From top: Taoiseach leo Vardkar and Minister for Education Richard Bruton; Vanessa FORAN

Vanessa Foran (her off the telly) writes:

I wanted to post some follow up thoughts to the Bank of Mum & Dad segment on Broadsheet on the Telly last evening.

I have to repeat how disappointed I am that the popular Leader of a Country with a national housing and accommodation crisis, that just happens to be running alongside a decade old mortgage arrears crisis, would promote methods for saving for a regulatory deposit that includes the sourcing of funds from parents, and from working overseas.

Only this morning that latter point slipped up on its own banana skin with Minister of Education and  Skills Richard Burton deciding to limit Career Breaks for Teachers. The next National Shortage is already appearing in your blind spot by the way: teachers. (I hardly need to mention nurses, hospital consultants and hospital beds, but it looks like I did anyway.)

In addition to reminding the electorate that young people starting out should look at better paid opportunities overseas. our current Taoiseach is conveniently ignoring an already known obstacle to our economic viability; we have a Labour shortage.

He also failed to bring to your attention that once these future first time buyers get declared Non-Residential, there is also the possibility of a tax implication from remitting funds from Countries Ireland does not have a tax agreement with.

What irks me just as much is that this very Government had an opportunity to promote sensible saving for all first time buyers, regardless of family means, in the last budget; Allow these  first home buyers savings accounts be exempt from DIRT Tax.

Or even create a type of National Home Buyers account with the NTMA, like that of the Solidarity Bond or the old SSIA (Incidentally, I have already promoted this initiative myself to a post Budget Breakfast Meeting hosted by members of Fianna Fáil).

Family Home Mortgages can come off the rails so easily and with no warning. The healthier the deposit, including the source, the more viable the mortgage is, and the more capable it is of surviving an unexpected financial crunch. That is a fact no about of spin and quirky congenial laddish remarks can cloak.

Yet Leo Varadkar himself is advising his own generation and the one coming up behind them, to rely on Mum and Dad, and to head off overseas rather than actually stay here, work and develop careers here, contribute taxes here, and more importantly, save their tax paid income here.

I am one of those who may one day be one of those Banks. But will I get a bail out too?

I am of the generation whose own retirement is within 20 years, I do not have a viable pension plan beyond a State Contributory one.

If Leo Varadkar and Fine Gael are to continue to encourage younger taxpayers to go abroad as a means of getting on the property ladder here, then who do they think will provide the Social Welfare funds when its my turn for that €200 a week?

From my own perspective here as I type off these final words, I cannot deny I am more narked about the shallow leadership displayed in the Oireachtas, and in Leader’s Questions no less, and the narrow minded long-term planning of Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael.

The very least we should expect from a Taoiseach and Government who are provided with a well funded Communications Unit, along with brigades of Special Advisors is some disciplined and sensible messaging.

Our Taoiseach and his Government could have at least tried to be seen to promote equal opportunity, from access to secure homeownership to quality education, and the many many other basic pillars for an equal, fair, healthy and civilised society to all our children; no matter who they are, or where they are from.

Promoting the Bank of Mum and Dad has actually confirmed to me who is really gaming the system.

Vanessa Foran is a principal at Recovery Partners. Follow Vanessa on Twitter: @vef_pip

Previously: You’re 100 Per Cent On Your Own Son

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28 thoughts on “Keeping Mum & Dad

  1. b

    Leaving aside railing against LV promoting people getting money from parents or working abroad for a time (i don’t think he did, he merely stated a fact). The whole article on a premise of LV ‘advising’ people to do something is a misnomer.

    I don’t see what a plan to make savings accounts exempt from DIRT would do to help anyone with interest rates where they are. The problem people have with accumulating deposits is to do with the principal rather than the interest. Rents need to decrease so people can save disposable income.

    The article is economically garbled. The ability to have people going abroad and earning money and then coming home with pockets full is a positive for the country, especially in recession times. Between the ages of 20-30, the way our income tax is progressively calculated, a young person would not be contributing a lot of tax in those years but will be once they return on their ex-pat salaries and experience.

    As for Vanessa’s pension, did she not think of contributing to her own pension at any time? That’s not the fault of anyone who emigrated.

    1. Adama

      Ah. ”Tis yourself b. Was wondering when you were going to turn up. Just in time too. Do you have some sort of radar for these postings?

    2. f_lawless

      “The ability to have people going abroad and earning money and then coming home with pockets full is a positive for the country,”
      The “ability”?. Nice Orwellian spin there; the defence of the indefensible. People forced to leave the country in search of work in the hope they just might come back loaded with money is a positive for the country? hahahaha

  2. anne

    I doubt not paying DIRT would do much for anyone. whst are the interests rates on savings anyway? What’s DIRT at these days? 25% is it? Like if you’re getting little to no interest, it’s all the one.. then if you can’t save anyway over the cost of rent, it’s irrelevant.

