Tag Archives: Economy

This morning.

Dublin Castle. Dublin 2.

It’ll be grand.

Earlier: Coal War

Sam Boal/Rollingnews

This morning.

Government Press Centre, Dublin 2.

Minister for Public Expenditure & Reform, Michael McGrath (left) and Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe at the launch of  the Government’s Summer Economic Statement 2021. To wit:

Despite needing to borrow nearly €19bn more than expected to balance the country’s books for this year, Paschal Donohoe intends to keep the purse strings loose for the lifetime of this Government.

The Finance Minister is looking at €2bn of tax cuts by the end of its term in 2025, while at the same time ramping up non-Covid spending.

We’re back, baby.

Rarr.

Post-pandemic boom to fund four years of tax cuts as Donohoe loosens purse strings (Independent.ie)

Meanwhile…

Seems legit.

Leah Farrell/RollingNews

Shoppers on Grafton Street

The Irish Times reports:

Growth in the Irish economy has again confounded expectations, growing by 10.4 per cent year on year in the third quarter of 2017.

The latest quarterly national accounts show gross domestic product (GDP) accelerated by 4.2 per cent in the third quarter alone amid a strong pick-up in personal consumption.

This was nearly eight times the growth rate recorded in the euro zone as a whole for the third quarter.

The figures also show Gross National Product (GNP), which strips out the effects of multinational profit flows, jumped by 11.9 per cent on a quarterly basis.

Irish economy surges to double-digit growth (Eoin Burke-Kennedy, The Irish Times)

Rollingnews

Grafton Street

Further to the release of the latest homeless figures last Friday showing 7,941 people registered as homeless in June 2017, 5,046 adults and 2,895 children – an overall increase of 241 people form May 2017…

RTE reports:

Ireland has now recovered from the economic crash of a decade ago, according to Goodbody stockbroker’s latest quarterly Irish Economy Health Check.

It is forecasting a return of domestic spending levels to their 2007 peak this year and suggests that full employment will be achieved by the end of next year.

Goodbody’s report says rapid growth in construction and consumer spending will push core domestic demand beyond previous forecasts and Ireland will retain its status as one of the fastest-growing European economies.

With jobs growing at the fastest pace since 1999, unemployment will fall to just 5% in late 2018, according to Goodbody Chief Economist Dermot O’Leary.

As a result, Ireland may need to start relying on immigrant labour to maintain its momentum as one of Europe’s fastest-growing economies.

Hmmm.

Ireland has emerged from ‘lost decade’ – Goodbody (RTE)

Previously: A Rising Tide

Rollingnews

Screen Shot 2015-10-09 at 13.00.55

Fine Gael TD and junior minister for finance, Simon Harris

This morning’s Friday Gathering panel on the Today With Seán O’Rourke Show were: Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Simon Harris, Anti Austerity Alliance TD Ruth Coppinger, Mick Clifford, Special Correspondent with The Examiner and Political Correspondent with RTE, Katie Hannon.

During their discussion, the matter of homeless and social housing was raised.

Mr Harris also talked about the economy…

Ruth Coppinger: “Just with regard to this funding of local authorities, let’s just be absolutely factual: 20 local authority homes were completed in the first quarter of 2015 and 117 housing association homes. If that continues…”

Sean O’Rourke: “Is that for the whole country?”

Coppinger: “Yes. There’s the department of environment figures. If that continues for the whole year, there’ll be less than 500, you know, social houses. In 1975, I lived in a council house with my family and there was 8,795 houses built by local authorities.”

Talk over each other

Simon Harris: “We’re not having a dispute over this. I’m basically making the point…”

Talk over each other

Coppinger: “No, but can I clarify, I said, Fianna Fáil did lower things but actually they built more in 2010 than you’re building now and this is meant to be an housing emergency. That’s just the facts.”

Harris: “Let’s be very clear about what I said. When you decide, as a Government, as the previous government did, to stop building social housing, to stop building social housing and to move into the rental market – that was a policy decision they made. When you decide for that to happen, the system grinds…please let me finish…the system grinds to a halt. The infrastructure that’s in place to build the houses grinds to a halt. You have to bring that back up. We have put investment in place that will allow that to happen but it won’t happen over night…”

Coppinger: “It’s not for building houses. It’s for modular homes and hotel accommodation.”

Harris: “You, you, you protesting about it, or sitting in show houses, isn’t going to solve the problem.”

Talk over each other

Coppinger: “Well, actually, it’s brought more attention which is move than you’ve ever done.”

