Welfare faces significant cutbacks

AlekSmart

You are looking at things from a tenant's perspective, which is probably why you have so many facts wrong wrt. PRTB and the legal process required to regain control of one's own property in Ireland. You don't believe a tenant can ruin a landlord when the landlord has mortgage repayments of 1200 a month, is subsidising a few hundred quid of the repayment already with their wages and then their tenant refuse to pay rent for a year? Get the blinkers off: it's very poor financial decision making by the landlord but it is the non-paying tenant who is ruining him. If the tenant just moved out, the landlord would be ok.

It`s interesting,Murphaph,that over on the Morgan Kelly thread I`m recieving flak for raising the spectre of there being a peculiar "Irishness" about the entire Home Ownership crusade which remain central to so much of our current fiscal difficulties.

The comments by Threshold`s Chairperson Aideen Hayden on "Illegal Evictions" detract from her other far more sensible message about a State supervised Deposit Retention Scheme which would operate in the interests of Fair Play rather than stroking as currently appears the norm.

The Governmental Policies which aggressively pumped-up the Home Ownership scene over the past 30 years were progressed entirely at the expense of the Rental Sector,both private and public.

If even a fraction of the public funding which went to support Mortgage Interest Reliefs and First Time Buyers Grants had been diverted into resourcing a solid regulatory framework for Renting Resedential Property then I`m confident that the current collapse could have been far more of a "Soft Landing" than the one we are all about to experience.

tara73

ntlbell wrote: »

Where do they get the difference well they get over 800e a month on SW. this is not including RA: so I guess they use part of the 800e to pay their rent? is this really that complicated?

yes, it is complicated when people can't read prorperly. if you mix SW and RA togehter, alright.
I'm tired of repeating, I wrote in my first post SW should be cut, as it is too high, but not RA, as they are two seperate allowances.

ntlbell wrote: »

I did a check this morning and found 497 options under 400e in dublin city.

presume you included sharing places now. I still think renting a room in a house with strangers, probably students, is out of discussion for a family with kids, a couple or even for most of single professionals.

ntlbell wrote: »

I didn't throw out any stats. so I'm not sure why you're pointing this at me. Talk to the poster.

that's what I did, he was able to understand it and already delivered the link. thanks for that btw.

ntlbell wrote: »

The sense is it can be afford to be cut as RA and SW payments are too high. with RA and before other allowances. it's 1160e. this is more than people get working miniimum wage

yes, so the minimum wage should maybe reflected as well.

ntlbell wrote: »

What big developers were saved? considering the biggest are now mostly bankrupt?

not true, be sure, especially the big ones are not bancrupt. for example here, in this forum, you can find threads about nama and their collaborations with the big developers.

ntlbell wrote: »

I'm all for cutting PS wages etc but this thread is about SW
Maybe so but there's another thread for that discussion

If I take part in a discussion I like to give a context and explain why I have and how I come to this opinion. The situation in Ireland is complex and all is interconnected at the moment and I don't like throwing out statements without backing them up as other people do (not you meant personnally now!!)
we could just answer 'no' or 'yes' to this thread but would say that's a bit useless.
anyway it would be up to the mods to intervene if they think it's off topic.

think it doesn't make any sense to discuss further, we agree in the case to cut SW, it seems more to go on about the definition RA.
thanks for sharing opinion.

RichardAnd

yosemite_sam wrote: »

Too much, it should be no more than 100 euro a week. You should only get it for 6 months tops

I believe this was recently touted by Michael O'Leary. It's a typical comment made by someone who either knows they will never need the dole or who believes they never will. Opinions like this tend to disappear once the redundancy beckons.

In my opinion, the dole should be at a reasonable level that allows an unemployed person to survive in decent comfort. The other thing I would change about the dole is how it's handed out. I think that, perhaps, a system where we could avoid mass queues of people waiting for handouts. Granted, this may not even be possible and it brings up other issues with welfare scroungers but I think that the unemployed should be allowed to collect their payments with some dignity rather than having to waiting in line. Just my two cents.

snubbleste

I don't understand why people don't believe those rent supplement figures posted. They come from the minister himself!

In 2000, the govt spent €151m for 42,700 recipients
In 2009, the govt spent €517m for 87,802 recepients
In 2010, the figure is expected to be €509m

The State would have been better off buying accomodation instead of subsdising landlords to the tune of €1,636,000,000 in the six years 2000-2005. Rent really is dead money!

Godge

tara73 wrote: »

presume you included sharing places now. I still think renting a room in a house with strangers, probably students, is out of discussion for a family with kids, a couple or even for most of single professionals.

