAR data reveals that there is a clear correlation between high levels of per capita spend on road maintenance and high rates of rural one-off housing within local authority areas. For example, 10 of the 31 local authorities in Ireland are estimated to have greater than half of housing classed as rural one-offs. All of these local authorities have an annual per capita spend on road maintenance of between €144 and €336 (€194 average). In contrast to this, 6 local authorities have a rural one-off rate less than 4% with per capita annual spend on road maintenance of between €49 and €92 (€60 average)."





Now as for water - rural dwellings like farms and one-off houses usually have wells which the owners pay for themselves; in provisioning, maintainace and running costs. The cost to your precious pocket is a big fat zero.



Once again, garbage as you'd say:


"Due to the low density of population and housing, Ireland has the most extensive network per customer in the EU, resulting in high transmission losses. ESB networks is forced to maintain more than three times the length of distribution circuit per customer as compared to, for example, the UK. To avoid voltage drop over this extended network, at least one transformer for every square kilometre is needed in almost 75% of Ireland. This means that Ireland has almost one-third the number of transformers as in the UK despite having a total distribution network of just half the size and 6% of its population"



https://kildare.ie/CountyCouncil/YourCouncil/Publications/Planning/DevelopmentPlans/KildareCountyDevelopmentPlan2017-2023/Kildare%20Rural%20Housing%20Report%20Airo%20March%202016.pdf

There are lies, dam lies and then there are statistics. You can get statistics to say what every you want

Are the figures you quote per person in the county. I lay odds that these 10 counties are mainly along the west coast. More prone to weather events. Many of the one off houses are holiday homes not used all year around.

Because off the scenic area's there are more KM of roads per person than average. Along with that you get an influx of tourists for the summer. There are two main types of tourists those that use cars but there is a large portion that travel by Bus and we are back to bigger vehicles cause more damage.

Because of farms you would have a lot of those power line anyway and guess what a lot of the transformer's as well. As you say they are installed on a per area basis. Large parts of the UK are not inhabitated, the Welsh mountains, the Scottish Highlands, the Yorkshire Dales, the Pennines. We do not have the same amount of uninhabited area's in Ireland. There is historical reasons for this

Cromwell cleared all the better land and forced a lot of the Irish population to move to the west Coast. UK land was owned by the English and Scottish nobility for centuries, some still is. The Highland's in Scotland were cleared of there population the early 1800's and stocked with sheep. It now a kind of playground for them for shooting and fishing.

Because Ireland in the late 1800's forced the English LL's to sell the land to tenant farmers we have a different population spread and because we have a smaller population density we have as a percentage more people working in Agri and Tourism in Ireland.

We have the highest amount of road in Europe on an area basis. This did not happen this year or last year. Most were tracks and paths that are there since historical times. Because of the natural ability of the land Ireland could sustain its larger numbers of people in smaller area's. Pre Famine we were one of the most densely populated areas of Europe



So you are just posting more garbage

Yurt2

Cromwell and scenic areas. I'll leave you to it if you think you're making anything other silly argument that's been debunked over and over and only pushed by folks that love the chape site and pushing economic burdens on to people that live sustainably and actually in a community instead of just talking big about it in a pebble dashed monstrosity as far away from their neighbours as they can get.

Only a tiny sliver of one off dwellers have anything to do the agricultural economy. Your linking of that settlement pattern to the health of our primary industries is extremely spurious and one commonly made by chape site proponents.

I call it "keepers of the flame" myth. That somehow ribbon development keeps rural Ireland alive, when it actually crushes the the rural villages and towns that it purports to be saving.

If we want to make rural communities sustainable - the first thing that needs to be done is clamp down radically on one offs and encourage development only in the immediate hinterland of villages. It means the end of the chape sweetheart site from the parents /uncle but I'm not sure why anyone else who cares about the survival of communities should give a sh*te about that.

ml100

Yurt! wrote: »

Cromwell and scenic areas. I'll leave you to it if you think you're making anything other silly argument that's been debunked over and over and only pushed by folks that love the chape site and pushing economic burdens on to people that live sustainably and actually in a community instead of just talking big about it in a pebble dashed monstrosity as far away from their neighbours as they can get.

Only a tiny sliver of one off dwellers have anything to do the agricultural economy. Your linking of that settlement pattern to the health of our primary industries is extremely spurious and one commonly made by chape site proponents.

