From top: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien addressing media at Government Buildings on measures to curb the activities of cuckoo funds last Tuesday; Dan Boyle
During my life I’ve had experience of every type of housing tenure. I’ve been an owner occupier. While in the Oireachtas I also acquired an apartment in Dublin, a home from home as I worked there.
The owning of either property was something of a self delusion. Large mortgages existed on both properties. What existed was a promise to acquire if agreed payments were met at required times.
The purchase of the house in Cork wasn’t easy. We qualified for a Housing Finance Agency loan through Cork Corporation of £17,500 (punts) at an interest rate of 13.5%. The house we purchased cost £24,500 equivalent to €35,000 in new money.
We met the shortfall through a £5,000 sterling loan from an English relative paid back at commercial rates, as well as £3,000 loan from our local credit union, given as being for ‘house furnishing’. A first time buyers grant either didn’t exist then or it didn’t apply (it wasn’t a newly built house).
Our collateral against this was a collective income of less than £100 a week. In fact it was lower than that again, as the Teamwork employment scheme I was on came to an end, making me unemployed as the conveyancing was being completed.
This type of juggling has held a similar relativity across the generations throughout the history of this State. The formula has always been access to a mortgage provider giving rates of interest that could be sustained at an average level of income.
Not anymore. Once Ireland, along with the UK and New Zealand, had at 80% among the highest rates of home ownership in the world. Now we are below the European Union average.
The dependence on owner occupier housing has skewered the choice that has historically been available. The private rented sector has been been small, with local authority social housing being the main alternative for many.
The post-Celtic Tiger period saw government policy encourage a larger rental sector. The sector has practically been given carte blanche to establish dominance in the housing market.
The growing affordability gap and the virtual ending of building new social housing, has helped affirm the new found dominance of the rental sector.
In acquiring property, my generation, and those before mine we’re lucky. My daughter’s generation and that of her children won’t be.
What we need is a national coherent housing policy. One that offers real choice in housing tenure. One that has security of tenure and fair housing costs as its core.
We can’t go back to the way things were. We can’t allow the pernicious influence of the Construction Industry Federation to continue to hold sway.
Voluntary housing bodies, community housing and cost rental schemes offer the opportunity that widens the diversity needed to deepen and improve housing supply. This is where policy should lead.
I sold the properties I ‘owned’. The mortgages were repaid. There was no cash profit nor was that something that bothered me. The payments over the years I made I saw as the equivalent of rent.
For the past decade I have rented. I will rent for the rest of my life. Once that rent is affordable and my tenure is secure I will be happy to do so.
Would that everyone had that choice.
Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator and serves as a Green Party councillor on Cork City Council. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle
A quick point;
Irish demographics has changed massively in the last 30 years. Up until the 90s there was huge emigration of Irish youth 18-30s (and very little immigration of non-Irish). The 18-30 age group is the most likely to rent. We left for UK, Germany and the USA and rented properties abroad. Those that stayed had jobs and bough homes.
Over the last 30 years we have seen a huge influx of non-Irish – many of whom are in that 18-30 age group. And guess what? Most of them don’t want to buy homes, they want to rent.
So what?
Dan Boyle said: Not anymore. Once Ireland, along with the UK and New Zealand, had at 80% among the highest rates of home ownership in the world. Now we are below the European Union average.
The Irish property market has evolved as the demographics in Ireland have changed.
I think the property market has failed to keep up as demographics have changed in Ireland.
I’m not arguing that the property market here is great – it’s not.
My point is that the increase in renting isn’t (just) a result of a failed property market – it is a result of the changing demographic many of whom want to rent.
While I think that’s a good point Cian, I don’t think there is any defense of the fact that multiple governments sat on their hands for years while a housing crisis grew legs and ran amok. This isn’t news to anyone – least of all them – and even still, the measures they’ve taken to rectify it are ineffective, and will likely create further problems down the line instead of solving them. It’s all too little too late, and it certainly doesn’t reflect the changing demographics of the Irish property market.
You write as if the Green Party was not a loyal collaborator in the catastrophic housing policy of this government.
You tell us we can’t go back to the way we were, to the pernicious influence of the Construction Industry Federation. We never left that ruthless influence because FF/FG have never stopped favouring the rich property developers at the expense of ordinary citizens. That’s why those parties have, effectively, lost the last three elections.
But they are still in power, still destroying the lives of countless thousands of citizens because your party has also abandoned the interests of the people for the thrill of a brief moment of power.
Your party will be justly wiped out at the next election. The people will, ultimately, have their pound of flesh
That mans head is fierce distracting.
it’s called a Têtes à claques
literally a head you want to slap,
fun show https://www.tetesaclaques.tv/accueil
sorry bad link …here https://youtu.be/wC_25SfemJA
I’m just trying to guess what he’s singing; Nessun Dorma perhaps?
Well fed anyway …
Never trust a fart, they say.
Deputy Leader of Seanad Éireann from 2007 to 2011 while green party were in power.
Green Party ministers, 2007
Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government John Gormley
Green Party Ministers, 2008
Ciarán Cuffe Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
Transport
Environment, Heritage and Local Government
So you see Dan, Green Party held the Housing portfolio from 2007 to 2011.
There’s a pattern to Dan’s musings that reflect the Green PArty Leader’s though process. Identify an issue, describe it then see if you can apportion blame to someone other than yourself, in the case of Housing the GP has a lot to take blame for.
Thankfully, Green Party will be gone soon
Actually no. Housing was largely through an FF junior minister, Michael Finneran. Outside of that it was when the property market spectacularly collapsed. We did affect significant changes in building regulations and introduced a second homes tax. We made some inroads on homelessness and with the voluntary housing sector. Much of this progress was squandered by subsequent governments. Not that black and white is it?
