Our major issue as a country

06-05-2018 09:20PM

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

The housing crisis could be solved tomorrow if they wanted. Relax building standards, remove VAT and other costs associated with building, tax vacant land and restore tax relief for renters. Not a chance this will happen, the left want to tax everything even more and the right are more than happy with the status quo.

Eh, no. And you don't need to be Nostradamus to see how ineffably myopic that would be.

There's a very straightforward way to sort much of the housing problem out: the state gets back to a job it has had since the Great Depression in the 1930s: building affordable homes for people on lower/no incomes. In the 1930s alone Éamon de Valera's Fianna Fáil government built 132,000 social houses as part of its promise to tackle poverty in Ireland. Next time the usual drones criticise Dev, ask them what they and their preferred liberal/rightwing government has done to solve the housing problem. Zero.

A much, much richer Irish state today refuses to carry on that honourable tradition - instead preferring to pay hundreds of millions to private business people for providing a whole range of poor-quality, insecure, overpriced temporary accommodation rather than putting the money into building permanent homes. In 2018 the dominance of a rightwing economic ideology is the problem here. It's a lot harder to see today's fundamentalist ideology and abuse of power than it is to see the same in 1950s Ireland.

Try_harder · 06-05-2018 09:20PM

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

We need a broad range of housing including smaller, profitable to build apartments. I spent 10 years with the wife in a 40sq m. place and it was absolutely fine, I just didn't keep a load of ****e around the place. I'm now in a 100sq m Semi and it feels like a palace. People need to get out of the mind set that they need 200sqm for a family home, and that families can't be raised in, decent sized, apartments in urban locations.

Oh we need a range of houses, I don't disagree but not lower the standard of build

ouxbbkqtswdfaw · 06-05-2018 09:23PM

I agree with relaxing building standards. The problem in the past was not standards, but enforcement. The costs now associated with building standards are enormous. Same with health and safety, costs a fortune before a brick is laid.

runawaybishop · 06-05-2018 09:23PM

Dr_serious2 wrote: »

, we are focusing on gender neutral toilets, identity politics and political correctness, copying the Americans as usual.

Huh? Some universities talking ****e about toilets has nothing to do with the current housing issues.

Specifically what has the government to do with gender neutral toilets and how is that contributing to the housing shortage?

Dr_serious2 · 06-05-2018 09:23PM

riffmongous wrote: »

Yeah like remember when all those leftists took over the Apollo House demanding more gender neutral toilets! Oh wait no, they were highlighting homelessness. And I wonder what Boards' resident right wing types had to same about it back then? I'm sure they were 100% behind them, because it's not like the right wingers only ever use homelessness to bash left wing groups or immigrants, they really do care about it don't they

I do care actually that people are paying outrageous money for substandard accommodation. Some of these people will end up homeless, although the overwhelming majority will end up commuting eighty miles or decimating their incomes and savings to live in Dublin to work in a job that they studied for years to obtain.

The Socialists are a lost cause but the Labour party should remember their roots. If they want to retake the working class vote they should work to solve the accommodation problem facing the working classes - but instead they concentrate left wing cultural issues that no-one over the age of 23 gives a sh*t about.

looksee · 06-05-2018 09:23PM

While 'reducing building standards' isn't an answer, it is true that the staggering amount of new rules and regulations and number of supervising people you need to build a house now has increased the cost of a new build completely out of proportion to the purchase price of an old house.

Samuel T. Cogley · 06-05-2018 09:23PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Eh, no. And you don't need to be Nostradamus to see how ineffably myopic that would be.

There's a very straightforward way to sort much of the housing problem out: the state gets back to a job it has had since the Great Depression in the 1930s: building affordable homes for people on lower/no incomes. In the 1930s alone Éamon de Valera's Fianna Fáil government built 132,000 social houses as part of its promise to tackle poverty in Ireland. Next time the usual drones criticise Dev, ask them what they and their preferred liberal/rightwing government has done to solve the housing problem. Zero.

A much, much richer Irish state today refuses to carry on that honourable tradition - instead preferring to pay hundreds of millions to private business people for providing a whole range of poor-quality, insecure, overpriced temporary accommodation rather than putting the money into building permanent homes. In 2018 the dominance of a rightwing economic ideology is the problem here. It's a lot harder to see today's fundamentalist ideology and abuse of power than it is to see the same in 1950s Ireland.

