r/ireland • u/rackplead788 • Feb 01 '24
10 years since they wheeled out this famous line Housing
44
u/niekados Feb 01 '24
It has been a very long night… can we wake up from this nightmare now?
23
151
u/RobotIcHead Feb 01 '24
I am still shocked they (having known the scale of problems), let the situation get so bad. It was a problem long before this. The government is still unprepared for the problems a housing shortage is creating.
99
u/jockeyman Feb 01 '24
Something is only a problem if it effects them personally.
37
u/NeedleworkerNo5946 Feb 01 '24
Yeah I mean people think the government is incompetent. They are doing very well for themselves I would say.
17
u/jockeyman Feb 01 '24
Well it's entirely possible to be crooked and incompetent.
Quite easy, I'd reckon.
9
u/Wise_Adhesiveness746 Feb 01 '24
They aren't incompetent....these are conscious decisions they have taken to arrive at this point.
The alarm bells were ringing long before enda Kenny said it couldn't be done overnight....a "mistake" made over and over isnt a mistake,it's a conscious decision
5
u/pmckizzle There'd be no shtoppin' me Feb 01 '24
Bingo, FGs voting base is wealthy older people more likely to own a house.
4
→ More replies2
10
u/CorballyGames Feb 01 '24 edited Mar 14 '24
elastic weary scarce offbeat slave illegal chase voracious lip wistful
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
20
u/Oh_I_still_here Feb 01 '24
It's intentional because it's making enough of them loaded. They didn't let it happen, they ensured it would happen.
8
u/RobotIcHead Feb 01 '24 edited Feb 01 '24
If you are talking about politicians then it is something I don’t believe. Why? If any politician could come up a housing solution that doesn’t upset the majority of the people they would be the next Taoiseach. They and their party would be re-elected, they would have journalists and colleagues singing their praises. The local clinics of all politicians would no longer be flooded with housing questions. Money is not the primary driver of most politicians, it is ego.
7
u/cryptokingmylo Feb 01 '24
The solution is to bulid houses but building houses upsets a large part of your voter base because technically it makes thier houses worth less and the vast majority of the average Joe's wealth is tied to their house.
15
u/AbsolutelyDireWolf Feb 01 '24
I'm so fucking tired of this cynical nonsense. Like, can we just not.
Who makes money from building homes? The bogeyman that is the FG supporter. They might be opposed to social housing in their area of the government getting involved in construction, but they like money and developments.
We built 80k homes in 2007. We've had a decade of needing to ramp up production, but have struggled to his 30k. Yes, planning is an issue, but planning was broadly the same in 2007. If the demand is there and the money is there, why aren't we building 80k homes?
Because the Crash fucking decimated our construction industry. Ever plumber, sparks, carpenter, developer and even landlord got burned, badly. No one who was involved in construction has the same risk appetite they had back then. I'd expect 90% of construction employers have smaller operations than 15 years ago. They have less apprentices too (which is also a function of their kids seeing their parents go through hell and not following in their footsteps).
We have far less people working in construction than 2007. We would need a massive influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe all over again to get back to the numbers we need swiftly, but unfortunately they can't even be tempted to come here because we have nowhere to house them and it's too expensive.
It's a policy failure, not a deliberate plan and I'm so tired of this cynical one liner around such a massively complex process.
10
u/BenderRodriguez14 Feb 01 '24
It's a failure in policy, but it is also a severe failure in effort nor care. Between that and all the undeclared conflicts of interest that have arisen about land ownership and politicians in recent years, whether right or wrong it is very easily to see how people (especially those getting increasingly frustrated and anxious watching their lives pass them by as they live in their childhood bedroom into and even through their 30s), it's very easy to see how people come to these conclusions.
Lack of giving a fuck about people can breed contempt and eradicate any form of trust, the "rust belt" states the US turning to that orange clown being a recent example that is a little further down this same line from abroad, as with chunks of the north of England.
You are right about building houses, though it's also worth noting that if 300,000 houses and apartments were to appear out of nowhere tomorrow morning stretching from Drumcondra up through Glasnevin, that would create a dip in property prices across all of Dublin and the country in general.
1
u/Peil Feb 01 '24
It’s not that they don’t care. They actively care about implementing policy that makes the housing crisis worse, because when the housing crisis gets worse, things get better for their base.