I call it "keepers of the flame" myth. That somehow ribbon development keeps rural Ireland alive, when it actually crushes the the rural villages and towns that it purports to be saving.

If we want to make rural communities sustainable - the first thing that needs to be done is clamp down radically on one offs and encourage development only in the immediate hinterland of villages. It means the end of the chape sweetheart site from the parents /uncle but I'm not sure why anyone else who cares about the survival of communities should give a sh*te about that.

New one off houses are built by people looking to provide themselves with a family home and they pay for it, most of the communities you speak of are made up of at least 10% social housing that the tax payer pays for, get over your jealously of the site from the parents.

Yurt2

ml100 wrote: »

New one off houses are built by people looking to provide themselves with a family home and they pay for it, most of the communities you speak of are made up of at least 10% social housing that the tax payer pays for, get over your jealously of the site from the parents.

They don't pay for the ancillary costs, both economic and environmental. One off housing exists on transfers from others essentially and the people that seek to live that way bury the lead on those costs. They are in fact a burden on other citizens who actually live in communities. I'm not jealous in the least, I have my own set-up.

The national broadband debacle is a classic example of the consequences. People in one-offs in the middle of nowhere on a huge whinge about not having fibre optic cable for Netflix. Many people predicted accurately that the provision of national broadband couldn't be delivered at reasonable cost, and lo and behold, all but one of the tendering parties pulled out. Who picks up the tab for the metastasising costs due to dispersed development? Johnny taxpayer of course. Deco in his council house indeed.

fergus1001

Yurt! wrote:

The national broadband debacle is a classic example of the consequences. People in one-offs in the middle of nowhere on a huge whinge about not having fibre optic cable for Netflix. Many people predicted accurately that the provision of national broadband couldn't be delivered at reasonable cost, and lo and behold, all but one of the tendering parties pulled out. Who picks up the tab for the metastasising costs due to dispersed development? Johnny taxpayer of course. Deco in his council house indeed.

if the people living in rural areas work as part of the rural economy then they should be there,

the real problem is people being giving permission to build where they are teachers or professionals and have no need to live there at all

I'm building a one off house in the country, I am a forester so I am a net benefit to the rural economy

Hubertj

Hubertj wrote: »

It took me 5 weeks. Why did it take you so long? Was it an old house the the solicitor had difficulty perfecting the title? I’ve only heard of such long delays with new builds or old houses and issues with title.

Probably when solicitor or property agent got all my money on account he was playing on stock market or was buying bitcoin or borrow them to his friend builder which was using them to build house for sale.Free money for 7 months ! With no interest !

fergus1001

fergus1001 wrote: »

if the people living in rural areas work as part of the rural economy then they should be there,

the real problem is people being giving permission to build where they are teachers or professionals and have no need to live there at all

I'm building a one off house in the country, I am a forester so I am a net benefit to the rural economy

But what if someone just prefers living rurally? I think that's good enough reason.

Yurt2

fergus1001 wrote: »

if the people living in rural areas work as part of the rural economy then they should be there,

the real problem is people being giving permission to build where they are teachers or professionals and have no need to live there at all

I'm building a one off house in the country, I am a forester so I am a net benefit to the rural economy

No issue there. If you are a genuine part of the primary economy in rural Ireland(as you are), few people would have objections to you living in proximity to your work.


The problem has always been the urban generated one-offs.

cluelessbuyer9

Do people on this thread think prices may stall or deflate somewhat in the short/medium term.

Utterly depressed at the moment have lost over a dozen bidding wars for sub par property and it really is discouraging.
Thankfully, i am able to stay with family for a few years so saving is not an issue but ideally i would like my own place again soon. Deposit of 190,000 after a separation which led to family home sale, i am getting anxious leaving the money sit in savings accounts but don't want to get burned in property as it looks like a bubble and i cannot win a bidding war as all properties are going for tens of thousands more than asking.

Yurt2

Deleted User wrote: »

But what if someone just prefers living rurally? I think that's good enough reason.

Well, I'd have a preference to build a Disney Castle and a rollercoaster surrounding it in the middle of a roundabout.
The planning system has always, and should always, take into account and respect the broader social and economic impact of any development - be it residential or commercial. This is particularly acute when it's acknowledged that the cost of provision of services to rural one-offs far outstrips the same provision to urban, suburban and peri-urban residents.