So that I am understanding you right, you are saying that an unemployed single professional who doesn't have a job should have the right to enough rent allowance to ensure that they don't have to share accommodation, particularly with students???

What about all those hard-working employed people out there who can only afford to rent shared accommodation, sometimes with students. We need to get real here. A roof over your head doesn't mean an entitlement to a nice one-bedroomed apartment in the IFSC area all for yourself.

murphaph

tara73 wrote: »

presume you included sharing places now. I still think renting a room in a house with strangers, probably students, is out of discussion for a family with kids, a couple or even for most of single professionals.

professionally unemplyed singletons?

Seriously, you expect the state to pick up the tab for a single person to rattle around their own house/flat rather than asking them to rent a room in a shared house?

I don't get the problem so many people have with house sharing. It's the norm here for a lot of people, even when they leave student life behind. I suppose it's that Irish need for space and to be as far away from other human beings as possible.

Why do you assume only students rent together? I don't think you could be more wrong. Check out the housing estates around any large MNC site (Intel or IBM for example) and you'll find plenty of WORKING people sharing a house. The indignity of it! :eek:

gurramok

Godge wrote: »

So that I am understanding you right, you are saying that an unemployed single professional who doesn't have a job should have the right to enough rent allowance to ensure that they don't have to share accommodation, particularly with students???

What about all those hard-working employed people out there who can only afford to rent shared accommodation, sometimes with students. We need to get real here. A roof over your head doesn't mean an entitlement to a nice one-bedroomed apartment in the IFSC area all for yourself.

murphaph wrote: »

professionally unemplyed singletons?

Seriously, you expect the state to pick up the tab for a single person to rattle around their own house/flat rather than asking them to rent a room in a shared house?

I don't get the problem so many people have with house sharing. It's the norm here for a lot of people, even when they leave student life behind. I suppose it's that Irish need for space and to be as far away from other human beings as possible.

Why do you assume only students rent together? I don't think you could be more wrong. Check out the housing estates around any large MNC site (Intel or IBM for example) and you'll find plenty of WORKING people sharing a house. The indignity of it! :eek:

The problem is not with entitlement, the problem is with Rent Allowance holding back the prices of 1 bed apts/studios which should not be asking 800 or 900 in rent but around 400-500pm as 1bed apts are really only for singletons. Just look at the 2bed apts, they just ask about 100-200 more in general which doesn't make sense.

If the 1beds were at their unsubsidised price, the poster would not need/asked/forced to live in shared accommodation.

We don't ask singletons with jobs to buy with others do we? They nearly always buy on their own as they need their own space. If they can't afford to buy on their own where there is a need to buy, they always got a friend/sibling/parent to buy with them on the sly.(2 of my friends did this)

johnboy_123

gurramok wrote: »

The problem is not with entitlement, the problem is with Rent Allowance holding back the prices of 1 bed apts/studios which should not be asking 800 or 900 in rent but around 400-500pm as 1bed apts are really only for singletons. Just look at the 2bed apts, they just ask about 100-200 more in general which doesn't make sense.

If the 1beds were at their unsubsidised price, the poster would not need/asked/forced to live in shared accommodation.

We don't ask singletons with jobs to buy with others do we? They nearly always buy on their own as they need their own space. If they can't afford to buy on their own where there is a need to buy, they always got a friend/sibling/parent to buy with them on the sly.(2 of my friends did this)

The only problem with your theory here is that if rents are lowered, people still have to pay the mortgage on them and if they have less money then there is a higher likelyhood of default, which as pointed out by Morgan Kelly is the next avalanche to come through this country. So one way or the other the tax payer will be subsidizing?

gurramok

johnboy_123 wrote: »

The only problem with your theory here is that if rents are lowered, people still have to pay the mortgage on them and if they have less money then there is a higher likelyhood of default, which as pointed out by Morgan Kelly is the next avalanche to come through this country. So one way or the other the tax payer will be subsidizing?

And why is that a good thing using excessive borrowed money to fund this form of welfare? This debt is on taxpayers who in turn as well as having to pay it back through taxes suffer as a result of high rents.

A minority of a minority of landlords will suffer as only some are unemployed, the rest are still working and will have to contribute to their investments for a change....or you prefer the country to default to protect them?:eek:

johnboy_123

gurramok wrote: »

And why is that a good thing using excessive borrowed money to fund this form of welfare? This debt is on taxpayers who in turn as well as having to pay it back through taxes suffer as a result of high rents.