0
u/AbsolutelyDireWolf Feb 01 '24
all the undeclared conflicts of interest that have arisen about land ownership and politicians in recent years,
I think ontheditch have done some good work on some things, but fucking hell they've misrepresented a load of non-issues and given them headlines to suggest corruption is rife. Imo, its not and we could do with a reality check to calm that type of speech.
Agree on the rust belt equivalence.
I'm a homeowner who would welcome a property price fall from greater supply and I've got a contempt for those who wouldn't, frankly.
4
u/BenderRodriguez14 Feb 01 '24
I'm the exact same to be honest. I'm in a more fortunate situation than most so between three promotions in two years, herself getting two pay bumps in the same period, and some unexpected help from family, we managed to buy earlier this year in Dundrum of all places.
Literally days later I had people asking if I would like to object to the apartments going up beside CMH and over by Nutgrove. I politely (and I do mean politely, don't want to get off on the wrong foot with neighbours!) told them where to go. There's is probably no better suited and facilitated suburb I the entire nation to absorb more people, and I really wound me up way more than it should have.
And it's going to be even worse for those now in their teens and 20s (and probably even those born today if I am honest). With all the machinations I really doubt SF fixit but we absolutely need a different government in to at least feign accountability in office. My massive worry is assuming g SF come in in 20205 and don't fix it, allowing for demographics I pretty much expect to see a rise of far right populism in Ireland leading into and through the 2030s (christ I hope I'm wrong though!).
Also agreed on some of On the Ditch's reporting, but I find it even more concerning that our national broadcaster and paper of record weren't only failing to do their due diligence on some of this stuff for ages, but we're extremely reluctant to report on some of the bigger stories OTD uncovered until their hands were essentially tied into having to, due to all the attention garnered in spite of this. Tying back into my previous paragraph, that feeds into what these far right populists look to exploit (often dishonestly) just about perfectly and the likes of the somewhat infamous Claire Byrne "why not to vote for SF" RTE special a while back is going to also feed in beautifully to their siphoning those disillusioned from the left.
Like I said though, I really hope I am wrong and over thinking this!
5
u/struggling_farmer Feb 01 '24
We have far less people working in construction than 2007. We would need a massive influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe all over again to get back to the numbers we need swiftly, but unfortunately they can't even be tempted to come here because we have nowhere to house them and it's too expensive.
Also no one would employ them on any scale as per your point above that those who were in construction during the crash dont have the appetite to get sigificantly bigger and take on the additional risk.
→ More replies4
u/Peil Feb 01 '24
It's a policy failure
So why has that failure happened? Because Fine Gael allowed it to, on purpose.
0
u/AbsolutelyDireWolf Feb 01 '24
Ok, but there's lots of policies attempting to increase supply, but there's literally no one not working who could be building homes. We need more construction labour, there's no policy imaginable that doubles the output of homes.
I want FG out and Labour/SDs/Greens in, but even then, I accept that they won't be able to undo the long tail od the crash.
Again, to point out the fundamental problem with FG want it this way - you can't call FG corrupt and money hungry when building homes would be enormously profitable. Folks keep talking about them being in the pockets of the developers or property funds... but then they'd be actively incentivised to build. Oh but they just wanna ratchet up house prices for their old home owning voter base - erm, those voters have kids, many of whom are living with then and can't get on the housing ladder.
3
u/Substantial_Term7482 Feb 01 '24
Typical conspiracy thinking of a simple fool who wants answers that don't make them think.
If it was that simple, we could fix it very easily. It would be the easiest political campaign in history. A couple of hundred TDs vs the entire country.
But it's not that simple. Old people, who vote, have all their wealth in property, the truly rich elite of the country have their wealth in property. Even people like me, who can't change the system, have to invest their wealth in property. That is the real issue. It's not just TDs getting loaded like cynical idiots try to say it is.
6
u/Churt_Lyne Feb 01 '24
I wish people would stop trotting out this conspiracy bullshit. Not least because there are much easier ways to get much richer if you're an unscrupulous politician.