There is no point in ghettoising the poor into large estates. That's proved to be useless over and over again. Social housing needs to be evenly a thinly spread.

runawaybishop · 06-05-2018 09:25PM

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

The housing crisis could be solved tomorrow if they wanted. Relax building standards, remove VAT and other costs associated with building, tax vacant land and restore tax relief for renters. Not a chance this will happen, the left want to tax everything even more and the right are more than happy with the status quo.

Building standards shouldn't be relaxed, but I assume you mean stupid planning requirements, which should be seriously looked at.

timzil · 06-05-2018 09:25PM

Bredabe wrote: »

Inability to think critically and independently, issues around spelling and most worryingly numeracy.

Bullying and lack of compassion, bullyingly to make each of us the same as the other, compassion as it requires ppl to think outside of themselves and that has not been that I can see, been taught to children since before the boom.

Acceptance of bad behaviour, cute who*e syndrome and begrudgery, lack of acceptance of ppl or situations that are different.

Thinking critically and independently is exactly what i am doing. Immigration driving up the demand for property is quite clearly the elephant in the room when it comes to the housing crisis. Anyone with the most basic understanding of economics knows this but nobody can quite bring themselves to say it.

Samuel T. Cogley · 06-05-2018 09:26PM

looksee wrote: »

While 'reducing building standards' isn't an answer, it is true that the staggering amount of new rules and regulations and number of supervising people you need to build a house now has increased the cost of a new build completely out of proportion to the purchase price of an old house.

Add to this the rules around apartments, dual aspect, X per floor making it expensive to build. Wasn't one estimate 250K for a one bed?

New build houses are shockingly expensive IMHO even in places like Meath and Swords.

runawaybishop · 06-05-2018 09:27PM

timzil wrote: »

Thinking critically and independently is exactly what i am doing. Immigration driving up the demand for property is quite clearly the elephant in the room when it comes to the housing crisis. Anyone with the most basic understanding of economics knows this but nobody can quite bring themselves to say it.

Probably because that's not the main cause.

Samuel T. Cogley · 06-05-2018 09:28PM

timzil wrote: »

Thinking critically and independently is exactly what i am doing. Immigration driving up the demand for property is quite clearly the elephant in the room when it comes to the housing crisis. Anyone with the most basic understanding of economics knows this but nobody can quite bring themselves to say it.

When you're ready to take a job in McDonalds or speak Italian in a call centre we can talk about immigration. Typically people immigrating into Ireland are productive and more than paying their way.

Dr_serious2 · 06-05-2018 09:30PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Eh, no. And you don't need to be Nostradamus to see how ineffably myopic that would be.

There's a very straightforward way to sort much of the housing problem out: the state gets back to a job it has had since the Great Depression in the 1930s: building affordable homes for people on lower/no incomes. In the 1930s alone Éamon de Valera's Fianna Fáil government built 132,000 social houses as part of its promise to tackle poverty in Ireland. Next time the usual drones criticise Dev, ask them what they and their preferred liberal/rightwing government has done to solve the housing problem. Zero.

A much, much richer Irish state today refuses to carry on that honourable tradition - instead preferring to pay hundreds of millions to private business people for providing a whole range of poor-quality, insecure, overpriced temporary accommodation rather than putting the money into building permanent homes. In 2018 the dominance of a rightwing economic ideology is the problem here. It's a lot harder to see today's fundamentalist ideology and abuse of power than it is to see the same in 1950s Ireland.

Interesting post. FF did indeed do a good job in the 1930s but I fear this would be far more difficult today. NIMBYism would ensure that any project on a large scale was held up for years. Further to this, objections, appeals and building/safety regulations unheard of in the 1930s would ensure that the project was far less efficient and successful than it was in the past.

A root and branch reform of how we build is necessary but unlike to happen as the left hate property developers and FG and FF are too spineless to say anything that might lead to a negative hashtag on twitter.

timzil · 06-05-2018 09:33PM

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

When you're ready to take a job in McDonalds or speak Italian in a call centre we can talk about immigration. Typically people immigrating into Ireland are productive and more than paying their way.