The telling phrase in that, which sums up what the green party are about is ‘introduced a second homes tax’.
Tax – the silver bullet eh Dan? And no effect on the housing supply.
Yep an effective tool in bringing about change. Creates income for important areas of public expenditure. Go figure.
It is that black and white, as black and white as your hypocrisy. Blaming others for your party’s betrayal is hypocritical in the extreme.
The purchase of the house in Cork wasn’t easy. […] The house we purchased cost £24,500 .
We met the shortfall through a £5,000 sterling loan from an English relative paid back at commercial rates, as well as £3,000 loan from our local credit union, given as being for ‘house furnishing’.
Our collateral against this was a collective income of less than £100 a week.
So you got a loan for a 24,500 house on a salary of ~5,000.
A main ‘mortgage’ loan of 17,500. (this is 3.5x salary)
and the balance wasn’t from savings, but from a 5,000 family loan land 3,000 credit union loan.
8,000 of short-term debt and 17,500 of longer-term debt.
Total borrowings: 25,500 for a 24,500 house?
Throw in stamp duty and solicitors fees and it looks like there was zero borrowings needed.
What has changed since then?
lets do some maths; I want to buy a 245,000 house. I earn 50K year.
(AIB.ie mortgage calculator says 2x singles earning 25,000 each can get a mortgage of 175,000) – €824.93/month repayment over 25 years
€30,000 from credit union (9.21% over 5 years) = €630/month repayment
€50,000 family loan (8.6% over 10 years) = €620/month repayment
total: €2000/month repayments
Dan, as usual you are the pot calling the kettle black have you no shame?
The GreenWash Party have abandoned this generation and are sucking up as usual to their masters in FF/FG.
Your GreenWash party have said to the vulture funds “business as usual” as you assist in the screwing over this generation.
I will relish the uber-hypocritical GreenWash party being eliminated in the next election
Tell me what does this hyperbole and invective actually achieve? Anger, real or not, isn’t analyisis. I’m giving my experience and perspective. It isn’t writ but it isn’t undermined by kneejerk response. I realise that it is fruitless to expect most of these comments to be anything otherwise, but the context and the level of sincerity is so, so out of proproportion.
I don’t think it’s a kneejerk reaction at all Dan. I think it’s a fairly accurate representation of the anger people who voted GP in the last election (like myself) feel at the absolute shambles GP have been part of in their desire to be in government. I, like plenty before me, will likely never vote for the green party again.
While there are loads of valid criticisms of the GP, do you really expect them to have been able to solve the housing crisis after one (Covid) year in coalition?
No, you’re absolutely right, but I certainly expected a bit more than this. I also expected a bit more of the GP regarding effective measures for addressing climate change. After all, that’s what they ran on.
At their first hurdle, they failed and lost some of the more promising young politicians, like Neasa Hourigan.
Its incredibly frustrating to see them make the same mistakes again – enabling FF/FG, lying down and having zero impact – and it feels like once again, for all their talk, they are ignoring the very people who voted them in.
My response to Dan is borne of frustration, long frustration, and I genuinely hoped when I voted for GP that I would start to see some change but I haven’t, and I know I’m not alone.
I voted for a Green candidate last time out
not because of kewl e-bikes and saving the planet
it was because one of their key manifesto items was around the provision of affordable housing
see their GE2020 paper “Policy Paper on Housing” here:
https://www.greenparty.ie/policies/2020-general-election-manifesto/
which bears no relationship to their current passive whipped stance
it’s clearly not serious for them and they will not be getting my vote next time out
as the joke goes, FG on Bikes
I don’t live in a bubble. I know what criticism is. I know when it’s justified and I know when it isn’t sincere. Much of what is written of social media isn’t true, sincere or reflective. The fact that some here kneejerk to my accusation of kneejerking is a kind of proof in itself. Roll on more invective. And projection.
The only thing your response shows me is an enormous degree of arrogance, Dan. I suggest you learn how to take criticism with a bit more grace than an angry swan.
Dan, your party is not taking the issue of affordable housing seriously
If ye did we wouldn’t be discussing this matter…because we’d be preparing for a General Election
Instead of willfully following FG’s design and ideology
I’m a bit shocked you don’t feel the anger out there right now and the conclusion of being in some sort of bubble is a reasonable assessment imo
crazy
Your standard accusation of hyperbole and invective against those who criticise you demonstrates your abject ignorance of the damage your party has done to the people of Ireland. As for anger, it is the emotion that fuels revolution, that forces parties like yours into oblivion.
Does Ray Burke advise this goon?
What I think is arrogant is people who accuse you of arrogance when you don’t agree with them. The preferred response is to accept unquestionly, never to provide an actual context, never to explain that other perspectives can and do exist. Now that’s arrogant..
Your incoherent attacks on your critics are pitiful and fail to divert from the fact that your party has betrayed the trust of those who voted for you.
Indeed they are. You are right as you probably are about everything. I’m beyond trust and no one trusts me. It must hurt to be so perceptive.
It’s not about me, it’s about the damage inflicted on people by dishonest politicians. You seem to have no awareness whatsoever that people are in real trouble, are really suffering, with no hope. You and your party are to a large extent responsible for that hardship.
I have every awareness. I know I’m not dishonest and I’m not going to tolerate people who presume they know me telling me I am.
Dan, as a fellow GP member, I think you should consider that a lot of the “crticism” you refer to is frustration that the GP has not been seen to question and criticise the decisions of our partners in government.
There have been a number of opportunities for our members in government to hold off on support for decisions and raise questions.