Election to be called Fri - predict outcome

Jackie Cahill (FF) not running in Tipp I see, citing medical advice. He was a shoe-in for a seat.

Tipp has been split again for this election into two 3 seaters. He's based in Thurles so presumably would have been running in Tipp North. It doesn't look like FF have anyone selected there yet. it seems he only informed the local party on Sunday so there'll be a bit of a scramble there.

Elsewhere I see that SF have added a female candidate to the ticket for Cork South Central alongside sitting TD Donnacha O' Laoighaire. Strikes me as a bit of gender quota plumping considering that she was a mile off a seat in the locals earlier in the year (she came 11th in a 6 seater and behind another SF candidate).

SF will make housing affordable to a certain cohert alright.

The ones who think the world owes them a living.

Nope.

The last crash was caused by banks crazy mortgage lending rules.

None of that exists anymore.

Your analogy is incorrect.

The Green Party went into government with Fianna Fail in 2007 at the height of the Mahon Tribunal crisis for Bertie Ahern.

Political parties will go into government if the numbers add up. I really hope we don't see this tradition continuing of months of negotiations and other nonsense before a government is formed.

On the balance of probability, I think Coppinger will make it. it was far from a stellar performance in Castleknock in the LEs and she would have been livid Aontú out polled her on 1st prefs.

Chambers, Currie and Donnelly are safe, I think O'Gorman will hold on too. Natalie Treacy is rightly pissed with SF for the locals so I can understand her decision to leave, and while she can pull a decent vote, I don't think she'll get in. If the last seat is between Treacy, Coppinger and Troy, I'd be very surprised if Coppinger doesn't win.

I'm not referring to social housing. I think you know that though. I'm talking about your average teacher, guard, hairdresser taxi driver etc who don't qualify for social housing. New builds are not affordable for the best part for people earning the kind of money like the above.

You can talk about the government delivering over the next term but they have failed miserably to do so up until now. They have allowed wealth funds to come in and buy up whole housing estates during their term. They have failed to make housing affordable during their term. it doesn't matter what they are promising. It's what they have failed to deliver that they should be judged on. Will SF be any better? I don't know. But I'm sick of voting for this lot and their failures.

The SF housing policy doesnt help the nurses and the guards!

Remember that the SF homes are out of reach of average earners. The cut off in income means a couple on average salaries wont qualify for a SF home.

And they can forget about the private market, because the SF policy of building cheaper houses on state owned land will inflate the private market further, as supply there is constricted, in order to focus on building the SF homes.

The only way to bring the cost of private homes down is to increase supply and the govt will do a much better job of that than SF will, in my opinion.

Dont forget the funds are essential to building the homes im the first place. Witbout them, the new homes dont get built.

Building cheaper homes on state land will reduce the premium on private development sites which will in turn reduce house prices.

Serious mental gymnastics to suggest it will push prices up. What is pushing prices up is demand led schemes like shared equity and HTB - I agree only more supply can fix this market, but the status quo is not doing that.

Just look at how many of our 'record' completion numbers go on general sale (shockingly few) - most are bought by AHBs for social housing or REITs for private rentals.

Sinn Fein vote will be split four ways, between Troy, Hanaphy, Treacy and Donnelly. If that goes badly, Donnelly could be in trouble, but there is enough for one seat. For example, if Hanaphy and Treacy transfer well to Troy, she could end up ahead of Donnelly. While that is unlikely, Currie and Chambers don't have the same issues, meaning he is slightly less favoured than them.

property inflation is due to the (in)actions of both the state and other market entities, and this isnt gonna change, as theres not gonna be an alternative government in ireland for a very long time yet….

government decisions are more ideologically based than anything, of course theres elements of incompetence and corruption within those decisions, but its more based on their overall ideologies, the fundamental basis being, as little state involvement in providing societal needs, in particular critical needs such as housing, and to do everything possible to encourage and facilitate market based entities, again, this will never change

I understand that some anecdotal stories don't set the status either way, but the reality is that the health system is sucessfully treating thousands of people every day and we only ever hear about the failures. The notion that our health system is a disaster doesn't reflect the reality.

Last year one third of all units delivered were apartments.

Less than 10% of these apartments were bought by owner occupiers, 40% by AHBs for social and remaining 50%+ by institutional investors.

For houses the institutionals are much lower, but council and AHB are still significant buyers in that market also.

So of 32000 units built last year (2023), more than 10000 (33%) were acquired by AHB/institutional investors.

75% of all units in Dublin were apartments also, and increasing. So good luck buying in Dublin any time soon.

For new build houses, owner occupiers Vs institutional is closer to 60/40 breakdown. So of remaining 22k houses that hit the market, only 14k are there for owner occupiers.

Very poor going when you look at how much the population is growing and pent up demand - only 14k homes to buy nationwide, everyone else can rent at 2k pm!