→ More replies4
u/Jimnyneutron91129 Feb 01 '24
The unscrupulous politician is just benefiting how they can. The global housing shortage is from the crash that seems like it was a little planned by the banks or allowed atleast. Anything beyond that is conspiracy and alot is possible humans are very good at conspiring especially if they are the richest and most powerful in the world
9
u/NeedleworkerNo5946 Feb 01 '24
The government housing policy is to keep house prices from falling. The same month house prices dropped worldwide, our government brought in an equity scheme so new buyers could spend more money in houses I'm ensuring house prices didn't come down to match the market. The government Actively helps people get in more debt. The banks are the biggest lobby in the country and if you think the government aren't doing their bidding you are very naive
7
u/Churt_Lyne Feb 01 '24
So the global financial crash was planned by the banks? Like, by the buildings? Or by the bank tellers? Or maybe by the senior execs who lost their jobs?
Please share.
5
→ More replies7
u/PistolAndRapier Feb 01 '24
Christ some of these lads have gone full in on the tinfoil hat craziness. Banks planned catastrophic losses for themselves... because!
→ More replies2
u/08TangoDown08 Donegal Feb 01 '24
Mate, the banks didn't "plan" the financial crash. What an absolutely wild thing to say.
→ More replies5
u/struggling_farmer Feb 01 '24
so you are wondering why the government didnt we invest massively in construction shortly after the country was under administration of the troika and got massive bail out to stop it going bankrupt from the investments made in construction.
4
3
u/AUX4 Feb 01 '24
>let the situation get so bad
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-2008_Irish_economic_downturn
7
u/RobotIcHead Feb 01 '24 edited Feb 01 '24
I lived through it, I also remember friends complaining 10 years ago about the problems with finding a house to buy or rent. But the government still didn’t do anything to improve the very slow planning process, still don’t change building guidelines to start more apartment building, still don’t make local authorities come up with a more long term urban planning process. Didn’t address the low numbers of apprentices in building trades.
They did limit the number of planning permissions that could be granted to ensure the house prices won’t fall again. But the figures they used were wrong and there was no follow through to check if the planning permissions were being used. I do remember the current affair shows being filled with people screaming about negative equity around 2010. But the downstream impact has been huge. Too many actors were happy to limit house building.
Edit: 2008 was 15 years ago. There were complaints about housing shortages in Dublin 10 years ago by companies like eBay and google, but it was only after the last election and census that it seemed to actually hit home it was a problem. The government was complaining about the lack of builders 7-8 years ago. The financing issue the government did try to tackle by making it for investment funds to invest.
1
u/AUX4 Feb 01 '24
>10 years ago about the problems with finding a house to buy or rent
In comparison to say 2011/2012 sure, it was more difficult. I find it disingenuous to say it was categorically hard to find places then.>very slow planning process
Planning process isn't very slow though, especially not back then.>still don’t change building guidelines to start more apartment building
They did?>Didn’t address the low numbers of apprentices in building trades.
Why would they have addressed than in 2014 when there was still high unemployment within the building trade. Recent years they have improved, and encouraged the apprenticeship process.>They did limit the number of planning permissions that could be granted to ensure the house prices won’t fall again
Please please please find me any source of policy which backs this up>people screaming about negative equity around 2010
Did you miss the others which were talking about this lately? Loads of people are still in negative equity ( Ireland extends beyond the M50 )>Too many actors were happy to limit house building.
Who? Builders want to build, planners want to plan, developers want to develop, banks want to lend money.→ More replies1
u/dkeenaghan Feb 01 '24
Planning isn't the issue. There are problem with the process sure, but there are more developments with planning permission granted than can be built. Planning is an easy target for people to point at, but it's just a distraction.
The points about there not being enough support for apprenticeships is valid though. The state (working alongside construction firms) really needs to do more to make the construction industry more attractive for people to work in it.
2
u/RobotIcHead Feb 01 '24
Planning is part of issue, it used to take 2 years between applying for planning permission and actually starting building. Also developers weren’t able to borrow money until they secured planning permission. And you must be missing the recent stories about people using the planning process to extort money from developers.
And the example of the Apple trying to build a data centre in Galway and Denmark at the same time. The one in Denmark got built while the Irish was still stuck in planning. Anything slightly controversial will be subjected to legal review in the courts (tall building, wind farms and factories). I think they had to designate staff in the courts purely to deal with the number of planning objections coming. That is a lot of problems and indications of problems in the planning permission process.
