Homelessness: The disgrace that is Varadkar and the Government

Idbatterim · 14-11-2017 09:32AM

In response to your above post jupiterkid. You are correct. We've had nothing but years of waffle and I expect years more of it. I'll go on actions, not words!

I read the rebuilding Ireland plan when it was launched. It's a joke. I wrote to Coveney saying as much at the time! There were also multiple newspaper articles that highlighted its flaws ...

my poor tortured hands · 14-11-2017 09:52AM

I'm also of the opinion that ordinary Irish people have been betrayed by Irish politicans of all hues. Having a ludicrously over heated property market does not suit Irish people, nor does it benefit Irish people.

Immigration is too high even if that is a very unpopular opinion. But is it actually an unpopular opinion to say immigration is too high or is it mainly the same people who are refusing to do their job correctly that are saying that? i.e politicans.

Political correctness is just censorship. When engaged in by politicans it is dereliction of duty. Politicans should discuss all problems, not refuse to discuss problems on the basis that someone may be offended. Refusing to discuss problems, for any reason, is dereliction of duty.

I think there's room in Ireland for a new political party, like Podemas in Greece, or the AfD in Germany, or the new guys in Austria. Renua doesn't count.

Irish people have been bred over the last 200 years to be compliant pixies. Reverse evolution has been in full effect. Every generation our best and brightest leave. That's why Irish people are so incredibly compliant.

FreudianSlippers · 14-11-2017 10:16AM

server down wrote: »

Please debate what I actually said which was merely a correction to your point about the homeless not all being housable.

I asked you a question based on your vague comment.

If we build 50k social houses this year (not going to happen) are you suggesting that homeless people are housed before people on the waiting list?

blanch152 · 14-11-2017 10:37AM

JupiterKid wrote: »

I'm frankly not going to create a 5 or 10 page post here that would outline my main ideas. Instead, I'm working on a report with colleagues detailing an alternative strategy to fast track social housing provision. I don't have to justify myself to you or anyone else for that matter. You can doubt/question my qualifications and expertise all you like but I'm self assured in the knowledge that I know my stuff.

You'll just have to keep guessing. You certainly seem to know all the answers yourself so I certainly can't seem to compete with your largesse.

Frankly I'm done with this thread. I've made my points on the issue very much clear. I won't be justifying my research and policy analysis to boards. It's just not the appropriate forum in any way. I won't deign to get into a protracted argument on this issue but I stand by my assertion that this government is not committed to tacking this housing crisis.

You haven't made any points very clear.

You haven't offered a single viable solution to the problem that works within the constraints of the State's fiscal policy.

Nobody is asking for a 5 to 10 page post, a short list of bullet points would be adequate enough.

my poor tortured hands · 14-11-2017 10:38AM

If 10,000 houses suddenly appeared how would we as a society choose how to allocate them to needy people?

Should we have a lottery?
Would your wealth or savings matter?
Can foreigners apply for these houses?

Solomon himself wouldn't have the wisdom to solve these problems.

Leo Varadkar is very hatefilled and he doesn't seem to care about Irish people at all. He doesn't appear to have any affinty with Ireland or with Irish people. He sees himself as an errand boy for people like Merkel, Macron and Trudeau. Leo will destroy Ireland.

Europe is heading towards war.

Idbatterim · 14-11-2017 10:46AM

An article today in the indo on one of the blatant failures ...

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/paul-melia-how-planning-policies-on-urban-sprawl-are-not-working-36313241.html

blanch152 · 14-11-2017 10:48AM

Idbatterim wrote: »

An article today in the indo on one of the blatant failures ...

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/paul-melia-how-planning-policies-on-urban-sprawl-are-not-working-36313241.html

The issue there is the high-density guidelines of Dublin City Council. That council is a mess dominated by Sinn Fein and independents and has completely failed to do anything about housing and homelessness in the city.

Wheeliebin30 · 14-11-2017 10:52AM

blanch152 wrote: »

The issue there is the high-density guidelines of Dublin City Council. That council is a mess dominated by Sinn Fein and independents and has completely failed to do anything about housing and homelessness in the city.

This.

Sinn fein are only happy to let this continue.

Suits them politically to do nothing even though they have the power.

Thats politics in this country and why these things never get sorted.

Chips Lovell · 14-11-2017 11:07AM

Hi folks,
If you haven't already read the charter, please take the time to do so. In particular:

This forum is for discussion and debate and we will not tolerate soapboxing. If you are here to "shout everyone down" with your opinions, we will see you as a negative contributor to the forum and will take appropriate action. High standards of debate and quality posts / threads are required. Repeated one liner, low quality style posts will result in a ban. Threads (and posts) that are not based on serious and legitimate Political discussion will be deleted without warning.

If you're just looking to rant, you're better off doing it elsewhere.