A minority of a minority of landlords will suffer as only some are unemployed, the rest are still working and will have to contribute to their investments for a change....or you prefer the country to default to protect them?:eek:

I am not saying it was a good thing I am just saying it is a realism that people bought at the height of the boom , no doubt it was folly but they did it and you really need figures for people who are now on Social welfare and are landlords, not to mention the property tax already imposed on these. I would bet if you offered to take the propery and mortgage off their hands Id say there would be a fair few takers (but once again I have no figures)...I mean you can piss and moan about the morality of overborrowing but in reality it happened and we are were we are and there are 2 sides to the borrowing and I have yet to see the bankers suffer?

And on that tune why is it a good thing for tax payers to be bailing out builders/banks or to pay other peoples overinflated pensions, children's allowence, scratch and overbloated P.S wages...

As for the country defaulting I see the P.S wages, current bank deficit and NAMA sinking that ship long before the working mans or man on the socials mortgage sinking it.

Its a crapshoot and everyone in Ireland now is protecting their own patch and you will see this increase as we get closer to the budget

gurramok

johnboy_123 wrote: »

I am not saying it was a good thing I am just saying it is a realism that people bought at the height of the boom , no doubt it was folly but they did it and you really need figures for people who are now on Social welfare and are landlords, not to mention the property tax already imposed on these. I would bet if you offered to take the propery and mortgage off their hands Id say there would be a fair few takers (but once again I have no figures)...I mean you can piss and moan about the morality of overborrowing but in reality it happened and we are were we are and there are 2 sides to the borrowing and I have yet to see the bankers suffer?

And on that tune why is it a good thing for tax payers to be bailing out builders/banks or to pay other peoples overinflated pensions, children's allowence, scratch and overbloated P.S wages...

As for the country defaulting I see the P.S wages, current bank deficit and NAMA sinking that ship long before the working mans or man on the socials mortgage sinking it.

Its a crapshoot and everyone in Ireland now is protecting their own patch and you will see this increase as we get closer to the budget

On the tune of 'bailing out', the following should be cut too - "peoples overinflated pensions, children's allowence, scratch and overbloated P.S wages.". It has been discussed to death here why the banks had to be rescued.

Yes its a crapshoot all around. What you are coming across as saying that rent allowance should not be touched in order to protect landlords as other sectors have been protected while the taxpayers(especially the prudent ) and the workers who rent these places suffer. That ain't on morally nor to help make us competitive.

500m+ goes on Rent Allowance in this country, most of that is borrowed money into the hand of landlords, that along with the rest of welfare & PS is helping us default so subsidised rents are an issue on the table.

ZYX

gurramok wrote: »

On the tune of 'bailing out', the following should be cut too - "peoples overinflated pensions, children's allowence, scratch and overbloated P.S wages.". It has been discussed to death here why the banks had to be rescued.

Yes its a crapshoot all around. What you are coming across as saying that rent allowance should not be touched in order to protect landlords as other sectors have been protected while the taxpayers(especially the prudent ) and the workers who rent these places suffer. That ain't on morally nor to help make us competitive.

500m+ goes on Rent Allowance in this country, most of that is borrowed money into the hand of landlords, that along with the rest of welfare & PS is helping us default so subsidised rents are an issue on the table.

In fairness the first thing that needs to go is the tax relief available on rent paid. That and mortgage intrest relief should/will be abolished as soon as possible.

gurramok

ZYX wrote: »

In fairness the first thing that needs to go is the tax relief available on rent paid. That and mortgage intrest relief should/will be abolished as soon as possible.

Including all interest relief available on investment mortgages?(75% it is now)

I'd agree all reliefs that support the property sector should be scrapped as they too are an artificial floor on affordability on buying. (house prices will come down to reflect this). I just wonder if they can do it without getting too many people in difficulty on their PPR(unlike landlords where its a business).

Godge

johnboy_123 wrote: »

I am not saying it was a good thing I am just saying it is a realism that people bought at the height of the boom , no doubt it was folly but they did it and you really need figures for people who are now on Social welfare and are landlords, not to mention the property tax already imposed on these. I would bet if you offered to take the propery and mortgage off their hands Id say there would be a fair few takers (but once again I have no figures)...I mean you can piss and moan about the morality of overborrowing but in reality it happened and we are were we are and there are 2 sides to the borrowing and I have yet to see the bankers suffer?

And on that tune why is it a good thing for tax payers to be bailing out builders/banks or to pay other peoples overinflated pensions, children's allowence, scratch and overbloated P.S wages...

