Key city workers, such as Gardai and nurses, to get 30% of their rent paid by State

BigJackC · 04-02-2016 07:21AM #1

The Government is to introduce an affordable rental scheme for young workers seeking homes in built-up areas where rents continue to rise due to the lack of housing.

The scheme will not be open to those on social housing waiting lists, but is designed for key workers including newly-qualified gardaí, nurses and other workers who would struggle to rent a home.

Some €10m has been set aside for 2016 to fund a pilot project. The measure was agreed at the last Cabinet meeting before the election, and will only apply to developments where at least five units are made available.

Qualifying criteria including income levels will be decided by the Housing Agency.

According to the Private Residential Tenancies Board, the average cost of renting a two-bedroom apartment is €1,240 in Dublin, €901 in Cork and €855 in Galway.

http://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/property-mortgages/city-workers-to-get-30pc-of-their-rent-paid-by-state-34419382.html

Great subsidy for landlords. Any initiative like this should be by way of tax credits rather than providing cash to buyers. This will just increase demand for an already scarce resource and drive rent prices even higher in urban areas. They need to come up with ways to encourage developers to build more housing in the cities, not just subsidise some lads rent.

xband · 04-02-2016 07:30AM

They need to fix the cause of the problem which they won't because the political parties seem to be owned by buy-to-let landlords.

Housing policy here is all written from the perspective of a small time landlord.

I really thought labour would have done more about it and it's one reason why they've probably lost my vote. It's a very serious issue and it's been let fester by FF, FG and Labour.

At the height of the boom back in 2004/5 I remember a similar homelessness crisis and being actually very upset by seeing homless teenagers sleeping rough in central Dublin.

NOTHING has changed and that's across three different administrations too! FF&PD, FF&Green and FG&Labour.

All talk, no action and vested interests setting policies.

Their new pokey apartment policies won't solve the crisis. They'll just reduce people's quality of lives by making them live in small, just as expensive apartments.

They have steadfastly refused to build social housing yet lash millions upon millions into rent supplement.

And on the other side of it they've gone down the route of letting all sorts of "housing agencies" get involved in the provision of social housing, removing democratic oversight and adding extra layers of agencies and charities to the mix.

It's just the usual old nonsense of ensuring that speculators always win.

zl1whqvjs75cdy · 04-02-2016 08:02AM

Great so rents jump by 30 % for the rest of us. Fantastic.

lcwill · 04-02-2016 08:09AM

Why not just pay them better?

04-02-2016 08:15AM

Why not just give them directions to the nearest Luas station and let them figure it out?

The same as all the other young workers who struggle to pay rent but maybe don't have a union or are not in the public sector, so no matter how important their job is it will not be defined as "key".

steddyeddy · 04-02-2016 08:30AM

Define key worker? My mate is a biochemist in a Dublin hospital in a lab working on a skeleton staff. They're the ones who test the bloods. Without them doctors and nurses could not function. He struggles to pay rent. Will he get a 30% discount?

Junkyard Tom · 04-02-2016 08:38AM

Build.
Public.
Fucking.
Housing.

Building public housing employs construction workers so boosts the local real economy, it eases upward pressure on rents and house prices, and it is an indirect subsidy to employers whereby they're under less pressure to increase wages to meet employees rental/mortgage costs.

Too many vested interests not wanting it to happen.

Clonmel1000 · 04-02-2016 08:42AM

Gardai teachers and other young workers. Don't think its exclusive to the public sector but hey a sensational headline or 2 in an attempt to stir up private v public debate never goes amiss I guess.

steddyeddy · 04-02-2016 09:05AM

Clonmel1000 wrote: »

Gardai teachers and other young workers. Don't think its exclusive to the public sector but hey a sensational headline or 2 in an attempt to stir up private v public debate never goes amiss I guess.

Well as long as it's not all public sector.

Liam McPoyle · 04-02-2016 09:07AM

No issue with it for the likes of new guards, they are doing a very tough job and getting paid not much.

Likewise nurses.

However why do teachers and other young professionals need to be closer to work?

There is accommodation available that isn't city centre.

Dublin bus offers services for everywhere in Dublin and the outlying towns, there is also the luas and the dart too.

Are they not able to commute?

Mad how this announcement came on the day a general election was announced too, some coincidence.

xband · 04-02-2016 09:07AM

steddyeddy wrote: »

Define key worker? My mate is a biochemist in a Dublin hospital in a lab working on a skeleton staff. They're the ones who test the bloods. Without them doctors and nurses could not function. He struggles to pay rent. Will he get a 30% discount?

