Tag Archives: Bryan Dobson

gilmore

[Eamon Gilmore and Bryan Dobson during last night’s interview on RTE One’s Six One]

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore went on RTE’s Six One last night to attempt to address concerns about his future and the prospect of a wipeout for his party in Friday’s Local and European elections.

Bryan Dobson: “Tanaiste, since the last Local Elections, I think it’s true to say that you’ve lost 20 or more local councillors who have left the Party. You’ve lost four of the TDs who were elected at the time of the last Election, and a bye-election since then. You’ve lost an MEP, who’s running now as an Independent, and one of your outgoing MEPs says that she doesn’t think you should be leader of the Party. What’s going on in Labour?”

Eamon Gilmore: “You know, it has been a difficult three years – but there are times when you have to take decisions that are in the best interests of the country – and that is what the Labour Party has done. That is why we are now recovering – and that is why, on Friday… Friday is about electing the people that will run our city and county councils and electing the best people who will represent us in Europe.

Dobson: “Why should people… how can they have faith in Labour, when so many of your own party members and elected party representatives don’t have faith in you?”

Gilmore: “Well, some haven’t – and that’s their opinion. But, let’s look at what we’ve have to do on Friday. What we have to do on Friday, is for example, elect the best representative to the European Parliament – in the Dublin constituency, for example, that is now a straight choice between… (talk over each other)

Dobson: “… We’ll find out who the candidates with many different views are on… Just a final question in relation to a bad result in the Local Elections – how worrying would that be in your organisation, as you face into the next General Election, if you were to lose, as the poll suggests today, up to half your seats?”

Gilmore: “No, I don’t think that that will be the case at all. I think that when it comes to the economy – I think that people will go out and will want to see Labour Councillors who deliver good local services who can be relied on to make good planning decisions – who are not in anybody’s pocket, who are not not representing any vested interests, but the public interest – and the same in relation to the European Parliament elections, so we send our best people and the best Labour candidates into Parliament, to be part be of the Socialist and Democrat Group and hopefully to elect a new President of…. (talk over each other)

Dobson: “Just a final question about your own role in relation to the upcoming re-shuffle – I mean… members of your own Party – your own Chairman has been saying you need to come back and take on a domestic role and focus on recovering Labour’s electoral and political positions?”

Gilmore: “That’s not about the job I hold in Government, or about any other job that anybody else holds in Government – what this Government is about, is about creating jobs for the people who don’t have jobs,or people who have gone abroad and who would like to come back and work in this country.”

Dobson: “We won’t get that just yet, perhaps? Tanaiste, thank you very much for joining us here this evening.”

Right so.

(RTE)

Bond1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOv9uzM1mvw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

On the Six One News last night Bryan Dobson spoke to assistant professor in economics in Trinity College Dublin, Ronan Lyons, who is also the in-house economist at Daft.ie, about the ‘recovering’ property prices in Dublin.

Bryan Dobson: “What’s your analysis? What’s going on?”

Ronan Lyons: “Well, what’s going on now. I mean, really, prices can only rise for one of three reasons. Either it’s a bubble which is all about mortgage credit really. It’s about incomes going up, which I don’t think is happening on a wide scale at the moment. The last factor is a lack of supply. So, you can call that a price spike, when prices go up because there isn’t enough supply in the Dublin market which is what I think we’re seeing at the moment. That’s why prices are rising.”

Dobson: “So, in terms of where people are raising the money for these purchases, a lot of it is cash, isn’t it? Because the banks are still very slow to lend.”

Lyons: “Yeah, it’s tough to measure because we don’t have good figures on the proportion that are cash or mortgage-backed, based on the whole set of transactions. But what we do know is that the number of mortgages being approved and the number of mortgages being issued is going up and I think there were statistics out today that said the mortgages approved in the month just gone in October was the highest on, the highest on record, apart from I think the end of last year when there was mortgage interest relief. So mortgages are coming back and I think it’s all about sentiment really at the moment really, in the Dublin market. There’s a bit of momentum creeping back. So the backlog of people who didn’t buy between 2008 and 2012, they’re coming back into the market now.”

Dobson: “All right. And in terms of…we have some visitors there behind you but don’t let that distract you for a moment. [car beep sound] In terms, in terms of the investor, the investor involvement in this market, how, how important are they? I mean are they a big factor in this?”

Ronan Lyons: “Well, typically, you see investors, in the one and two-bed segment, where the yield, which is the relationship between prices and rents, that’s about 10 to 12 per cent and if you think about a 10 to 12 per cent return on your savings account, you know, that’s a high return. and that’s what they’re seeing in the smaller property segment. In the family home segment, that figure is may be only five or six per cent.”

Dobson: “Well I tell you what, Ronan. I’m gonna stop, I’m gonna stop that there because the idiots behind you are a bit of a distraction. So we’ll eh, we’ll try get rid of those and come back to you if you can. Otherwise, thanks very much.”

Lyons: “No problem.”

Watch the Six One News in full here and go to 23.30 for the above segment.