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

herbalplants

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122660923#Comment_122660923

Oops it makes me feel better instantly

Blut2

Oops, slight typo on the extra 0. Fixed now.

But the overall point stands, its still an astronomical amount of money spent every year on something the vast majority of Irish people would be against if they got a say on the matter. And its only going to get higher over time as migration numbers arriving here are increasing rapidly every year.

Think of how much good that money could do in the housing market building actual housing units to help the housing crisis. Or on hiring more nurses, teachers and garda for local communities. Or just back in tax payers pockets. Or any combination of the above.

GalwayBmw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122661239#Comment_122661239

Isn't it a common trend to go against what people would vote for?

PokeHerKing

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122660872#Comment_122660872

We've plenty of alternative options to house AS. Currently the government is only keen on using hotels.

Probably because it's the easiest way to funnel money by proxy to their own pockets.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122662247#Comment_122662247

What other housing capacity do we have available today to accommodate 25k new applicants every year, in addition to those already here?

How does the govt benefit from the AS being housed in hotels?

PokeHerKing

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122662258#Comment_122662258

Refugee camps could be setup in any number of mainland or offshore island destinations.

TDs mates of mates, boards of directors, family, freinds. All of the hotels/buildings being used to house AS and getting paid eye watering amounts to do so have either tacit or direct links to TDs.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122662273#Comment_122662273

Those camps do not exist today. So even if they were legal, they are irrelevant because they dont exist.

What does exist today is the govts responsibility to house the Asylum Seekers and hotels are part of that equation.

I am not saying thats the best solution by the way, but i dont see another option currently.

The govt are bringing onstream accommodation camps. Thornton Hall is due to be open soon, but i believe the capacity is only 1000, which would fill up with new arrivals in less than 3 weeks and so wont make an impact.

extra-ordinary_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122662289#Comment_122662289

"Thornton Hall is due to be open soon, but i believe the capacity is only 1000, which would fill up with new arrivals in less than 3 weeks and so wont make an impact."

When is this madness going to end? Filling the country up with various traumatised people? There's an endless supply, versus our limited accommodation. The problem is only going to get worse and worse. Who is going to call stop? What way does it have to get before we declare Ireland is 'full'?

We have to stop/slow down the increasing input of more people until we get our own house in order.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122662361#Comment_122662361

It's hard to see a solution. I believe the 6 state owned camps that the govt will eventually bring onstream only accommodate about 2500. Open to correction on that capacity.

If it is only 2500, given that the govt planned for only 20k asylum seekers this year but we are likley to see 25k arrive, those 2500 beds still leave 22,500 applicants requiring accommodation. Which is more than the 20k arrivals we planned for in the first place...

Hence my first point, its hotel accommodation for a while yet folks.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122662361#Comment_122662361

It will not end as long as it is fattening up the investments of certain people. We needed immigration controls a decade ago, but anyone who even suggested it had their career ended by being called the R-word or being compared to a mid-century Austrian politician.

What we have here is a deathly mix of an infantalised society that cannot accept harsh truths of reality (i.e., that resources aren't infinite and that all humans all over the world think the same way), a ruling class of gangster hyper-individuals who only think of their own pension pots and a state bureaucracy replete with pension collectors who never, ever face consequences for their actions. In short, there is no fixing this.

I predict that the native population of Europe will drift towards extremism on the right AND on the left. This is not going to end well.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122662660#Comment_122662660

It is difficult to manage the inflow of asylum seekers. The govt cant just put a cap on it, but reducing benefits seems to be the way they are going, to try and disuade people from coming here in the first place.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122663061#Comment_122663061

The most basic responsibility of any government is to secure the territory over which it rules. If the people who run the state are unable (or unwilling) to do this then one must really ask what precisely they are there for.

That aside, asylum seekers and illegals are but a small fraction of the immigration into Ireland, Ukrainians excluded. The majority of people coming here do so entirely within the boundaries of the law. Ergo, the state is letting them in. I'm not going to add my personal views on that right now, but I ask one simple question. Why is the state doing this?

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122663220#Comment_122663220

The majority of immigrants coming here are coming to work or study, including the 30k returning irish each year.