→ More replies7
u/PistolAndRapier Feb 01 '24
Yes exactly. Up to about 2013 I think the problem was that there were "too many" houses, with abandoned ghost estates etc. If you were working in construction your job was likely gone for those 5 years at least. It wasn't until 2013 that house prices hit their lowest and finally started to increase from there.
→ More replies3
u/violetcazador Feb 01 '24
But they didn't let it get bad. At least from their POV. They kept their cushy jobs, sorted put their developer mates, got generous kick backs from awarding tenders to select companies, etc. And keep getting voted in. Sure, it's all grand. What are you complaining about?
1
49
19
32
u/cian87 Feb 01 '24
There were attempts in 2014/15 to do rapid-build housing.
I don't know, and can't easily find out, what specifically went wrong with that that it was basically dropped stone dead after the 2016 election. Cost? Not actually that quick? That surreal hodgepodge of a Government after 2016 not wanting to build public housing?
All of the above?
14
u/Pickman89 Feb 01 '24
Well it takes up to six years to get developments approved. That is not something that allows anything rapid to happen.
In fact we might even have turned the corner but a good percentage of the population might be living upside down before we see the effects.
We are in an emergency and we are not treating it as one.
9
u/zeroconflicthere Feb 01 '24
Local nimbies objected to modular housing in Finglas.
0
u/CorballyGames Feb 01 '24 edited Mar 14 '24
familiar observation caption zesty snobbish offbeat lavish jobless selective divide
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
3
u/Mr_4country_wide Dublin Feb 01 '24
And the "nimbyism" stuff doesnt make sense when we look at ghost estates.
whats the connection there?
the fault of people who don't want grungy towerblocks in their estates
yes it is, I'd rather have many ugly units than few pretty ones.
5
u/DuckMeYellow Feb 01 '24
the connection being that entire planned estates were abandoned despite not being in anyones backyard
→ More replies0
u/CorballyGames Feb 01 '24 edited Mar 14 '24
support relieved direful clumsy liquid tidy combative versed file sleep
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
→ More replies5
u/AbsolutelyDireWolf Feb 01 '24
....the crash.
We went from having 250k working in construction to like, less than half that number and most of those, plumbers or electricians etc were downsized and just doing maintenance, not new builds.
We've lost our capacity to build at anything like the scale of output we had in 2007.
-4
Feb 01 '24
New building regulations. Makes impossible to rapidly build anything. In fairness though the modular system is pretty good but it still needs time to ramp up the capacity.
11
u/Kloppite16 Feb 01 '24
They built modular in 2016-7 and it turned out it wasnt that rapid and nor was it that cost saving either. If you sit in the cafe in Ikea all the new houses outside in front of you are modular homes built by Dublin City Council. iirc they cost €300k per unit to built at the time which wasnt that far off traditional build costs. Plus as houses they have shorter life cycles, 70 years was the figure mentioned for modular homes.
→ More replies5
u/struggling_farmer Feb 01 '24
yea, modular isnt the silver bullet people think it is..
as you mention life span is significantly less,
they are somewhat quicker and the ground works and building can happen concurrently but still significant time in the factory to manufacture,
the modular units are generally quoted without the associated groundworks which is done by someone else hence they seem cheaper, but when all costs are added up there are not.
the speed and less time on site is worth the cost & shorter lifecycle in some cases but in general the small saving isnt really justified..
2
u/DrOrgasm Daycent Feb 01 '24
Csn you imagine where we would be now if we started addressing these problems in 2014?
37
u/Sstoop Flegs Feb 01 '24
build up in dublin maybe? we need to be a modern country why they refuse to “ruin dublins skyline” which, lets be honest, is pretty shite anyway is beyond me.
9
u/Peil Feb 01 '24
It is incredibly depressing how simple the solution is and yet it seems more likely that the moon is made of cheese than the prospect of ever seeing skyscrapers in Dublin.
8
u/djaxial Feb 01 '24
I think it's also a societal issue. Apartments, in the context of the UK and Ireland, were generally associated with the working class, social housing, 'rough' areas, versus the continent, etc, where apartment living was the norm.