Another example: The An Post has undergone massive and controversial restructuring in recent years. It is a hard economic and social fact worldwide that the most expensive part of delivery and postal services is the last mile. An Post literally can't turn a buck anymore because of dispersed development, prompting the consolidation of post offices countrywide.

Rural Ireland cries: "Where are my post offices gone!"

Rural Ireland is killing rural Ireland. If you demand a god-given right to plonk a house wherever you see fit, please please don't crow when the consequences of you and others like you doing so comes come to roost.

Now if rural dwellers by and large settled in some reasonable proximity to the nearest village, not only are you giving the economic life of the village a shot, but your post office may just survive as it's actually viable.

Yurt!

Yurt! wrote: »

Well, I'd have a preference to build a Disney Castle and a rollercoaster surrounding it in the middle of a roundabout.

Middle of the roundabout is a safety hazard, so can't do that. However, if Mr. Tayto can plonk a rollercoaster in a field in Meath, I'm sure you can, too.

Most people, from what I can see, consider "rural" to be a detached house with a bit of space. Enough space that next doors music at 2am isn't audible, you can't smell their obvious drug use through the walls, you can have several visitors without worrying about parking, you can do naked somersaults on a trampoline and no one cares, etc.

I'd imagine most people would be happy to have that house right next to a village as the services are closer to them. However, funds sometimes means they're buying further out. For those that are building, I believe the rules are generally heavily stacked against them anyway. The vast majority of people that seem to build, are doing so on family-owned land where an existing house is a stone's throw away, anyway.

cluelessbuyer9 wrote: »

Do people on this thread think prices may stall or deflate somewhat in the short/medium term.

Everyone is saying we're in a bubble at the moment. But people have been saying that for years. I'm looking to buy, and my deposit is not far off being about 10% of your deposit, so perhaps expand your search area a bit, would be my advice.


For what it's worth, I've been looking at property in my area (Drogheda) and prices went a bit mental from about February - April. It seems to be slowing a little bit at the moment, but there are a couple of houses that sold in that time frame, where there must be serious buyers remorse going on.

There wasn't a new build house to buy in that period in Drogheda, and now that some of those sales are coming to a close, contracts signing, etc. there are a few new phases in developments after opening up.

For me, the biggest 'bubble' sign was an 80's ex-council terraced house in an area where property rarely ever reached 200k, sold for 250k.

Now you can get a new build for 300k (including 30k from HTB) with all the new heating systems etc. a 2 minute drive away. I'd say they're sick to their stomach.

For me, personally, I know a house is coming up for sale soon, and I'm gonna attempt a 'private sale' if i can get a decent AIP amount from Rebuilding Ireland. If I can't get that particular house, I might also join the list of people that'll wait til next year and have more saved. Of course, everyone else who's waiting til next year will also have more saved, and we'll be competing with each other again. :rolleyes:

Amadan Dubh

cluelessbuyer9 wrote: »

Do people on this thread think prices may stall or deflate somewhat in the short/medium term.

Utterly depressed at the moment have lost over a dozen bidding wars for sub par property and it really is discouraging.
Thankfully, i am able to stay with family for a few years so saving is not an issue but ideally i would like my own place again soon. Deposit of 190,000 after a separation which led to family home sale, i am getting anxious leaving the money sit in savings accounts but don't want to get burned in property as it looks like a bubble and i cannot win a bidding war as all properties are going for tens of thousands more than asking.

We're FTB couple but like you can wait a few years, in fact targeting 2-6 years of waiting as we want somewhere we'll stay for the duration of the mortgage ideally. I know people say there is a cost to waiting in the rent we lose and maybe house prices won't have dropped much.

But to be honest the main reason we're waiting is because we are waiting for greater supply and choice. I don't just mean new builds which will come on market, but also waiting for post-covid and post-Brexit sellers to start to put their properties on the market as they would've held off for these two big events the last 2 years. Combined with the new supply coming to market, while prices may not be much lower, at least there will be a bigger selection!

It's so easy to get sucked in to the hype of buying right now but you only have to look on MyHome to see what poor value places are available. Without wanting to wait forever, a few years on the fence will be beneficial, if not from a price perspective but nearly guaranteed from a supply perspective (including having a bigger deposit to be able to buy a more expensive place than we could buy if we bought now).

wassie

I don't disagree with all you are advocating, but I would take exception with a couple of statements you are using in support of you argument:

Yurt! wrote: »

The national broadband debacle is a classic example of the consequences. People in one-offs in the middle of nowhere on a huge whinge about not having fibre optic cable for Netflix. Many people predicted accurately that the provision of national broadband couldn't be delivered at reasonable cost, and lo and behold, all but one of the tendering parties pulled out. Who picks up the tab for the metastasising costs due to dispersed development? Johnny taxpayer of course. Deco in his council house indeed.

