Economist David McWilliams
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Give him a shovel and he might complete a ghost estate.
David McDreamy writes:
My daughter suggested that maybe a good thing would be to give the Syrians the tools to complete these houses that were half-built. This doesn’t sound preposterous. After all, Japanese women rebuilt much of urban Japan with rudimentary tools after the Second World War…
Let the homeless refugees breathe new life into our ghost estates (David McWilliams)
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That’s a fantastic idea, but what happens when they finish building them.
I guess it will be like 2008 all over again.
NAMA for refugees will be announced. Joe Duffy will implode like a black hole that day.
They’ll live in them. Obviously.
It’s not that obvious. Sure most people would have no problem working to build a house, at the government’s cost, and then be allowed live it.
Yeah but the govt has to pay for them to live here anyway: surely this is more cost-effective?
if only we didn’t have things like insurance and building regulations, eh?
My daughter said we should end all wars and have peace on earth- reckon we give that a go while we’re at it.
*Nickelback Hold Music*
*Click*
“Hello?”
“Mr. President, oh, thank you so much for taking this call, I understand you’re a very busy man…”
“What is it sir?”
“Oh, it’s my daughter she has an idea I think you might find a little interesting…”
They’re all builders is it?
Well, if we can so easily assume they are all IS can we not assume they could finish a house?
We should assume some to be genies also, them being from that area of the world and all, rub every second one you meet just to be sure.
Rub them where now??!!
On the beaches to begin with, assuming of course that this is where they will come ashore on amphibious Volkswagens – gifted to them by the Germans.
Is Japan the place with the paper walls and slidey doors?
Chalk it down, beor!
And watch as these become ghettos
Hell have we learned nothing
We could be the next Paris with the right attitude
SACREBLEU !!!! (waves stick of bread)
Assuming sarcasm?
Or more likely, a comment on racial & class segregation in Paris.
That was what I was getting at.
Paris is horrible
Paris is horrible? Are you nuts? 18 years here and I can tell you once you speak the language and avoid the overrun with tourist museum over priced centre it’s a great place to live. Every nationality and religion live in my quartier and get along just fine. Judging by the BS on Irish media you could take a leaf out of their livre.
you’ve clearly never lived here
wait now..ghetto or most visited city in the world ?
Translation:
My agent suggested that I had yet to stick my oar in on this particular front-page story & if I could tenuously link it to my one of my usual bugbears, I’d get my face out there
Well
If needs
must
This somehow reminds me of the time when the eastern Europeans arrived. On a back street in Dublin one day I saw a couple of serious bespectacled Czechs gazing thoughtfully as the road surface they had just tarmacked. They looked like guys who’d be at home in a cafe intensely discussing Kafka’s ideas.
And so it proved. Within days of their departure the tarred surface departed too, first sagging then disappearing on the wheels of the cars that crossed it.
But I’m sure Syrians are all able to build, yah.
“.. then disappearing on the wheels of the cars that crossed it”
How Kafkaesque!
It’s not as naive an idea as the super cynics of the BS apostrophe police would no doubt tear holes through. There are no ghettos in Ireland. Would you call Moore Street, Parnell Street or Adamstown a ghetto just because there is a more inclusive racial mix visible?
No.
Stupid question.
Isn’t a ghetto the opposite of somewhere racially diverse?
McDreamy…. more like mcblinded by arrogance and delusion. Pop economist for the dull. He should care to remember that the Syrians are highly educated. I have a suggestion, let David build the houses and leave the maths to the Syrians.
Nothing wrong with physical labour.
So another vote for David being made build houses!
Exactly what I came on here to say.
Send em to the turfbogs! McWilliams displaying a little bit of prejudice? Ie refugees should all start a new life with manual labour? I don’t suppose any software developers have been displaced by Isis or the Syrian civil war!!
I think Angela has already taken the brainy ones.
They’d probably do a better job than Irish Cowboy builders. Its not like they follow building regulations, or that new builds get inspected by authorities for safety regulations. House and Apartment building in this country is a f***ing joke!
This statement is why I tend not to read Irish newspapers. Blood boils at the smug, self righteous twaddle of those that have managed to clamber on to some kind of platform in this small old town. There is a big old world out there and Mcdeluded should remember that the Syrians are highly educated .Let him build the houses and they can do the maths.
Any chance we can include the homeless Irish families in with the Syrians finishing the ghost estates?
Any chance the govt could just deal with its responsibility towards the Syrians and Irish and just seize church lands and finish the ghost estates and we sort all these issues out…
Yes! Seize the Catholic Church lands! Those Pedophile pigs won’t even pay the victims of child sex abuse the millions they owe them in damages.
Its what Jesus would have wanted
would it not make more sense to have the Irish people with families who cant afford houses have these???
Well they’d better start baptising their offspring pronto in those holy ghost estates if they want to get em a place in the local school.
I always thought that some of the Dublin families “on the brink, Joe” of “eviction, Joe” could occupy these ghost estates. But apparently the interest was low. Too far to walk to collect the scratcher perhaps.
My daughter said……… Eh, no she didn’t.
But, But, she…
No she didn’t.
Well she might..
No she didn’t.
….No, No she didn’t.
Conversations with you must be a right laugh.
Put them into half built semi’s in Leitrim, in October.
Have these people not suffered enough
I thought the reason that the ghost estates are ghost estates is because they’re in places with not enough jobs and infrastructure. It’s easy to propose slapping more houses up. The tricky bit is figuring out how to do it in an affordable way in the cities where people actually want/need to live.
My response to that would be – if there are people who have no intention of working or supporting themselves, shtick ’em there.
It’s widely understood that the term comes from them being haunted. This is why construction had to stop, in fact it’s what caused the recession. Ghosts!
i think its a good idea. if they have to build/finish the houses they are going to live in, itll make them feel like theyve earned it rahter than just getting a handout. and before theyre let in to the country, theyre asssessed on what they could do towards building/finishing the houses, build, plumb, elec, labouring.. and those who cant do anything, or wont do anythng, go to direct provision centres
Maybe it’s the saltwater in my veins, or the nitrogen bubbles in my brain, …but that kid could be on to something.
Promote that child
right cos the developers/banks who own the land are just going to hand it over
Why don’t we fill in Dublin bay and let the refugees build their own city there. It’s not like the bay is used by anybody other than FG elites in their yachts. Maybe David’s daughter will like my idea.