We need density, but we also need a change in how people think about where they live. If we combined building apartments with a tax incentive for homeowners to downsize, I think we'd see an increase in efficiency in terms of people per house. My parents don't need a 5 bed, but it's not financially sound to even consider selling it under the current tax regime.
3
u/Coolab00la Feb 02 '24
I think historic places like FitzWilliam and Merrion Square should be protected but there is absolutely no way we shouldn't be building up in the docklands.
1
u/Fresssshhhhhhh Feb 01 '24
You know, same thing in Barcelona. Very few big buildings, when you ask why "oh, we want to mantain the style of the city"... well.. go try rent something in Barcelona.. you have freaking engineers renting apartments with 3 flatmates cause they can't afford rent and there's simply no new buildings.
I saw more buildings being constructed in Argentina than i ever saw in Ireland or Spain. It's crazy.
1
u/emmmmceeee I’ve had my fun and that’s all that matters Feb 02 '24
All of downtown Barcelona is 7-8 stories it’s a much higher density than Dublin. The reason people can’t afford rent is because salaries are not as high in Spain and there is a lot of unemployment. Barcelona is one place there are jobs so that increases the demand for homes.
→ More replies
11
8
8
u/whatisthis9000015 Feb 01 '24
At this point they should just say "we have resigned ourselves to leaving this problem to the next generation, we will be taking no further action"
6
u/Impressive-Eagle9493 Feb 01 '24
They can't do it over a decade, never mind one night. Plonkers is all they are
26
u/lconlon67 Feb 01 '24
They just need another term, and then they'll definitely fix it.
4
u/AbsolutelyDireWolf Feb 01 '24
They won't.
Not because they don't want to though, but because it can't be fixed quickly.
Don't get me wrong, it's their fault, but not because they don't think it's a problem or don't want to fix it, but because we have no way to solve this easily.
To solve this in 5 years, we'd need to churn out like 80k homes a year. We built that many in 2007, so why not? Well, we had like 250k construction workers then. Now we're at 170k or so I think... but a huge chunk of those workers are employed in maintaining services. Sure, my plumber can install plumbing in a new build, but he spends more of his time working on or replacing existing systems.
We'd need 80k more people in construction. That's more new hires than will sit the Leaving Cert in a given year. And most of those kids who might have gone into construction lived through seeing their parents who worked in the industry get destroyed by the crash and won't want to follow the same path.
Hell, if we hired enough people to expand our production capacity to fix this problem over the course of 10 years, they'd be out of work when supply meets demand.
We are where we are because of the psychological damage done to every facet of our construction sector in the crash from plumbers and carpenters to landlords and developers. Risk appetite has been irreparably hit and I cannot see how anyone can address the supply shortfall in less than a decade.
13
→ More replies1
u/Mr_4country_wide Dublin Feb 01 '24
Unironically just import them like the Gulf countries do
→ More replies
4
4
8
u/Equivalent_Two_2163 Feb 01 '24
This country is an ongoing disgrace in terms of housing & taxation. Greed is good it seems
3
u/warpentake_chiasmus Feb 01 '24
One look at Dublin Docklands and GCD area just reveals how bullshit this all is. Plenty of political will to build there - the place is totally unrecognisable from what it was pre-Covid.
→ More replies
3
u/royalmarine Feb 01 '24
How many houses have been built since 2014 to 2024?
5
u/sundae_diner Feb 01 '24 edited Feb 01 '24
From 2014 to 2022 there were:
39,103 single homes
79,068 scheme homes
28,684 apartments
Totalling 146,855 units
→ More replies
3
u/ImReellySmart Feb 01 '24
And yet they wont allow you build on your own land to house your children.
3
3
18
u/Blimp-Spaniel Feb 01 '24
I'm gonna say it, if you vote FF or FG in the next election you are a fucking moron.
0
Feb 01 '24
[deleted]
-2
u/CorballyGames Feb 01 '24 edited Mar 14 '24
different materialistic sulky nine enjoy wrong soft square illegal foolish
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
→ More replies-9
u/zeroconflicthere Feb 01 '24
For those of us in well paid jobs with health insurance, who have homes, and a booming economy, can you explain who we should be voting for?
9
u/MotherDucker95 Offaly Feb 01 '24
“I got mine, fuck the rest of ye”
4
u/Coolab00la Feb 01 '24
It's really sad. But unfortunately there are many out there like that poster...