Is this not essential infrastructure that also contributes to increased productivity within in the economy? Surely the last 12 months (think WFH) has shown we need good broadband wherever we live. Its not all about streaming services. I would be of the view it the job of Government to fund infrastructure when the private sector wont because its not profitable/viable for them to do so.

Do you think the same argument was had with the electricity and telephone networks when they were rolled out?

Yurt! wrote: »

Another example: The An Post has undergone massive and controversial restructuring in recent years. It is a hard economic and social fact worldwide that the most expensive part of delivery and postal services is the last mile. An Post literally can't turn a buck anymore because of dispersed development, prompting the consolidation of post offices countrywide.

You are suggesting An Post has been forced to restructure due to the 'last mile' is misleading at best. Its always been this way and An Post are very efficient thanks to decades of experience delivering to the 'last mile'.

Like every other postal service in the developed world, An Post has been forced to restructure its business thanks to the internet. Consumers have been moving for the last two decades from traditional mail to digital communications. This is termed in the industry as “e-substitution”. Online shopping has resulted in more parcels. This is evidenced buy the the closure of the letter sorting facility at Cork 2 years ago and a new automated Dublin Parcels Hub near the airport last year.

fergus1001

Deleted User wrote:

But what if someone just prefers living rurally? I think that's good enough reason.

the new regulations coming in october means that if you want to build a new house in a rural area you will need to own a certain amount of land so your only option is to buy a house in a rural area

cnocbui

Yurt! wrote: »

Well, I'd have a preference to build a Disney Castle and a rollercoaster surrounding it in the middle of a roundabout.
The planning system has always, and should always, take into account and respect the broader social and economic impact of any development - be it residential or commercial. This is particularly acute when it's acknowledged that the cost of provision of services to rural one-offs far outstrips the same provision to urban, suburban and peri-urban residents.

Another example: The An Post has undergone massive and controversial restructuring in recent years. It is a hard economic and social fact worldwide that the most expensive part of delivery and postal services is the last mile. An Post literally can't turn a buck anymore because of dispersed development, prompting the consolidation of post offices countrywide.

Rural Ireland cries: "Where are my post offices gone!"

Rural Ireland is killing rural Ireland. If you demand a god-given right to plonk a house wherever you see fit, please please don't crow when the consequences of you and others like you doing so comes come to roost.

Now if rural dwellers by and large settled in some reasonable proximity to the nearest village, not only are you giving the economic life of the village a shot, but your post office may just survive as it's actually viable.

More nonsense. One off houses are not the problem, it's declining physical mail volumes leading to reduced revenues throughout the country. The only thing that has saved mail services in many countries from completely going under is the simultaneous rise in package volumes due to ebay, amazon and the like.

It actually started in the 80's with the rise of fax machines, then accelerated with email and the internet. I worked for a postal service for a brief time in my youth, delivering telegrams. Technology killed off that lucrative sideline within a few years of my last doing it. With the decline in revenues from formerly vast volumes of physical mail, prices for sending packages have had to go up to compensate.

In my village, There is a Pharmacy with an attached Optometrists. The two urban professionals don't choose to live in the village, they live further out than I do. Everyone, such as myself, is part of the village economy and contributes to it. Last night I popped down the road and bought Chinese takeaway. Last week I was in the chemist for some hayfever stuff, then i went to the hardware store for some things, then I went to the service station for some petrol for the lawnmower. The week before I went to another pharmacy to get some passport photos. I frequent the local supermarkets often.

The sheer cluelesness of urban dwellers as to how rural economies and communities really work is pure comedy.

Yurt2

cnocbui wrote: »

More nonsense. One off houses are not the problem, it's declining physical mail volumes leading to reduced revenues throughout the country. The only thing that has saved mail services in many countries from completely going under is the simultaneous rise in package volumes due to ebay, amazon and the like.

It actually started in the 80's with the rise of fax machines, then accelerated with email and the internet. I worked for a postal service for a brief time in my youth, delivering telegrams. Technology killed off that lucrative sideline within a few years of my last doing it. With the decline in revenues from formerly vast volumes of physical mail, prices for sending packages have had to go up to compensate.