I agree that asylum seekers are the minority of arrivals, roughly 25%.

I dont really understand your point about why the govt are allowing people to move here to work or study, why wouldnt they?

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122663236#Comment_122663236

"I dont really understand your point about why the govt are allowing people to move here to work or study, why wouldnt they?"

I don't think that you're doing this deliberately, but this is a bit of a misrepresentation of my point. Probably I explained myself poorly.

Put simply, it's about the numbers. I posted this data from the CSO earlier in the thread, but I'll drop it here just to help my point:

• The population in Ireland rose by 98,700 people which was the largest 12-month increase since 2008.
• There were 149,200 immigrants which was a 17-year high. This was the third successive 12-month period where over 100,000 people immigrated to Ireland. 
• Of those immigrants, 30,000 were returning Irish citizens, 27,000 were other EU citizens, and 5,400 were UK citizens. The remaining 86,800 immigrants were citizens of other countries.
• Over 69,000 people departed the State in the 12 months to April 2024, compared with 64,000 in the same period of 2023. This is the highest emigration figure since 2015. 
• There was a natural increase of 19,400 people in the State comprised of 54,200 births and 34,800 deaths.

Just shy of 150k people came here last year. We can deduct the returning citizens, bringing the figure down to 120k true immigrants. Let's just assume that they are here to work and study. This is all well and good, and it would be fine in smaller numbers, but every extra person here needs accommodation and will use services. Housing is in dire short supply, and other services are also heavily under pressure.

That there are too many people entering the country is obvious, and the government know this as well as anyone else. None the less, they pursue policy that actively encourages enormous levels of immigration. I'm simply asking why this is the case as it is beyond unsustainable, it is eroding the quality of life of people here and it is stoking the flames of some very dangerous ideologies.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122663429#Comment_122663429

Aside from the asylum seekers, the people moving here to work or study have accommodation sourced before they arrive, in most cases.

Nobody is going to pay for them to live here, so they make their own arrangements. Alot of those immigrants arriving are providing the services we need for the country to function.

We are at full employment, have plenty of job vacancies and need immigrants to help fill them. We do need more homes though, I agree.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122663473#Comment_122663473

Whether they have accommodation sourced or nay doesn't matter. They are adding more bodies faster than homes can be built. This drives up the price of housing for everyone else already here, Irish or otherwise. We are talking about nearly 100k extra people NET each year.

Regarding the vacancies, this is indeed true. There are more jobs than people here. If these jobs cannot be filled by the people already here, doesn't that rather imply that the economy is getting too large for the country to sustain it?

Finally, even if housing could be built at a level to sustain 100k more people here a year, I would ask whether this is even a good thing to do. I for one care deeply for the environmental sustainability of Ireland, and building on that level means clearly land, building roads and pumping out a lot of CO2, which I would have imagined would be of prime concern to the government.

You seem to be approaching this from a purely economic frame of mind. This is fine, but the infinite growth model cannot keep going like this. Immigration on this level is unknown in human history, and where such things have happened before, they brought about enormous changes that rarely turned out well for the recipient countries.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122663548#Comment_122663548

Yes, I agree that immigration should be managed. There has to be a relationship between the supply of housing and infrastructure and the increase in population.

It is a difficult think to manage, of course.

Many of the people arriving are providing essential services. Doctors, dentists and so on. Without them, our hospitals and health service would grind to a halt.

Finding the right balance is a difficult thing.

herbalplants

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122663577#Comment_122663577

Why not try to retain the Irish doctors! Why spend money bringing in doctors from abroad some with poor English, some lovely. Why not try and offer good conditions to the Irish doctors? Look at countries like Denmark?

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122663593#Comment_122663593

That would be a good thing, of course. But we cant make them stay, and if they dont?

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122663577#Comment_122663577

Some people arriving are providing essential services. Many immigrants, if the not outright majority in recent years, are filling low-skill jobs. Whilst there is certainly a place for these jobs, many of them are not really needed at all and rather exist simply to provide luxury services. E.g., food delivery, house cleaning, uber drivers, etc..