That completes misses my point. It gas nothing to do with racism or where these people are from. If every immigrant in ireland was named john o neill from boston or mike kelly from liverpool these people would still be increasing the demand for property. Cleary you dont understand exonomics or supply and demand

runawaybishop · 06-05-2018 09:34PM

timzil wrote: »

That completes misses my point. It gas nothing to do with racism or where these people are from. If every immigrant in ireland was named john o neill from boston or mike kelly from liverpool these people would still be increasing the demand for property. Cleary you dont understand exonomics or supply and demand

Clearly you are taking through your hoop. We haven't built any houses for a decade, that's why we have a shortage of house. Not because Mick and Paddy are back from Australia.

amcalester · 06-05-2018 09:36PM

timzil wrote: »

That completes misses my point. It gas nothing to do with racism or where these people are from. If every immigrant in ireland was named john o neill from boston or mike kelly from liverpool these people would still be increasing the demand for property. Cleary you dont understand exonomics or supply and demand

But without those jobs that the immigrants work in (that Irish people can’t/won’t) there would be no demand.

No jobs = no immigrants = no demand and so on.

Metric Tensor · 06-05-2018 09:37PM

WRT build costs:

The new TGD L (which governs insulation, renewable energy, etc.) will be gradually introduced from April 2019 to mid 2020. It's going to add a nice little extra bit onto the build cost of each unit.

It will make them cheaper to run though.

06-05-2018 09:37PM

runawaybishop wrote: »

Huh? Some universities talking ****e about toilets has nothing to do with the current housing issues.

Specifically what has the government to do with gender neutral toilets and how is that contributing to the housing shortage?

He's clearly lamenting the priorities and the cynicism of our morally superior self-declared "liberals" who prat on about all sorts of right-on marginal interest shít because economically it costs them nothing and they get that "righteousness" feeling from feigning passion about some chimera of a "cause". Meanwhile, society's serious problems such as entire families living in homeless shelters are firmly given the bodhaire Uí Laoire.

Samuel T. Cogley · 06-05-2018 09:37PM

timzil wrote: »

That completes misses my point. It gas nothing to do with racism or where these people are from. If every immigrant in ireland was named john o neill from boston or mike kelly from liverpool these people would still be increasing the demand for property. Cleary you dont understand exonomics or supply and demand

It doesn't matter where they're from. I'm more than happy to see people from Mayo rather than Mumbai coming to take X job but they won't. And further more it doesn't matter a person from Mayo still needs a home. I know exactly how supply and demand works and until we have a large cohort of people who say, do ya know what I'm not gonna claim the dole or go to University I'm going to flip burgers, you're going to have immigration.

On top of that we have jobs at the high end we can't keep Irish people in so we need to import those skills. This is the same stupid argument I hear about Brexit - british jobs for british people, yeah great Paul you've just created hundreds of casual farm hand jobs and got rid of IT jobs.

Immigration is generally a good thing for an economy not a bad thing. It's a bad thing for someone who can't, with all the advantages an Irish person gets, equip themselves with marketable skills.

timzil · 06-05-2018 09:44PM

runawaybishop wrote: »

Clearly you are taking through your hoop. We haven't built any houses for a decade, that's why we have a shortage of house. Not because Mick and Paddy are back from Australia.

I complet agree that not building housing is part of the problem(supply). But also an increase in demand(immigrants) has been a cause of the crisis. Will you at least admit that.

Samuel T. Cogley · 06-05-2018 09:46PM

timzil wrote: »

I complet agree that not building housing is part of the problem(supply). But also an increase in demand(immigrants) has been a cause of the crisis. Will you at least admit that.

Increase in demand comes from anything that increases population. The population increases (through immigration) because there are jobs. Of course immigration increases demand; but I know I'd rather live next to when it comes to the choice between the Asian family down the road which work in the local retail stores or the pikeys in the cul-de-sac.

dxhound2005 · 06-05-2018 09:47PM

runawaybishop wrote: »

Clearly you are taking through your hoop. We haven't built any houses for a decade, that's why we have a shortage of house. Not because Mick and Paddy are back from Australia.

We built plenty before that.

the total number of houses and apartments completed in 2007 was 78,027, down from 93,419 in 2006.

There are 200,000 vacant units in the country, more than enough to house everyone.

Samuel T. Cogley · 06-05-2018 09:50PM

I'll stick my own right wing agenda on the table as I'm having a go at Timzil. It's about time we started relocating people out of Dublin who clearly have no hope/will to find employment.

amcalester · 06-05-2018 09:52PM

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

I'll stick my own right wing agenda on the table as I'm having a go at Timzil. It's about time we started relocating people out of Dublin who clearly have no hope/will to find employment.