Key workers are those with the most politically influential trade unions.

bmwguy · 04-02-2016 09:12AM

Business Cat wrote: »

No issue with it for the likes of new guards, they are doing a very tough job and getting paid not much.

Likewise nurses.

However why do teachers and other young professionals need to be closer to work?

There is accommodation available that isn't city centre.

Dublin bus offers services for everywhere in Dublin and the outlying towns, there is also the luas and the dart too.

Are they not able to commute?

Mad how this announcement came on the day a general election was announced too, some coincidence.

A garda or a teacher would not want to live right beside work for obvious reasons. They can come in from the suburbs like everyone else.

Liam McPoyle · 04-02-2016 09:35AM

bmwguy wrote: »

A garda or a teacher would not want to live right beside work for obvious reasons. They can come in from the suburbs like everyone else.

Obviously not right beside work however guards and nurses work shifts that regularly change, it would make sense for them to be living closer to work due to the unsociable hours they have to do, teachers should not get any special treatment though, the other benefits are more than enough to compensate.

BattleCorp · 04-02-2016 09:59AM

Why are guards or nurses any better than the rest of us? Why do they deserve special attention?

They have jobs and earn money. Let them paddle their own canoe like the rest of us.

To be honest, I didn't realise how low the starting salary is for a newly qualified Garda. That's fcuking brutal for the job that they do, but still, there are more than just newly qualified Gardai on sh1t wages.

By the way, I think this is a bullsh1t story. I don't think there is a snowballs chance in hell that this will get off the ground.

Permabear · 04-02-2016 10:30AM

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Menas · 04-02-2016 10:34AM

No doubt there are a good few pencil pushers in the civil service whose unions will argue that they are 'key' and go on strike to prove it.

Hopefully the election will bring in a government who will try to solve the housing crisis rather than band aid it. I am not too hopeful though.

Menas · 04-02-2016 10:34AM

No doubt there are a good few pencil pushers in the civil service whose unions will argue that they are 'key' and go on strike to prove it.

Hopefully the election will bring in a government who will try to solve the housing crisis rather than band aid it. I am not too hopeful though.

steddyeddy · 04-02-2016 10:34AM

xband wrote: »

Key workers are those with the most politically influential trade unions.

I agree completely. I used to test bloods as well. You'd think that was valued by society but no the baggage handlers in Dublin airport have a better union and therefore more valued.

BattleCorp · 04-02-2016 10:47AM

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Apologies, reference removed.

There's a reasonable rationale for having emergency response personnel such as Guards, nurses, firefighters, etc., living close to their jobs. What if a terrorist attack happened in Dublin at 11 pm on a Friday night, for instance, as recently happened in Paris? You don't want all the Guards and nurses off in Kildare and Meath. Living close to their workplaces allows them to respond more quickly in an emergency situation.

That works both ways. If all the Gardai are in Dublin, then what happens if there is an emergency in Kildare or Meath, or what hapens to the level of rural crime etc.?

I don't believe we should be funding certain professions to enable them to live in the city. That's heading down a very slippery slope.

That said, the timing of this announcement to coincide with the General Election does scream "housing subsidy for the public sector," which is a slap in the face to the many young workers struggling to get by on far lower private-sector wages.

I totally agree with you here. Everything and anything will be promised in the next few weeks.

Sleepy · 04-02-2016 10:49AM

Having done some work with HR departments in London, I'm surprised it's taken this long for some sort of "Dublin weighting" to be seen over here tbh.

Contrast the type of house you can buy in Dublin on a teacher's salary with they type of lifestyle that same salary could provide in Mayo for doing precisely the same work. It's always struck me as rather unfair that a public sector worker in Castlebar can buy a large detached 5 bedroom home whilst their equivalent in Dublin will struggle to afford a 3 bed terrace in a ropey neighbourhood.

Private sector salaries take this into account: an employee of a company in Dublin will earn 10/20% more than they'd get for the same role in Galway and perhaps 20/30% higher than they'd get in Tralee.

Sleepy · 04-02-2016 10:49AM

Having done some work with HR departments in London, I'm surprised it's taken this long for some sort of "Dublin weighting" to be seen over here tbh.

Contrast the type of house you can buy in Dublin on a teacher's salary with they type of lifestyle that same salary could provide in Mayo for doing precisely the same work. It's always struck me as rather unfair that a public sector worker in Castlebar can buy a large detached 5 bedroom home whilst their equivalent in Dublin will struggle to afford a 3 bed terrace in a ropey neighbourhood.

Private sector salaries take this into account: an employee of a company in Dublin will earn 10/20% more than they'd get for the same role in Galway and perhaps 20/30% higher than they'd get in Tralee.

