FF/FG/Green Government - Part 3

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613773#Comment_119613773

Italy's problem is that there is a very low bar of 3% for parties to get into Parliament. In such a politically divided country you will get all manner of extremes of representation. They did propose bringing it up to 5% but it was never agreed.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614084#Comment_119614084

They are not losing a whole lot by McGrath switching and it remains the same pairing. Apart from it being part of the deal it gives FF a chance to look like they are finally looking after the national finances for the first time in over a decade.

rob316

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119615241#Comment_119615241

Loads of these schemes launching now but most are 12 months away from delivering the first house on site. 157 families actually housed sounds about right.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119615241#Comment_119615241

It's a very easy format, on any given day pick a problem like housing that is extremely slow and complex to fix and one that people get very wound up about, then get the minister in, preferably the right one, and go all Paxman on them to hold them to account and you have a news cycle. I don't deny that all of this seems frustratingly slow but I also understand there are massive lead times. There's a section of a new estate at the back of the gym I go to and they have been clearing the ground almost since pre-COVID. It's really only in the last 3-4 months that houses have suddenly begun to appear and even at that it's a limited number of units at a time.

howiya

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119615708#Comment_119615708

So you're agreeing that its just for the sake of party politics.

We do appear to be losing the presidency of the Eurogroup of finance ministers if the switch goes ahead.

howiya

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616111#Comment_119616111

If you can understand that there are massive lead times surely the minister can? Why set unachievable targets?

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616205#Comment_119616205

It was just another FFG government plan. Great targets, no details...

You get used to it.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616205#Comment_119616205

Such things tend to be agreed by stakeholders as targets. Why they seem to be so far off for this year is unknown and usually gets lost in all the political point scoring of how much of a disaster housing is.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616202#Comment_119616202

According to Martin it's part of the deal for government so a deal is a deal. Regardless there will be a major reshuffle anyway. The Donohue Eurogroup position is still unclear at present but is also a form of party politics to want to keep him there just to hang onto that position.

howiya

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616239#Comment_119616239

It was very clear from the minister's interview yesterday why they are so far off target. It was never intended that there would be 4,100 affordable/cost rental homes built this year. Homes bought under the first home (shared equity) scheme are included in this target and the minister only launched this scheme in July despite talking about it for much of the year. Whether you agree or disagree with the shared equity scheme it's impossible for it to pick up the slack given the timeframes.

howiya

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616247#Comment_119616247

I think it would be in Ireland's best interest to keep that position and not just party politics. A deal is a deal? Should we apply that to all utterances made by those in power? I'm still waiting for the USC to be abolished, waiting lists to be reduced etc etc.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616274#Comment_119616274

USC will not be abolished now as it's a perfect tax which catches almost everyone and nets the State €4bn+ annually. Nobody really wants to get rid of it but it can be adjusted. SF may have had abolition as a policy in the past but think even they have now tweaked that.

howiya

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616320#Comment_119616320

We all know it won't be abolished anymore but to quote your "a deal is a deal" guff, did Fine Gael not make a deal with the electorate on this??

How do we ascertain when politicians are lying or telling the truth?

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616202#Comment_119616202

It was reported that Martin said it was going ahead, but when I read his words, there is enough wriggle room for a change. I am sure he would be happy to stay on as Taoiseach if presidency of Eurogroup is that important.

howiya

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616361#Comment_119616361

Will FG let him stay on as Taoiseach?

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616351#Comment_119616351

They did promise to do so around 2014 IIRC but they went quiet when they spotted just how good a tax it is. The lying thing is down to you. Personally believe very few election promises and commitments in government generally get shown up pretty quickly. Some may be lies but mostly they tend to be incompetence, bad planning, poorly enacted or just stupid overpromising, which Labour have down to an art form.

howiya

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616390#Comment_119616390

I think you'll find lying is down to the person who speaks not the person who listens.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616396#Comment_119616396

Sure, but it's up to you to decide what you feel about that. You can go all six year old on the lying thing or just not vote for them in future. I don't think there is too much of the outright lying but a hell of a lot of misplaced hubris about what can be achieved.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616274#Comment_119616274

What's the benefit to Ireland of PD being president of the EU group exactly?