In my village, There is a Pharmacy with an attached Optometrists. The two urban professionals don't choose to live in the village, they live further out than I do. Everyone, such as myself, is part of the village economy and contributes to it. Last night I popped down the road and bought Chinese takeaway. Last week I was in the chemist for some hayfever stuff, then i went to the hardware store for some things, then I went to the service station for some petrol for the lawnmower. The week before I went to another pharmacy to get some passport photos. I frequent the local supermarkets often.

The sheer cluelesness of urban dwellers as to how rural economies and communities really work is pure comedy.

The fax machine is in the mix now. I'm rolling in the aisles here cnoc.

I'm born and bred rural by the way, so shot fired and missed. My people were working the land in this country generations before you landed here as a tourist.

cnocbui

Yurt! wrote: »

The fax machine is in the mix now. I'm rolling in the aisles here cnoc.

I'm born and bred rural by the way, so shot fired and missed. My people were working the land in this country generations before you landed here as a tourist.

My Grandfather was head disitiller at Jameson's and my mother was born in a house attached to the distillery, which was in Smithfield at the time. The property I am currently selling in Connemara was owned by my great grandfather. I'll dig out the old family tree if you want to engage in further willy waving.

Yurt2

wassie wrote: »

I don't disagree with all you are advocating, but I would take exception with a couple of statements you are using in support of you argument:



Is this not essential infrastructure that also contributes to increased productivity within in the economy? Surely the last 12 months (think WFH) has shown we need good broadband wherever we live. Its not all about streaming services. I would be of the view it the job of Government to fund infrastructure when the private sector wont because its not profitable/viable for them to do so.

Do you think the same argument was had with the electricity and telephone networks when they were rolled out?


You are suggesting An Post has been forced to restructure due to the 'last mile' is misleading at best. Its always been this way and An Post are very efficient thanks to decades of experience delivering to the 'last mile'.

Like every other postal service in the developed world, An Post has been forced to restructure its business thanks to the internet. Consumers have been moving for the last two decades from traditional mail to digital communications. This is termed in the industry as “e-substitution”. Online shopping has resulted in more parcels. This is evidenced buy the the closure of the letter sorting facility at Cork 2 years ago and a new automated Dublin Parcels Hub near the airport last year.

An Post have been explicit about this, if there is a community cluster of 500 or more; the post office will not close. Anything else is uneconomical for them. Rural Ireland killing rural Ireland. One-off bliss but no post office for gran to pick up her pension. Only the most deluded would think that one-off housing has not contributed to the decline of Ireland's villages (and the viability of stop and shop businesses in them for that matter). An Post don't just deliver mail, they're also delivering a cold economic reality to people on this. An Post's very existence was and is under strain from these realities, so it's not all fun and games and bouncy castles in your rural arcadia - we all have skin in the game.

You're not turning a dispersed row of one-off houses in the beyonds of Mayo into Silicon Valley by running fibre optic cable to them. Not begrudging them the cable, and I hope everyone enjoys their streaming (Netflix corp will be grateful for the new subscriptions I'm sure), but let's be honest about who's subventing who and the limited economic benefits of the same as urban standard services are rolled out to extremely peripheral areas largely on transfers generated in sustainable communities.

Yurt2

cnocbui wrote: »

My Grandfather was head disitiller at Jameson's and my mother was born in a house attached to the distillery, which was in Smithfield at the time. The property I am currently selling in Connemara was owned by my great grandfather. I'll dig out the old family tree if you want to engage in further willy waving.

Sure thing mate, I'll throw a shrimp on the barbie as you go fetch it.

cnocbui

Yurt! wrote: »

Sure thing mate, I'll throw a shrimp on the barbie as you go fetch it.

Lol.

Yurt2

I can't believe you actually posted that. It's not actually like I or anyone else gives a sh*te really. You're back off to antipodes in a huff in any case if your posting history is to believed, so I still have you filed under tourist.

Graham

Mod Note

Yurt! / cnocbui, knock it off.

MacronvFrugals

Is there anyone left to come out against the shared-equity scheme?


“Department of Housing officials warned shared equity scheme would hike up house prices”


https://www.businesspost.ie/houses/department-of-housing-officials-warned-shared-equity-scheme-would-hike-up-house-prices-6d0440fb?utm_campaign=article&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=web