Harris: “No what will solve the problem is actually coming up with ways of funding it and our economic policies mean we can…”

Coppinger: “Can I tell you how we could fund it? It’s actually quite simple.”

Harris: You don’t have a way of funding it.”

Coppinger: “Ok, I’ll give you two examples of where it could be funded.”

Harris: “Sure”

Coppinger: “Nama has €3billion on hand now, for development. I believe it’s going to go into the Docklands or whatever. That €3billion could be set aside for social and affordable houses. It also sold Dundrum Shopping Centre and a number of shopping centres and it got €1.8billion, that could also go towards it. We could argue about how much it costs to build a house but if you brought in emergency legislation, planning legislation, to fastrack this, which could be done if you had a Government that cared..”

Harris: “We do care.”

Coppinger: “You could quickly acquire land, Nama has a third of development land in Dublin. And, for example, modular homes which I understand people might want because hotel lives are so bad, aren’t that cheap and they’re really not that quick either because you’ll still have the whole planning issue. You could actually, no, but you could refurbish some of the hotels, give people cooking facilities and located them to where their kids are. I’ve talked to homeless people about it…”

Harris: “And I’ve talked to homeless people as well.”

Coppinger: “And, sorry, there is also the Strategic Investment Fund – there’s €4billion…”

Harris: “And as you know, and as you probably heard from Nama, at the Public Accounts Committee, there is a significant number of homes that have been offered to local authorities. Some have been, a significant number, over 4,000, have been turned down. That’s not a criticism of local authorities but of the 6,000 houses offered, the local authorities turned down over 4,000.”

Coppinger: “That figure is being cited by the Government but actually…”

Harris: “It’s not being cited, it’s a statement of fact.”

Coppinger: “It’s not a lot to offer though…”

Harris: “It’s a statement of fact.”

Coppinger: “Over 8 years, if you boil it down, that’s not a lot of housing.”

Later

Michael Clifford: “There’s a case, the Government, definitely, they righted a listing economy, there’s no question about that, the economy is in much better shape than it was four years ago. You can argue about how fair it was, absolutely, you can argue about and the fact that the benefits coming through are not being felt. However, outside, following the programme, laid down by the Troika and Fianna Fáil, in relation to numerous social issues, the Government’s been an abject failure. They put all their energies into the economy, as they saw it and a number of social issues – we saw this the minute the Troika left town – they started being hit by various issues straight away.”

Harris: “Yeah but I have to come back on this point because there is an attempt, and I think a view held that you can decouple economy from society. It’s very easy for any politician or commentator to list all societal issues, of which there are many, you can’t fund them, they’re only aspirational and cheap talk unless you actually have a functioning economy. What we now have is what we didn’t have when we came to office in 2011: is an economy that can begin to fund those services. But only if we secure the recovery, only if we get more people back to work and only if we make the right decisions.”

Listen back in full here

Previously: Who Wants To Live In An Economy?

Meanwhile..

“There is an intimidatory element attached to patrons using premises such as these and no resident should be subjected to living in fear of this situation occurring”.

Simon Harris objecting to a Simon Community homeless shelter in his Wicklow constituency in 2013.

Good times.

TD rejects Wicklow homeless shelter bid (Colin Coyle, Sunday Times April 7, 2013)

Leah Farrell/Rollingnews.ie

Ching-Chiat-Kwong-ds

Ching Chait Kwong (top) and the proposed Dublin Docklands Strategic Development Zone (SDZ)

Ching Chiat Kwong.

He has suits bigger than some of his apartments.

The Government’s Housing Agency wants Dublin City Council to lower its apartment size rules and allow the construction of rental-only “studios” 27 per cent smaller than the current minimum size.

Housing Agency calls for smaller apartments in Dublin (Irish Times, October 4, 2014)

Planning permission has been sought [By Oxley and Ballymore] for the first phase of one of the largest developments planned for Dublin’s docklands under Dublin City Council’s new fast-track planning scheme.

…Oxley is headed up by former Singapore police officer Ching Chiat Kwong, who made his name in Singapore as the “Shoebox King” for developing compact apartments.

Major development planned on Dublin docklands site (Irish Times, today)

D writes:

Surely there’s some connection between these two stories…Perhaps your readers can shed some light?

Oxley?

Major development planned on Dublin docklands site (Irish Times)

Ching Chiat Kwong on Forbes Lists

Previously: ‘No Party May Appeal To An Bord Pleanála’