Ireland has the highest proportion of under occupied dwellings in the EU.

If you own it, as in truly own it and don’t have years of mortgage repayments to go *AND* you have an income stream that is entirely decoupled from the performance of the economy as a whole then by all means support the status quo.

However, if you depend on the economy functioning in order to support yourself long term then it is not in your interest for Dublin to grind to a halt. And it will.

Ah yes- penalise the widows

Grand so.

But - seriously, part of the problem is that downsizing is just not as easy as it seems. I looked at a 2 bed flat. Management fees of 3k a year. Once a house is fixed properly, barring some serious issue you don't have that much in expenses per year with a house on top of the bills. And, if some serious issue occurs in a block, I guarantee the "sinking fund" won't cover it. Also, come next recession people just dont pay those fees abd rubbish stops being collected etc.

"while those who need that space commute for 2 hours each way a day."

We live in a democracy. If I want to live in a 4 bed house which I bought and paid for, that is my right. I enjoy where I live, my community, neighbours, the proximity I have to what I enjoy.

The idea that I should be encouraged to move to facilitate those who "need" it is beyond ridiculous- how can you guarantee a family of 5 buys it? The only way to do that is to enact a law, otherwise another "single" buys it. Am I to be penalised for being single, hardworking and willingto sacrifice to get the location and space I want?

Look, I agree there's been loads of poor planning- and there are surely folks who'd downsize if they could stay local. But lots of older folk don't want to leave their street never mind go "to the country". These suggestions are impractical. Friend's mam is widowed in a 5 bed. Originally from "the country". All kids did well - no boomerang kids. Should she go back to "the country" after 40 years on her road knowing all the neighbours? Not going to happen!

It's a well established principle of good planning to develop a housing mix that allows people to upside and downsize as their needs change without moving area.

So since we now have a lot of old people in suburbs filled with low density family houses, a possible solution is to build apartments in those suburbs.

But then you get the likes of Varadkar interfering in the planning process to stop this happening.

pwurple wrote: »

seasidedub wrote: »

My house of 132 square metres is not under occupied. If I want to have a naked room in it or turn a room into a walk in handbag closet or knock 3 rooms together and make a ginornmous bathroom - my business. I own it and all this crap about occupancy is insane.

If you own it - up to u to stay/go etc.
If you're in welfare you should get basic.

Jeez, we get it, you’re loaded. :rolleyes:

I love how even a conversation about house ownership here is such an emotional topic, people can’t even begin to be logical, discuss a few facts, without immediately resorting to terms like “all this crap” and “insane”.


People bleat on about a homeless problem, but give no thought whatsoever to how our society has almost forced it to exist, through our model of hallowed ownership and the ensuing disrespect for both tenants (seen as “less than”, and certainly not to be aspired to), and landlords (evil, greedy and any other pejorative to hand).

There is a ridiculous lack of support for the existence of a decent functional, multifaceted rental sector here.


It’s surely next on the list for the maturity of this country. When we managed to accept women having extra marital sex, divorce , lgbt rights... the living structure where we can rent where we want, when we want, and change that as our lifetime needs change if we want, or stay put if we want... well, it might be along sometime in the next few decades. You know. Freedom to choose. The understanding that not everyone lives the same life.


And as for booting elderly people out to the country. That seems completely backwards. Uproot people when they need a sense of community and knowledge of their surroundings most? It’s young people who want to move around.

I am not loaded. I worked in 5, yes 5 different countries to afford my house. I've never driven anything more expensive than a polo/micra.

What I did not do was bring kids I could not afford into the world and expect the taxpayer to fund my lifestyle, preferably in the area I grew up in close to mammy.

I actually want a social welfare system, a good health and education system and am satisfied to pay taxes for that. But we're not getting that because we have to fund people's irresponsibility. I have the way Ireland treated women historically- but now there is full contraception available and abortion. Yet over and over we see that a huge cohort of the people demanding social housing have never worked and had kids (And I mean the fathers too) that they just assumed the state would raise.