  3. Seamus

    Bring back the SSIA? Are you bonkers? This was the greatest government sponsored transfer of wealth to the middle classes in the history of the State. And of course the kicker was they all matured at the same time leading to an unprecented spike in spending in 2007, contributing to the crash as much as anything else. An awful lot of that SSIA money now rests in negative equity.

    Unfortunately the best way to get a deposit together for a house is to actually save for one. That means living a life of penury for a few years. It means no foreign holidays, cortados, cars, paninis, gym memberships, nights out at the cinema, restaurants, bottles of wine, for a while. It’s a choice. But you can’t have it every way.

    1. Andyourpointiswhatexactly?

      NO CORTADOS? Right, I’ve had enough. Hold me coat, Barney, I’m weighing in…

      1. Seamus

        Basically, that’s it. That’s largely how most of the current property owning class did it (excluding the nutters who took out 100% mortgages). Cut out frivolous and non essential expenditure. Granted it was easier in the past because there wasn’t a societal expectation that you would blow so much of your salary on stuff that has no real value, like 1000 euro smartphones or a gym membership or a Netflix sub or a Spotify sub. Don’t for example blow forty grand on a wedding and then complain about the difficulty of getting a deposit together.

    2. Diddy

      Your partly right. But there’s plenty of working people who are too old too poor or too up to the hilt paying exorbitant rent to save for a flag in the ground

  4. Zaccone

    Instead of wasting money cutting DIRT or on new SSIAs(!!) the government would be far better placed using that money to actually build housing.

    Theres no point in giving first time buyers more money to spend when there are no houses to buy, all its going to do is increase the price of homes.

    1. italia'90

      Ermm, have you forgotten how this game is played?
      The rules of the game are drawn up and implemented precisely to increase the price of homes!
      Debt makes you compliant.

  5. phil

    I reckon a lot of the challenges people face in this country could be solved by leadership , fat chance of that happening.
    The one thing I can never understand , is why public sector employees deserve defined benefit pensions , and private sector workers do not. It flys in the face of my understand of what a republic is.

    Im sure someone will be along shortly to tell me to shut up and mind my own business…

  6. Andy

    This is utter rubbish.

    1. He didn’t recommend any of those things. He responded to Brendan Howling complaining that the deposit required for the new cheap-as-chips subprime LA mortgage scheme was 10% and not 3% as in the days of old (Howlin of course ignoring that 40% + of existing LA mortgages are in arrears). LV simply stated that, apart from the time of 100% mortgages, irish people always required a deposit and many made sacrifices to get it including working abroad, living at home, getting a dig out from parents.They were not recommendations, they were examples of how people saved for mortgages. That is public record but you and every other anti-FG choose to ignore this. You even try and make his point for him “the healthier the deposit, including the source, the better” – this is his exact point – he was responding to demands for a much smaller, almost derisory deposit threshold. Good god.
    2. You not having an occupational pension is your own problem.
    3. There is virtually no risk to ex-pats from a tax perspective. Ireland has an extensive double tax treaty list – > 70 countries covered and every conceivable one an Irish person could possibly go to and make decent money for a deposit.
    4. There is a DIRT exemption (clawback) for First Time Buyers to cover the 20% deposit.
    5. Ireland does not have a labour shortage. It has a skills shortage. There are tons of people not working but they’ve no skills.

    Simply awful

    1. some old queen

      There are tons of people not working but they’ve no skills.

      I am unemployed. I have a BSc in Computer Science, two H.Dips and 20 years experience in the IT game. Would you like to explain to me how I have no skills?

      1. Lilly

        What a criminal waste. I’ve noticed generally that Irish employers are terribly narrow minded. They are not interested in your skills and the fact that you could do the job in your sleep. What they want is someone who are done the exact same job previously, as exact a match as possible. They should learn from their Australian counterparts and take a more intelligent approach to recruitment.

      2. Andy

        that was clearly a generalization.

        Your circumstances are not representative of the majority of those not working?

        >30% of people who didn’t finish secondary school are unemployed,
        >20% of people who only finished their junior cert are unemployed,
        Source-CSO 2016 Census

      3. Fez

        @some old queen, that’s an education, not skills, your bsc could be from a time when computer science was punching holes in cards.

        Some of the best software engineers I know never went to college

        1. some old queen

          As I said I have 20 years IT experience and that includes some pretty up to date systems. Nobody mentioned software engineering as that is one small part of the IT industry.

          Do not try and paint my situation as being my own fault because you don’t know what you are talking about.

  7. Lilly

    As for the so-called shortage of teachers, I know someone whose husband is a teacher, aged about 63, and cannot get a job. He’s never had tenure here (possibly because non-Irish speaker, not entirely sure), always did a year here and a year there. The wife thinks it’s ageism plain and simple. English accent probably does him no favours either. But really, when I hear Richard Bruton wanging on about the shortage of teachers, I wonder what’s the hidden agenda.

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