Idbatterim · 14-11-2017 11:11AM

blanch152 wrote: »

The issue there is the high-density guidelines of Dublin City Council. That council is a mess dominated by Sinn Fein and independents and has completely failed to do anything about housing and homelessness in the city.

they don't do it out self serving reasons. The same way national government haven't sorted the issue out yet. National government should have sorted out this farce a long time ago!!!

blanch152 · 14-11-2017 11:16AM

Idbatterim wrote: »

they don't do it out self serving reasons. The same way national government haven't sorted the issue out yet. National government should have sorted out this farce a long time ago!!!

The separation of powers means that national government cannot interfere in local planning matters.

Look at this:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/city-council-rejects-johnny-ronan-s-dublin-skyscraper-1.3141050

https://www.independent.ie/business/commercial-property/ronan-renews-bid-to-construct-dublins-tallest-building-36197514.html

Even though a previous council approved a development plan for a high-rise building on the site, this one somehow managed to find a reason to block it!!!

Nothing that a national government can do about such incompetent local governance.

FreudianSlippers · 14-11-2017 11:17AM

blanch152 wrote: »

You haven't made any points very clear.

You haven't offered a single viable solution to the problem that works within the constraints of the State's fiscal policy.

Nobody is asking for a 5 to 10 page post, a short list of bullet points would be adequate enough.

The problem is that people are knee-jerk to the left on this issue. The government simply cannot solve homelessness... the housing crisis cannot be solved without (those nasty) developers.

My solution (and I'm using government figures here):
-Government builds 47k homes over 2 years by borrowing / increasing structural debt;
-Government will also need to borrow to deal with infrastructure;
-Private sector incentivised to build mixed-use residential with a minimum percentage to be "affordable" - rather than subsidising the approx 90k people by helping with their rent, it makes more sense to do one or both of the following to get developers to build 10-15% affordable units: (a) tax deductions to developers (b) removing height restrictions in certain areas.

This doesn't damage the market by flooding it with social housing, it promotes new development which is required in all sectors and give an incentive for developers to build affordable housing. I don't think the government is capable of building 90k social houses and I think the rent subsidy is insane and only benefits landlords renting out substandard accommodation at high rents.

El_Duderino 09 · 14-11-2017 11:20AM

JupiterKid wrote: »

But look at his record. As Minister for Health, he slashed the already paltry budget for mental health services, an utterly reprehensible act in my view. Irish mental health services are among the worst in the developed world and need more funding, not less. Look at the suicide rates amongst our young. Also, as a gay man myself I found it a bit disingenious that Varadkar chose to come out shortly before the same sex marriage referendum, which if you may not recall he originally opposed

I don’t think you can hold that against him as minister for health. It’s not like they were having a cabinet meeting and Taoiseach said ‘we need to cut 2 billion spending’ and Leo shot his hand up to volunteer to cut his department.

These cuts are top down. Treasury and Taoiseach tell departments how much to cut. The lucky minister gets to decide what exactly to cut and take all the sh1t for doing the job. Mental health is very important but so is everything else in health. Should they have cut doctors in emergency wards?

The same thing happened with Teresa May when she was Home Secretary. She cut police numbers presumably because she was told to do it. Then she takes the flack as if it was her idea.

I don’t necessarily support either Leo or Teresa. But place the blame where it belongs.

turbbo · 14-11-2017 11:36AM

blanch152 wrote: »

The issue there is the high-density guidelines of Dublin City Council. That council is a mess dominated by Sinn Fein and independents and has completely failed to do anything about housing and homelessness in the city.

One could argue that it's culturally ingrained in most Irish people that they cannot live in apartments in city centres - I think this is because they have historically been built too small.

Whereas most other civilised countries have realised it can be a very rewarding place to live. Less time spent commuting, saving time and money, and they build bigger apartments that accommodate families.
Also their cities have plenty of parks and open spaces that are policed properly and not full of heroin addicts with 100 previous convictions.

jimmycrackcorm · 14-11-2017 01:15PM

JupiterKid wrote:

I hold a PhD in both land use planning and housing policy and I lecture on the subject at third level. I'm also the author of a number of academic papers on the subject so I know a thing or two about housing markets.

If you know a thing or two about it then please cost out how much it would take to build 100k houses at roughly 300k each. Who is paying for it.?

JupiterKid wrote:

But the reality is that since the early 1990s social housing schemes have been replaced by privatising the low cost housing sector, the free market must come first and neo-liberal economic policies are largely to blame for this. And Varadkar is very much a neo-liberal accolyte of Thatcher so nothing will change on the housing front until the current shower in government is removed from power.

It's very blasÃ© to blame neo-liberal accolytes when it's the left that insists that we can't build large scale social housing because it must be inclusive.