Guy:Incognito · 04-02-2016 10:50AM

xband wrote: »

They need to fix the cause of the problem which they won't because the political parties seem to be owned by buy-to-let landlords.

These opinions seem to shift to suit a topic. There are numerous groups that apparently all control parties for their own interests.

The most promineny being "the government is under the thimb of publicans"

Every group cant be running the country, so maybe its just that everyone has lobby groups and gets concessions with enough lobbying.

Permabear · 04-02-2016 10:59AM

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BattleCorp · 04-02-2016 11:01AM

Sleepy wrote: »

Having done some work with HR departments in London, I'm surprised it's taken this long for some sort of "Dublin weighting" to be seen over here tbh.

It won't be seen. This idea is pie-in-the-sky election crap. I

Contrast the type of house you can buy in Dublin on a teacher's salary with they type of lifestyle that same salary could provide in Mayo for doing precisely the same work. It's always struck me as rather unfair that a public sector worker in Castlebar can buy a large detached 5 bedroom home whilst their equivalent in Dublin will struggle to afford a 3 bed terrace in a ropey neighbourhood.

I'm not trying to be smart but if you can't pay Dublin prices, then go somewhere else. That's how things work. If I want something and I can't afford it, then tough.

Private sector salaries take this into account: an employee of a company in Dublin will earn 10/20% more than they'd get for the same role in Galway and perhaps 20/30% higher than they'd get in Tralee.

So, nobody in Dublin on minimum wage then eh?

Dyr · 04-02-2016 11:03AM

Public Housing.

Build it.

It's that simple.

The landlord parties will never do it though

BattleCorp · 04-02-2016 11:04AM

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Personally I wouldn't make any exceptions for anybody.

And realistically, all that would happen is that rents would be increased by 30%.

Riskymove · 04-02-2016 11:06AM

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I think this slant to the proposal is wrong tbh

While the idea might be to help key workers live in the city there is no way it will be limited to a few public sector professions. Society simply won't stand for that in a public scheme.

If the Government wanted to just limit it to certain public sector workers they could implement it through allowances for Guards/Nurses or a "Dublin payment" etc.

It will be based mainly on income in my opinion.

ted1 · 04-02-2016 11:08AM

Will they pay my mortgage too? It's about the same as rent

Sleepy · 04-02-2016 11:14AM

BattleCorp wrote: »

It won't be seen. This idea is pie-in-the-sky election crap.

Quite likely

I'm not trying to be smart but if you can't pay Dublin prices, then go somewhere else. That's how things work. If I want something and I can't afford it, then tough.

That's how it works in the private sector. And the result is that private sector wages are higher in Dublin than other parts of the country: because the cost-of-living is higher, you have to pay more in order to attract talent.

The end result of the growing disparity between property prices in Dublin and the rest of the country could be that public sector workers can't afford to take up positions in Dublin or that they'll be commuting well over an hour each way to get to their places of employment. That's not exactly conducive to maintaining a highly skilled staff. Either that, or their wages will have to be increased to match the high cost of living in Dublin resulting in their rural colleagues becoming (even more?) massively over-paid.

So, nobody in Dublin on minimum wage then eh?

Very few people working in Dublin are tbh.

TheDoc · 04-02-2016 11:14AM

Business Cat wrote: »

No issue with it for the likes of new guards, they are doing a very tough job and getting paid not much.

Likewise nurses.

However why do teachers and other young professionals need to be closer to work?

There is accommodation available that isn't city centre.

Dublin bus offers services for everywhere in Dublin and the outlying towns, there is also the luas and the dart too.

Are they not able to commute?

Mad how this announcement came on the day a general election was announced too, some coincidence.

Heard about this on the radio this morning. Doesn't appear to be clear if its specifically talking about city centre.

I live in the Fingal area, where rents are just as high as the city centre in parts.

Sounds like something to bring large public sectors onside ahead of the GE, who in large swathes seem to be properly pissed off with the current government, especially labor.

Cynic in me cant help think its a deal with Union reps to secure their support in the GE.

I'll be nothing short of fuming to see this actually pass through. Pay them more, into their salaries, if there is a fear that key infrastructural staff cannot afford housing in Dublin.

Don't give them renting subsidies, as it just alienates the thousands of other cases, situations like me with a single income young family, breaking my back every month to just get onto the next one. And it just says I'm not important enough to bother trying to help.

KomradeBishop · 04-02-2016 11:35AM

Notice the attempt to distract and pin this on the unions - when it's landowners wanting to keep property prices up, landlords, and many among the financial industry benefiting from the current state of the property market, who will have been the ones lobbying for this.

Key city workers, such as Gardai and nurses, to get 30% of their rent paid by State

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