I hear Leitrim is lovely.

Samuel T. Cogley · 06-05-2018 09:53PM

amcalester wrote: »

I hear Leitrim is lovely.

Plenty of room for the horses :pac:

Mountainsandh · 06-05-2018 09:56PM

I clicked on the thread as I genuinely thought it was going to be about the weather

Get Real · 06-05-2018 09:57PM

I'm not asking for a free house. I'd gladly pay for one. I'm on the average industrial wage and can't afford one. In 1990 for example a house in dublin cost on average 74000 euro in today's money.

Average wage was about 15000 euro. Just over 5 years salary. Anyone that had a semi decent, permanent job could buy a house if they went about it.

A job such as a bus driver or postman or factory worker. You could buy a house. Alot of people could, single earners with a partner and children.

Nowadays, a single earner cannot buy a house alone. Not the majority anyway. I looked up houses for sale in dublin for less than 200k on daft.ie. less than 25 results. Imagine the competition among 100s of potential buyers.

I am in a full time job, save a chunk aside. Yet I have no assets, feel like a child, feel that I am missing something.

Am I doing it wrong? My dad actually had a very similar job. A wife and two dependants and could afford a house. I am in the same role now. I have no dependents. I save half my pay cheque per week. I rarely go out. Why can't I buy a home?

Don't give me a free home. I don't want one, I'll pay for it. How is it a loss to the state if they built some and sold them on at cost price or even added in a small profit?
I want a space I can live in, at a reasonable price that a bank will actually lend to me. Not a pile of bricks and mortar that holds value in a speculative market/that suits someone to sell on for profit.

An actual physical dwelling that I don't want to treat as a financial investment toy. Just somewhere I can be an adult.

It's as if alot of my generation are frozen at a certain age. And can't progress. (And btw I detest these new social media influencing, avocado eating etc etc etc types) I'm just an average Joe in a blue collar job, working.

ouxbbkqtswdfaw · 06-05-2018 09:57PM

The biggest problem is not building houses, but the cost of them, unaffordable to most people. We have to reduce costs, less regulation and especially less standards not more. Enforce standards. Also diminish the power of the monolithic health and safety, which adds a fortune to the cost of building. Of course, none of this will ever happen.

Samuel T. Cogley · 06-05-2018 10:01PM

Get Real wrote: »

I'm not asking for a free house. I'd gladly pay for one. I'm on the average industrial wage and can't afford one. In 1990 for example a house in dublin cost on average 74000 euro in today's money.

Average wage was about 15000 euro. Just over 5 years salary. Anyone that had a semi decent, permanent job could buy a house if they went about it.

A job such as a bus driver or postman or factory worker. You could buy a house. Alot of people could, single earners with a partner and children.

Nowadays, a single earner cannot buy a house alone. Not the majority anyway. I looked up houses for sale in dublin for less than 200k on daft.ie. less than 25 results. Imagine the competition among 100s of potential buyers.

I am in a full time job, save a chunk aside. Yet I have no assets, feel like a child, feel that I am missing something.

Am I doing it wrong? My dad actually had a very similar job. A wife and two dependants and could afford a house. I am in the same role now. I have no dependents. I save half my pay cheque per week. I rarely go out. Why can't I buy a home?

Don't give me a free home. I don't want one, I'll pay for it. How is it a loss to the state I'd they built some and sold them on at coat price or even added in a small profit?
I want a space I can live in, at a reasonable price that a bank will actually lend to me. Not a pile of bricks and mortar that holds value in a speculative market/that suits someone to sell on for profit.

An actual physical dwelling that I don't want to treat as a financial investment toy. Just somewhere I can be an adult.

It's as if alot of my generation are frozen at a certain age. And can't progress. (And btw I detest these new social media influencing, avocado eating etc etc etc types) I'm just an average Joe in a blue collar job, working.

If you're single and looking for a place in a capital city you generally buy an apartment. If you're a working class chap, same as me, you buy in a working class area. Now because of stupid building regulations around apartments you're going to struggle to even do that but a two bed apartment in a reasonable area should be within your reach when you're in permeant employment - I agree there.

agoodusername · 06-05-2018 10:06PM

This issue will only be solved when developers start building in serious quantities.
Also lets face the fact that in the city centres the new buildings need to get taller.

Our major issue as a country

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