Many people who don't consider themselves that way also have an issue with handing out free 300k forever homes when they are struggling to work and pay for theirs.

server down wrote:

People in the private rental sector should be in favour of social housing even from the point of view of their own self interest. Most arenâ€™t.

Social derived renting is competing with private renting, not the other way around.

Red_Wake · 14-11-2017 01:25PM

Any of the lads advocating for social housing want to tackle the issue of social housing tenants owing their councils 65m in arrears?

You'll find the gratitude of parasites doesn't extend to their wallets.

my poor tortured hands · 14-11-2017 01:27PM

We either accept our society and it's different members as they come, warts and all, or we go straight to civil war, without passing Go.

I don't feel the same way about immigrants, especially from outside Europe. They should be told we have no room at present.

JP Liz V1 · 14-11-2017 02:19PM

Leo Varadkar should stay off twitter, he is becoming a muppet like Trump on it, all about media coverage for him, useless Taoiseach

ancapailldorcha · 14-11-2017 02:33PM

No more name calling and off topic posting please.

Mr.Micro · 14-11-2017 02:34PM

Varadkar is no better or worse than any of the other politicians. The problem with Ireland is that it needs to deal with its problems from the Government down through all the various bodies, state or other, tasked to do health, education, housing, law enforcement. Too long we have blamed everyone else and exported all our problems to the UK and the US.

With people staying in Ireland, and indeed people coming to live here, the incompetent authorities do not have a clue. If anything things will get worse until the mind set changes and competent responsible people are employed and elected, instead of what passes for local authorities or competent Government departments. Not good enough. Broken water system, broken An Garda, a broken housing system created by NAMA, a lame duck Government. Varadkar cannot fix all that on his own.

James Brown · 14-11-2017 02:36PM

server down wrote: »

Yes but right wingers don’t get that. Hell I’m moderately right wing myself but I get it. It should be obvious that owning housing stock and getting rent in costs less than paying private rent out.

They get it. It's logical, but you make more money faster when you treat the public as a customer and try gouge them and then when they can't afford your prices, get the tax payer to dig deep. It's a win win for the property industry all round.

Wheeliebin30 wrote: »

So you admit it's a lot more complex than just building social houses and hey presto its solved?

As I said every country has homelessness.

Unfortunately there is no solution to it yet.

How is doing nothing working out? How is 'sure it's bad all over' working out? Stop codding.

Leo has no interest in the homeless situation because there's no money in it. He's no interest in the housing situation as regards social housing, because although there's money in it, not enough, not quick enough and it damages the profits of party backers and any landlord colleagues.

James Brown · 14-11-2017 02:43PM

blanch152 wrote: »

We are not Germany.

We borrow money and break the rules, nobody will lend to us. We won't be able to rollover debt and if we do, we will pay a higher interest rate.

Multinationals won't invest in a country that isn't reliable.

The economy will tank as a result but hey, when we are all homeless, we'll all be the same.

But we'll break the rules, (pending) to aid the multinationals. We'll even have the finance minister act inappropriately some times.

Wheeliebin30 · 14-11-2017 02:47PM

Matt Barrett wrote: »

They get it. It's logical, but you make more money faster when you treat the public as a customer and try gouge them and then when they can't afford your prices, get the tax payer to dig deep. It's a win win for the property industry all round.

How is doing nothing working out? How is 'sure it's bad all over' working out? Stop codding.

Leo has no interest in the homeless situation because there's no money in it. He's no interest in the housing situation as regards social housing, because although there's money in it, not enough, not quick enough and it damages the profits of party backers and any landlord colleagues.

Theres 13 billion in Apple.

Why isnt he pushing for that if it's all about money?

You're spouting rubbish with no evidence to back up any accusations.

James Brown · 14-11-2017 02:49PM

blanch152 wrote: »

The issue there is the high-density guidelines of Dublin City Council. That council is a mess dominated by Sinn Fein and independents and has completely failed to do anything about housing and homelessness in the city.

Wheeliebin30 wrote: »

This.

Sinn fein are only happy to let this continue.

Suits them politically to do nothing even though they have the power.

Thats politics in this country and why these things never get sorted.

Amusing.
There are many reasons created and cause both the housing crises and homelessness. Varadkar's disgraceful comments over the weekend show he is unwilling to accept the problem in it's full gravity. That's a major problem. But sure go on...

James Brown · 14-11-2017 02:55PM

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

The problem is that people are knee-jerk to the left on this issue. The government simply cannot solve homelessness... the housing crisis cannot be solved without (those nasty) developers.

My solution (and I'm using government figures here):
-Government builds 47k homes over 2 years by borrowing / increasing structural debt;
-Government will also need to borrow to deal with infrastructure;
-Private sector incentivised to build mixed-use residential with a minimum percentage to be "affordable" - rather than subsidising the approx 90k people by helping with their rent, it makes more sense to do one or both of the following to get developers to build 10-15% affordable units: (a) tax deductions to developers (b) removing height restrictions in certain areas.