Also, the idea that health services cannot function without immigration always seemed to be to be putting the cart before the horse. These services are stretched due to an enormous increase in population in a narrow space of time. Were there less people here, they would not be so strained, and thus the need for immigrant labour would decline.

I apologise if I across as nitpicking what you're saying. I'm simply using the opportunity to voice some thoughts.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122663473#Comment_122663473

In my experience many of those immigrating for jobs in MNCs here do not have permanent accommodation sourced. They are put up in hotels or airBNBs on a temporary basis by the company for the first month or two as a "relocation support".

Turnover is quite high in a few firms I know of due to new hires not being happy to house share long term and simply being unable to source a place of their own to rent, they realise they are better off elsewhere.

herbalplants

"Norway to end automatic asylum for Ukrainian refugees

The government said the decision was taken because the high number of refugees was putting a strain on housing, health care and schools in some cities."

So wealthy Norway is saying no as they care more about their citizens, while in Ireland we give them more money than to native citizens.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122664236#Comment_122664236

A good point and its a risk to the multinationals staying here.

Some people seem to think that if we stopped hiring immigrants, the MNC jobs would still stay here. Newsflash, they would not, as we wouldnt be able to fill all the roles with appropriate talent and the MNC would move to a bigger country that can.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122664151#Comment_122664151

There is always a case for a work visa for non EU Countries. If you come here, you have to already have a job offer.

The cart before the horse analogy is too simplistic.

If all the immigrants were removed, then all the irish that are abroad would also be kicked out of the country they are living in. You cant have it both ways.

That would mean an influx of about 1.5 million people. Our population would then be larger than it is today.

Sure fire way to ramp up the housing crisis alright.

Blut2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122664236#Comment_122664236

+1 to this

I don't know of any MNCs that source permanent accomodation for new hires, the most generous I've heard of is temporary 3 month provision of accomodation to let people arrive and find their own place.

I work in a MNC and our biggest hiring and retention problem is, and has been for some time now, the housing market in Dublin.

We pay very good wages but without fail every single new hire is absolutely shocked by the rental market here. We've had so many staff leave after a year because of it, or new hires reject job offers entirely because of it.

Its causing us to move roles to other countries that should really be coming here, and I know a lot of other firms are doing similar too. And these are all very high tax paying jobs. Its doing real damage to the Irish economy and the reputation of the country to MNCs.

The fact that we're taking in approaching 30,000 unskilled asylum seekers a year (and thats growing rapidly every year) and housing them, costing the state billions every year, while we don't have housing for the tech/finance workers and MNCs that are responsible for most of our tax revenue, is absolutely bonkers. Its complete incompetence from our supposedly "business friendly" government, and its going to end very badly for the country if its let continue.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122664525#Comment_122664525

Let me be clear, I am categorically not saying that immigrants should be kicked out indiscriminately. There is a place for a reasonable level of non-nationals in any healthy society. I myself am the grandson of an Italian.

If remigration were to happen, it would probably be a cross-Europe project, and those repatriated would probably be from non-EU and non-anglosphere countries. As the majority of Irish ex-pats are in these countries, they would not be booted out in return. However, I will leave it as that as that's a very, VERY hot topic of discussion.

I think we see things differently here, so I will respectfully disagree with you.

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122665002#Comment_122665002

Had a call with a MNC down Cork last week and the HM mentioned about them now doing something on permanent accommodation. Not sure of details and it sounded like they only started it recently, but things are bad enough I would not be surprised if they were building their own apartment blocks on the quiet.

timmyntc

Another metric by which we fail on. Bank of Ireland research seems to think it's worrying also and isn't dispelled by things like higher average household size.

https://www.businesspost.ie/article/ireland-lags-behind-european-countries-with-405-homes-per-1000-people-bank-of-ireland/

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122666062#Comment_122666062

Well some tenement buildings on Henrietta Street once housed 120 people, or about one family per room. I guess that's the target going forward…

Blut2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122665982#Comment_122665982

Some in Dublin do actually own accomodation already but its still not 'permanent' for staff. New hires are rotated through the accom, they just get a few months after they relocate in it as part of their package. They don't get to stay indefinitely though, so its still effectively temporary accom - even if the company owns the properties.