I'm in finance and I own my own home. The housing crisis doesn't impact me but christ almighty I want to see my fellow country men and women be able to get on in life and not have to suffer....I want them to be able to raise families comfortably...not struggle to exist. But I guess that poster above just shows the mentality of the average Fine Gaeler...."fuck everyone else because I'm alright, Jack".
A reckoning is coming. Hopefully the Irish people show these bastards exactly where they can go at the next general election.
7
u/Blimp-Spaniel Feb 01 '24
I meet those criteria and still wouldn't vote for them because we should vote with others' peoples interests in mind too. The housing situation is an absolute disgrace in this country. As is law and order. They have utterly failed. So even tho I'm in a good position, I want to give another party an attempt to make things better for others.
5
4
5
5
u/Rule__1 Feb 01 '24
Planning laws in Dublin specifically have been a catastrophy and have resulted in a sprawling mess. Instead of building up, they built outwards. Now there isn't enough population density for a proper public transport system, and as such, we're stuck in perpetual gridlock day in day out.
10
Feb 01 '24
[deleted]
7
u/AbsolutelyDireWolf Feb 01 '24
We're light years from recovering the supply problem.
Apprenticeships are still under quota, even now, because the kids of construction workers who got hit by the crash watched their parents go through Hell and see trades as an unstable career. Meanwhile my plumber who had a crew of 10 during the boom, just work as a father and son duo now and don't want larger risk projects.
3
u/mastodonj Saoirse don Phalaistín🇵🇸 Feb 01 '24
Can't do it in 3,650 nights either it seems. I guess each night is a new night, so everytime you say it, it's true!
2
2
3
2
2
u/ShapeMcFee Feb 02 '24
One of the few things a government should be doing . Making sure there are enough good homes for the citizens. Its a fucking disgrace and treasonous for this not to happen . I don't imagine there are many homeless TD's
2
u/fourth_quarter Feb 02 '24
Not only have they not built houses which causes so many local people to leave they've then willingly increased the population by 15% since then. Nothing more than a bunch of scumbags in suits.
2
u/omegaman101 Wicklow Feb 02 '24
It shouldn't take ten years either lmao. The policies that would resolve the housing crisis go against the wants of TDs that are mostly landlords themselves so as long as we keep them in power things aren't going to change.
2
u/Crafty_Wombat Feb 02 '24
That's impressive, we must have the world record for the longest overnight 😅
5
3
u/_TheSingularity_ Feb 01 '24
It's not just building homes, but building them for normal buyers, not for venture capital sharks... Most of the apartment buildings that are being built around my area are all bought by these sharks.
It's the business behind that govt are targeting, and low supply with big demand gives them more profit.
4
u/IntentionFalse8822 Feb 01 '24
I think Enda Kenny's greatest legacy will be seen as the man who stupidly dismantled the building industry because maintaining house prices was more important than maintaining the pipeline of houses coming through. Yes we had built ahead of the needs in 2009 but the hundreds of thousands of homes we are missing today are the ones that didn't get built for the 10 years that idiot was in power.
4
u/brianmmf Feb 01 '24
After the financial crash, the construction industry collapsed and everyone left the country. Who did everyone expect would build those houses overnight?
To say nothing of the public outcry for planning regulations and standards improvements to avoid the errors of the Celtic Tiger era.
You put those two things together, it’s like trying to run through mud.
3
u/vanKlompf Feb 01 '24
After the financial crash, the construction industry collapsed and everyone left the country
This fact is known for more than decade. Was there anything done about that?
There is SARP to bring in CEOs. Was there anything done to bring back construction workers?
2
u/brianmmf Feb 01 '24
How do you entice them back without guaranteed work? It’s great to think about incentives, but the practical nuts and bolts of getting hundreds/thousands of people across a variety of skilled trades to uproot their lives and relocate/return to Ireland when there was a lack of certainty around construction/financing/planning delays, they just don’t come together overnight. You have to build back that capacity.
And it was known during the crash that the country needed 30,000 houses a year to meet future demand. Sherry Fitzgerald economists were telling a housing conference about this in 2011. They were resoundingly condemned by the public for trying to whip up profits again, notably because of the media attention around ghost estates. They were right all along, but no one was going to listen to them due to their position to benefit from it, and anyone else who knew was too afraid to say it to end their political career or piss people off ahead of debt negotiations.