This doesn't damage the market by flooding it with social housing, it promotes new development which is required in all sectors and give an incentive for developers to build affordable housing. I don't think the government is capable of building 90k social houses and I think the rent subsidy is insane and only benefits landlords renting out substandard accommodation at high rents.

Why not damage the market? Are you worried we'll see a drop in tax take should we provide our people with our housing? We've carried the developers and landlords long enough. Let's let the market be. People buy what they can afford, if you can't function in the market as a business, tough, that's the market. Abusing the tax payer to keep the housing market in profit is not preferable to placing tenders to build housing we will own and rent out/sell to those in need. Let's do massive damage to the housing market by letting it sink or swim under it's own steam, like we pretend we do, unless it's banks or multinationals of course.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have their priorities ar** ways.

Wheeliebin30 · 14-11-2017 02:58PM

Matt Barrett wrote: »

Amusing.
There are many reasons created and cause both the housing crises and homelessness. Varadkar's disgraceful comments over the weekend show he is unwilling to accept the problem in it's full gravity. That's a major problem. But sure go on...

Ah stop, a point was put to him that ireland has a high homeless rate.

He spoke the truth in what he said.

He never said its ok just its lower than most European countries.

Of course the usual people jump all over his comments and want blood.

There is no perspective anymore, no matter what he or someone from the government say something its immediately shot down with rants and rabble.

Wheeliebin30 · 14-11-2017 02:59PM

Matt Barrett wrote: »

Why not damage the market? Are you worried we'll see a drop in tax take should we provide our people with our housing? We've carried the developers and landlords long enough. Let's let the market be. People buy what they can afford, if you can't function in the market as a business, tough, that's the market. Abusing the tax payer to keep the housing market in profit is not preferable to placing tenders to build housing we will own and rent out/sell to those in need. Let's do massive damage to the housing market by letting it sink or swim under it's own steam, like we pretend we do, unless it's banks or multinationals of course.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have their priorities ar** ways.

Go on, 100k houses at 250k a pop.

Do the maths, who has to pay for it?

Idbatterim · 14-11-2017 03:02PM

blanch152 wrote: »

The separation of powers means that national government cannot interfere in local planning matters.

Look at this:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/city-council-rejects-johnny-ronan-s-dublin-skyscraper-1.3141050

https://www.independent.ie/business/commercial-property/ronan-renews-bid-to-construct-dublins-tallest-building-36197514.html

Even though a previous council approved a development plan for a high-rise building on the site, this one somehow managed to find a reason to block it!!!

Nothing that a national government can do about such incompetent local governance.

I read the irish times article and it mentioned nothing about separation of powers etc. If there needs to be a referendum, so be it...

What do you advocate? not sorting out problem number 1 i.e. the councils?

Red_Wake · 14-11-2017 03:21PM

Matt Barrett wrote: »

blanch152 wrote: »

The issue there is the high-density guidelines of Dublin City Council. That council is a mess dominated by Sinn Fein and independents and has completely failed to do anything about housing and homelessness in the city.

Wheeliebin30 wrote: »

This.

Sinn fein are only happy to let this continue.

Suits them politically to do nothing even though they have the power.

Thats politics in this country and why these things never get sorted.

Amusing.
There are many reasons created and cause both the housing crises and homelessness. Varadkar's disgraceful comments over the weekend show he is unwilling to accept the problem in it's full gravity. That's a major problem. But sure go on...

DCC, dominated by SF, AAA-PBP, etc have elected to reduce the LPT by the maximum allowed amount for the last few years, despite being informed that this would impact housing services [ of which social housing, your suggested solution, is one].

This has coincided with a rise in homelessness, which is still much less of a problem here than on mainland Europe.

Can you see the link between these two events?

James Brown · 14-11-2017 03:24PM

Red_Wake wrote: »

DCC, dominated by SF, AAA-PBP, etc have elected to reduce the LPT by the maximum allowed amount for the last few years, despite being informed that this would impact housing services [ of which social housing, your suggested solution, is one].

This has coincided with a rise in homelessness, which is still much less of a problem here than on mainland Europe.

Can you see the link between these two events?

By the way, leading up to the most recent crash we'd LC awash with FF and FG, selling off public property in various ill conceived PPP deals. But that's different and not relevant somehow I suppose.

So having Varadkar in government is pointless? It seems you might have a point.
Did I say it's nothing to do with councils? The concern here, for me, is a taoiseach, unwilling to accept we have an issue worth bothering about. He's gone from ignoring it to dismissing it. That's deeply concerning.

Homelessness: The disgrace that is Varadkar and the Government

Comments