Middle class people deciding to go on the dole ?

Paul_Hacket wrote: »

The main problem for the middle class in Dublin is simply that too many people are trying to work in too small an area. What the f does that have to do with people being on the dole?

There isn't enough housing in greater Dublin and we lack an adequate transport infrastructure to bring people from surrounding counties where housing is reasonably affordable into the city. There are only three possible solutions to this:

• Increase the density of housing in Dublin city. This would require compulsory purchase orders on low rise parts of the inner city. Would also require the planning laws to be changed to allow high rise apartment buildings in the city centre. No government has had the balls to do either of these.
  
• Build a proper grown-up transport system e.g. an actual subway for city proper and light rail network reaching out into the surrounding counties. This should have been done long ago but is again something the parties don't seem to have the nerve to do as it is expensive in the short term and would also require compulsory purchase orders in order to build it out.
  
• Massively decentralize both private and public employment. This has been tried using various carrot and stick approaches, both with the civil service and with grants etc. to private industry to encourage relocation to other parts of the country. It largely hasn't worked, or hasn't worked to a sufficient degree. Of all possible solutions it is the least likely to succeed as it requires both individuals and companies to co-operate, something that is almost impossible to force them to do.

The logical solution is to expand the city outwards and upwards, build better transport links (not just another Luas branch line or other half arsed childish nonsense) and then do all of the things that other cities do to reduce congestion in city centers (e.g. congestion charges, having a subway for internal movement, etc.).

All of this is expensive. All of it requires a certain amount of short-term sacrifice both by the tax payer and by people who will be affected by construction etc. Certain areas would basically have to be bulldozed in order to do it - the sort of thing that cities like Paris and New York went through in the 19th and 20th centuries in order to modernize.

The problem is that with planning and infrastructure projects like this we only seem to think in the short term and are massively unambitious. We could have built a subway during the boom but nobody had the balls or foresight to push it through. I don't know if anyone else here has noticed but we live in a ridiculously wet climate. Having people standing around at bus stops and Luas stops is moronic. Dart stations aren't much better. Hence everyone wants to sit in their car to get to their job.

The commuter situation in Dublin is simply down to a childish refusal on the part of populace to support these measures and cowardice on the part of various governments to push them through. We're just reaping what we've sown.

Trying to blame people on the dole (!) for the craptastic situation of middle class commuters in Dublin who are squeezed between ridiculously high housing costs versus insane commuter journeys is a perfect example of scapegoating. If the dole and housing allowances were eradicated tomorrow it would do zilch to solve this problem.

machaseh wrote: »

Xenophobic much?

I pay taxes in this country and I am a legal resident. Not everyone can just pack up and leave their job from one day to the other, there is also such a thing as a CV that you want to look nice. Job hopping every six months or every year does not make for a proper CV.

I have been taught that 2-3 years is a proper time for one role. Now, my last job (also dublin by the way) I stayed for only 1,5 year because it was an absolute sh1te callcenter role and I got a MUCH better paying and more interesting role elsewhere in Dubln. But I wouldnt make it a habit of job hopping every 1,5 years. So given that, I am stuck here for at least 1-2 more years.

Always Tired wrote: »

Unsurprisingly, many people in this thread seem to be unaware that if one person in a couple is working full time the other person may not get the dole or will get a very reduced rate.

Check the citizens information website, it's all there. I once shared 2 different houses during the recession with same female housemate, we had been college friends. I remember the dole office questioning me about were we a couple and when I asked why they said that if we were it would affect my payment, even though she only worked part time in Aldi. I guess as they weren't stuck having to houseshare for years on end due to the recession they couldn't grasp how hard it was to find housemates you got on with and so would rather stay with a sound one rather than risk a nightmare one (plus our deposits were paid together and lease up the same time)

Even despite them accepting that we werent a couple, they still denied me fuel allowance on the basis that there was someone in the household working (again, part time at Aldi, not exactly making a mint). They also denied me rent allowance saying my rent was too high. It was actually average but they had recently changed the rules to make the threshold very low, so people would either not qualify or would have to get their landlord to say it was lower so they could qualify and make up the difference themselves.

And this is why all the sweaty, moronic blowhards who come on here to dole bash will NEVER do as the OP suggests. Because the land of free everything isn't really there, it's a lot harder to qualify for stuff than you think, especially if you don't have kids and especially when you are recently unemployed.

You have to be on the council housing list, which means being assessed as having a housing need (ie: nowhere to go, no family with a room) just to get rent allowance. HAP, good luck finding a landlord that will take it.

You have to be a year on the dole to get fuel allowance. And you need to be on it a year to get the Christmas bonus as well.

But don't let facts get in the way of the narrative that everything is given for free to people who dont work, so 'we should all pack in our jobs, herp derp'.

Big Gerry wrote: »

The unemployment figures are fantasy.

The welfare budget is higher now than it was at the peek of the crash.

Big Gerry wrote: »

We have one of the highest levels of jobless households in the Europe.


The unemployment figures are a complete joke.



https://www.thejournal.ie/jobless-households-3832381-Feb2018/

super_furry wrote: »

No. People don't do that because it's a **** life.

You seriously seem to have a complete lack of understanding of the housing system if you think you can just rock up, hand the keys back on your mortgaged home and ask for a council house.

hurler32 wrote: »

The biggest issue with the welfare bill is there are 70,000 travellers drawing off it with none or bordering on none working or ever worked . With families of 7-8 Children each the payments including housing their disposable income is well in excess of what middle income working familys have left after they pay a mortgage. This group of people is growing far more rapidly due to the large family's so they make up a very large percentage of the unemployment numbers but the PC brigade will ensure this is never spoken about .

Big Gerry wrote: »

You sound like a government spokesperson.


Only a fool would take official unemployment figures at face value.

machaseh wrote: »

I dont get why Irish parents allow their offspring to stay at home until the age of 30 or even beyond? This is really bad form where I come from (the Netherlands).

You can stay at home while you study, as the rent for a room in the city is often expensive (even so many prefer to go live on their own to live the student life). And maybe even when you are just starting to work until you can afford a mortgage. But sitting at home all day and doing nothing, or perhaps only a part time job is going to be a reason for most parents to kick you out eventually.

I saw this with a lot of my former coworkers too, due to a redundancy (which luckily happened after I left) about 100 or so people all lost their jobs. Many of the Irish people in this job just sat at home on the dole for over half a year. This would not be acceptable to parents in my country for the most part (although there are of course always exceptions).

What the Irish often seem to lack is a sense of discipline.

machaseh wrote: »

That crisis was not a problem only in Ireland, but in most of the developed world, yes even in the Netherlands.

Yet we didnt see people staying at home until their 30s in my country, while this is very common in Ireland even to this day.

As for Europeans taking up housing space in Dublin; I have said before that I honestly would not mind to live in say Gorey or Wicklow Town or Arklow or the like. But the sh1te public transportation in this country makes this physically impossible for me to do.