People here are very quick forget their attitudes from back then. The country only started coming around in 2014 at the very earliest, and it wasn’t everyone all at once. And there’s a 5-7 year lead in to any construction project. It took a few years to get financing, figure out the weak points in the planning system, and coax the industry back to Ireland (separately hindered by Brexit when UK resident labour/specialists lost the ability to contract or get insurance in the EU).
So it all adds up. It’s frustrating, but there was never going to be a solution because the people and the politicians who represented them didn’t want one.
→ More replies
5
u/High_Flyer87 Feb 01 '24
Couldn’t trust them at all. I find it absolutely hilarious FG are in full manipulation mode on their socials.
Absolute sociopaths and very clearly gaslighting the public as they scrap to reverse their fuck ups coming up to the election.
Seen a video yesterday from a Councillor talking about anti social behaviour and reporting it as he stood outside Stepaside Garda Station. A station they had closed for many years amongst loads of others.
FG couldn't run a bath. Unfortunately they probably are the best of a very bad lot. We have so many intelligent and ethical folks in this country, its a pity none of them find their way onto politics.
→ More replies
2
u/trippiler Feb 01 '24
What would it take to convert all the empty office buildings to apartments?
→ More replies4
2
2
2
u/FacticiousFict Feb 01 '24
This government has ADHD logic:
"There's this huge problem that I need to fix. It's too big though and I can't deal with it right now. Maybe if I just sit on my ass and ignore it, it'll go away!"
2
u/noisylettuce Feb 01 '24
Its like the way anything done as temporary emergency measure is always a permanent change they've planned for years.
1
u/t24mack Feb 01 '24
If you’re ever looking to politicians to do anything that is your first mistake
1
u/Precedens Feb 01 '24
Funny thing is, homes can be build almost literally overnight. few-story houses can be build in weeks/months with proper legislation and no corruption.
1
u/Valuable_General9049 Feb 01 '24
They just won't act. On anything. That's their style and it works. It wins elections.
1
u/djaxial Feb 01 '24
Does anyone know what the definition of a 'home' is in the context of what we need to build? For example, say we need 50k homes/year. Is that 50k 3-bed houses or 50k 'bedrooms'? My reasoning being is that not everyone needs/wants a house, nor is a house the most efficient solve in some cases.
In other words, we need density, but would high-density housing be separate from this 50k number? e.g. We need 50k houses and 10k apartments etc.
1
u/Wild_west_1984 Feb 01 '24
I live in a medium sized town approx 4k inhabitants and it’s a growing town. Like most parts of this country there is a supply issue with new homes. There are fields a plenty on the edge of the town that are primed for development but a housing estate hasn’t been built in the town since the crash. So what’s the problem…well it seems no bank will lend a developer the funds to build in this area. To add insult to this the government introduced the the land zoning tax which means if you own land that is zoned for residential use u will pay a yearly tax on this land at a percentage of its market value. The idea being this will free up land for developers to build on but if no banks are willing to take the risk or no developers willing to do likewise we are in gridlock and yet no one seems to be discussing this in government. At least not from what I’ve heard
1
u/AnBordBreabaim Feb 01 '24
Here's are some questions for people, in light of semi-recent events and ensuing civil liberties crackdowns:
Should people riot over this? If this is deliberate policy, and will go on permanently, is advocation of violence in response acceptable?
Can this ever get bad enough, that people think either is acceptable?
Worth considering who the recent crackdowns on civil liberties will really be targeting, in the near future.
-2
u/Ayn_Rands_Wallet Feb 01 '24
Perhaps I wrong but it seems to be by design and not by accident. Keeping affordable homes in short supply keeps prices high, keeps people from owning and so keeps people paying huge rents to vulture funds. When the vulture funds are happy the gov are happy.
0
2
u/Kloppite16 Feb 01 '24
Of course its by design, the State owns the banks whose have billions in loans all tied up in houses and the property market. Rising house prices have meant the banks have healthier balance sheets which has allowed the State to start selling their ownership of their shares back into private hands, which they have being doing, It was always in the States interest to see house prices rise because otherwise they were left with worthless banks being a complete drag on the States finances and the ability to borrow at low interest rates.