As for the country defaulting I see the P.S wages, current bank deficit and NAMA sinking that ship long before the working mans or man on the socials mortgage sinking it.

Its a crapshoot and everyone in Ireland now is protecting their own patch and you will see this increase as we get closer to the budget

Rightly or wrongly, the banks were bailed out because of fears of systemic collapse. That doesn't apply to individuals who bought property at the wrong time.

In order for this country to grow ourselves out of this mess, we need to make ourselves more competitive by reducing costs. As a result, rents in Dublin for example need to be below the European average for small regional European cities e.g. Manchester, Eindhoven, Montpelier, Palermo, Edinburgh etc.

To get rents below those competitors we need to cut rent allowance, abolish property tax reliefs (including all morgage relief), bring in a property tax as all of these measures will force down rents and/or property prices. If a new invester pays less for a building, he needs less rent which is good news for businesses looking for premises or workers looking for a place to live. If a number (large or small) of the investors of the last ten years get burned as a result, tough.

ArtSmart

gurramok wrote: »

The problem is not with entitlement, the problem is with Rent Allowance holding back the prices of 1 bed apts/studios which should not be asking 800 or 900 in rent but around 400-500pm as 1bed apts are really only for singletons. Just look at the 2bed apts, they just ask about 100-200 more in general which doesn't make sense.

If the 1beds were at their unsubsidised price, the poster would not need/asked/forced to live in shared accommodation.

We don't ask singletons with jobs to buy with others do we? They nearly always buy on their own as they need their own space. If they can't afford to buy on their own where there is a need to buy, they always got a friend/sibling/parent to buy with them on the sly.(2 of my friends did this)

it's being a while gurramok

anyway
extrapolation (lecture/ bluff) # 2

i've heard price floor bandied about, but what the gov will actually be doing is creating a price ceiling if they dropped RA. (for explanation of price ceiling check out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_ceiling)

that is they will be forcing the price balance between supply and demand - which has a medium based on natural* supply and demand intersection downwards to an unnatural level.

An example of what i mean is say the gov decided to put a price ceiling on tea during war times -what would happen? (and has happened)

yup - black market, shortages.

in this case what would happen is in the long term (and to some extent in the short term)
renting becomes less attractive therefore less LL in the mkt, therefore prices will actually rise
renters (all) will have to take shoddier premises/ will have less choice.
those on RA will have to pay under the table money (ie non declared money) to secure a roof (as less properties for rent)

all renter lose.

in general interference in the rental mkt by gov, results in tears.



(* natural as in the traditional laws of supply and demand0

Fags are Evil

My policy on Social Welfare is the following;

• Freeze JSB at current levels
• Slash JSA to €165 -- 2006 levels.
• Trim the Old Age Pension to €215
• Abolish many of the generous tax reliefs on exorbitant private pensions

Under my proposals long term scroungers could no longer hijack the people who have worked for 30 years as excuse to maintain the social welfare status quo. These vermin are pilaging the preposterously excessive welfare system at a time of national urgency.

Time for a wake up call for those who contest any of the above!

ArtSmart

Fags are Evil wrote: »

My policy on Social Welfare is the following;

• Freeze JSB at current levels
• Slash JSA to €165 -- 2006 levels.
• Trim the Old Age Pension to €215
• Abolish many of the generous tax reliefs on exorbitant private pensions

Under my proposals long term scroungers could no longer hijack the people who have worked for 30 years as excuse to maintain the social welfare status quo. These vermin are pilaging the preposterously excessive welfare system at a time of national urgency.

Time for a wake up call for those who contest any of the above!

em, i believe the term is 'artiste'.

so, er, hows the kicking the fags going?

Fags are Evil

ArtSmart wrote: »

em, i believe the term is 'artiste'.

so, er, hows the kicking the fags going?

I'm working on it. :pac:

Red Actor

johnboy_123 wrote: »

The only problem with your theory here is that if rents are lowered, people still have to pay the mortgage on them and if they have less money then there is a higher likelyhood of default, which as pointed out by Morgan Kelly is the next avalanche to come through this country. So one way or the other the tax payer will be subsidizing?

There are loads of landlords who have their houses for years and have little or no mortgage. It was common enough for a guard to buy a house and have the mates move in with him to pay the mortgage. After a few years the guard bought another house and moved there while his colleagues or the new batch from Templemore continued to pay the first mortgage. This continues with the cautious guard expanding his porfolio every few years. This model of operation would work even for the last decade as the 10 year old mortgage is covered with 6 or 7 months rent.