Meanwhile we can't have scandi style day care or cheap student accommodation because we fund people who sleep in garda stations.

mariaalice wrote: »

In urban areas peopel want gardens and spacious houses despite this being poor use of land.

And they can't be entirely blamed for thinking that way. My husband and I would "millennials", so are his peers.
He grew up in a really nice part on the North side, in a Semi-D with big garden. All of his peers did too. They all went to good schools in good postcodes and went on to do college degrees and the vast majority is better educated than their parents and work very hard. Yet all par one couple (he went to a private school) cannot even remotely afford the standard of living their parents had. And still, this mindset of Semi-D, SUV, sprogs and golden lab is so engrained in them that it indeed is a rude awakening to see that realistically they will never live like their own parents.

Now I come from Europe, I grew up in rented apartments in some areas, single parent family and we were poor. When I moved to Ireland most people struggled to wrap their head around how this is sustainable/doable. I regularly have an argument with my in-laws because they genuinely think you cannot raise children in an apartment setting.
Apartment living has always been branded as living for the poor, inferior, students and just something you do for a bit until you can buy your own gaff. And this mindset persists.
We now live in a remote location and plan to move in the next 2-3 years because we don't particularly like it but that's what we could afford. And I'd totally live in a decent apartment somewhere more built up with the children. But that simply doesn't exist, which is a shame because it is hugely efficient housing and can be done so well.

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

seasidedub wrote: »

Friend's mam is widowed in a 5 bed. Originally from "the country". All kids did well - no boomerang kids. Should she go back to "the country" after 40 years on her road knowing all the neighbours? Not going to happen!

When you see pensioners that have 30-50k in repair bills because they haven't been upstairs in 10 years you begin to rethink the whole "forever home" mentality we have. Houses need to be lived in, heated, cleaned and maintained. As people get older it becomes unmanageable for a lot of them.

I agree - but for lots of these people the community and neighbours are far more important. We can't just assume they'll move to suit a current need.

seasidedub wrote: »

I agree - but for lots of these people the community and neighbours are far more important. We can't just assume they'll move to suit a current need.

I agree in a way. There is a very delicate balance to be struck.

My own mother lives in our family home a large 4 bed in a fairly small cavan town.

There is a real community feeling and many of the people on the street have lived there for 40 to 50 years, everybody knows everybody and the neighbours are a short walk away.

But at the same time the houses are a mix of sizes, mostly 19th century and some are badly built and badly designed inside (steep stairs, steps in the kitchens, no downstairs toilets).

If an older person was to fall and break their hip (as a neighbour recently did) then life in the house could get very hard very quickly.

There are no easy solutions.

LirW wrote: »

And they can't be entirely blamed for thinking that way. My husband and I would "millennials", so are his peers.
He grew up in a really nice part on the North side, in a Semi-D with big garden. All of his peers did too. They all went to good schools in good postcodes and went on to do college degrees and the vast majority is better educated than their parents and work very hard. Yet all par one couple (he went to a private school) cannot even remotely afford the standard of living their parents had. And still, this mindset of Semi-D, SUV, sprogs and golden lab is so engrained in them that it indeed is a rude awakening to see that realistically they will never live like their own parents.

Now I come from Europe, I grew up in rented apartments in some areas, single parent family and we were poor. When I moved to Ireland most people struggled to wrap their head around how this is sustainable/doable. I regularly have an argument with my in-laws because they genuinely think you cannot raise children in an apartment setting.
Apartment living has always been branded as living for the poor, inferior, students and just something you do for a bit until you can buy your own gaff. And this mindset persists.
We now live in a remote location and plan to move in the next 2-3 years because we don't particularly like it but that's what we could afford. And I'd totally live in a decent apartment somewhere more built up with the children. But that simply doesn't exist, which is a shame because it is hugely efficient housing and can be done so well.

One of the problems with apt living in Ireland is you can’t depend on the weather in the summer holidays, plus IRISH parents will no longer let kids play on the street. So kids are stuck indoors unless you have a garden. Have seen young kids playing football in public squares right in the centre of Seville with no obvious supervision. Wouldn’t happen here.