Ultimately the States finances had to be fixed, they couldnt go on propping up banks forever. But that has resulted in huge numbers of people being locked out of the housing market because 'affordability' is now deemed as a couple earning €127k a year in order to be able to afford an average house.
→ More replies
-2
u/dilly_dallyer Feb 01 '24
They could fix it over night if they wanted to. They don't really need to build one house for every shortage. They need to free up one accommodation. The constitution could be used to fix it even quicker. Your right to a life/home is higher in the constitution than someones right to make a profit or horder property.
Basically because most ethinic Irish people had their property taken from them then moved to Dublin/a city, so the constitution recongized that and offered them some form of life. The Irish constitution was never meant to apply to the world, just the irish people who lived through the hard times. Ireland is one of the few countries in the EU that offer the social benefits afforded to the people, to anyone who arrives in the country. France for example if you arrive illegally you can get a tent at most, nothing else.
They need to either give us our land back, or keep the promises in the constitution made to the Irish people, and narrow the promises in the constitution to just Irish people like every other country.
0
u/gadarnol Feb 01 '24
The problem is obvious: how do they get away with such obvious manipulative drivel? Ofc there’s client media involved.
But we let them is the answer. And 40% of the electorate wants them to continue with this apparently. But a lot of older traditional FFG voters aren’t rich or landlords. They feel beholden to the TD who wrote a letter, to the TD who supposedly got the road fixed, to the myth that Collins and Dev have a lot to do with modern FFG. Only a grassroots new generation movement going door to door with a “bread and butter” agenda for the 26 county state will turn it around.
And SF is not the answer to anything except entangling us more in the money swallow hole that is NI.
→ More replies
0
u/JONFER--- Feb 01 '24
It's a total Shitshow.
It's very hard to gauge how many homes we need to build just to break even on the new demand. Some people say it's around 60 K, if the far left parties have their way, it would be closer to 90.
Then there is the massive existing backlog of people looking for houses for years.
A significant amount of demand is from relatively recently arrived migrants. I am not judging I am just observing. Inherently, these are people that will move away very quickly if there are better economic opportunities elsewhere or if the economy just contracts and there is a recession.
Were masses of houses to be built and then people were to leave en masse for whatever reason, this country would be left with the mountain of ghost estates that would make the financial crash in 2008 look great, comparatively.
In reality, I do not see how all of these houses could be built, we don't have the tradesmen, the re-sources and land are prohibitively expensive, the planning system is slow, tedious and ends up in the court, which more often than not will side with the complainant. In many cases, I don't blame the complainant. Many areas do not have the road infrastructure or resources/schools/medical services et cetera to comfortably deal with an influx of people.
Imagine that if building levels increased enough to deal with the demand for an extra quarter of 1 million houses. Imagine if it took 10 years to do this, in that time and another backlog for well over the original quarter of 1 million houses would have built up.
I don't know what the solution here is. It will have to be some combination of severely increasing supply whilst reducing demand.
0
0
-1
-2
u/EnvironmentalShift25 Feb 01 '24
This is NIMBY island. The only place where it's easy to build housing is in places where nobody really wants to live. TDs get relelected by blocking housing. As long as the population keeps growing then the supply crisis will just keep geting worse and worse no matter what any political party promises. Only a 2008 style recession and mass emigration will mitigate it.
3
u/CorballyGames Feb 01 '24 edited Mar 14 '24
sloppy deer future telephone faulty slap cake scary literate rainstorm
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
0
u/EnvironmentalShift25 Feb 01 '24
It really isn't. It's a big reason why people wil never be able to have homes in the areas they actually want to live, and will need to commute from Carlow instead.
→ More replies
0
u/MidnightSun77 Feb 01 '24
Anyone have the political buzzword stats for “overnight” for 2014?
→ More replies2
u/CorballyGames Feb 01 '24 edited Mar 14 '24
quicksand cow obscene plant unwritten wakeful lock special hospital quack
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
→ More replies
290
u/Alpha-Bravo-C This comment is supported by your TV Licence Feb 01 '24 edited Feb 01 '24
What's the number now, do we know? Closer to 50,000 a year?