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616224#Comment_119616224

Once again it looks like LAs are at fault.

https://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/property-mortgages/revealed-how-many-affordable-homes-will-be-built-in-each-county-a-year-41629319.html

Here's a bit more on "pipelines".

https://www.housing.eolasmagazine.ie/housing-for-all-strong-pipeline-for-2022/

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616379#Comment_119616379

No, but he could play the game on Paschal.

howiya

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616440#Comment_119616440

A lot of it is intangible but the president chairs and sets the agenda for the eurogroup meetings which gives Ireland influence beyond its size. Better than the next minister of finance sitting down the back of the room with his hand up waiting for an opportunity to speak.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616465#Comment_119616465

Yeah but what benefit do we, the people, see in our day-to-day lives? Last I checked we have spiraling inflation in Ireland and throughout the EU. Perhaps somebody more competent than Paschal would be able to change the direction?

Worth remembering also that the presidency only lasts 2.5 years

howiya

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616464#Comment_119616464

And therein lies the nub of the problem. It's all just a game to these people.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616677#Comment_119616677

Any negotiation involves gaming a situation.

Shebean

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119616449#Comment_119616449

Doesn't every single brick laid, bought, rented or leased happen through the Local Authorities?

Where do they get the money for large housing projects and does the minister of housing and Local Authorities, (and his party members within the councils) bear any responsibility, even a little bit?

Are they still investigating themselves on the planning?

Is this more Siteserv it wasn't the housing finance department, it was the IBRC, (which the fiance minister had responsibility for)?

maceoin.D.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613761#Comment_119613761

I'd rather monkeys and computers do it tbh.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119618209#Comment_119618209

Governments create policies, strategies and plans but their implementation often depends on a lot of parts working together. If it's working well the government will claim all the success, if it's not they just have to take the hit for the poor outcomes from the likes of LAs.

The government, in this case, provide the cash and there really is lots of it available, LAs are otherwise autonomous. Their problems are multitudinous from poor planning ability to lacking the skills to actually build very much. Even if or when they get on top of this they'll have to keep at it to maintain the stock levels.

Shebean

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119618316#Comment_119618316

That's my point, so you always hold the LA responsible I take it, good or bad?

The councils are made up of the same political parties. I don't believe FF and FG councillors operate in a vacuum separate from government. Stock fell over a long period. It's government policy that drives social and affordable. They have been pushing the private market route. They even have lower taxation for build to rents. There's a lot of cash available but it's not going towards social and affordable builds. The last four governments created the housing crisis. They failed at housing.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119619237#Comment_119619237

The problem in the Dublin authorities is that the left-wing parties keep voting down the LPT so the councils don't have enough funding.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119619237#Comment_119619237

They certainly know how to waste money and corruption is widespread.

Council chamber secrets: Misconduct, falsehoods & waste (rte.ie)

Council chamber secrets: Misconduct, falsehoods and waste

A new era of accountability in local government was promised ten years ago, but has yet to be delivered.

Local government was a key focus of the Mahon Tribunal's work. The public was promised that political reform in this sector would be swift and emphatic.

The then-Minister for Housing and Planning, Jan O'Sullivan, said that the report's recommendations would be implemented "to ensure such behaviour can never, ever happen again".

Her government colleague, Phil Hogan, the then-Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, said he would examine the report and "take whatever further steps are necessary to restore and underpin confidence and transparency in the local government system".

The Mahon Report recommended various changes to legislation concerning local authorities, including the tightening up of rules about conflicts of interests, enhanced reporting requirements for councillors and public officials, and increased powers of investigation for the Standards of Public Office Commission.

Our investigation details failures in the local government sector, including allegations of employee fraud, false accounting, the misleading of other public bodies in grant applications, and the shocking waste of taxpayers' money.

In our analysis, two predominant themes persist in the local government sector.

One is the lack of accountability. Another is the persistent absence of real transparency.

In 2015, the prospect of ethics law reform was on the political agenda when a proposed piece of legislation, the Public Sector Standards Bill, was presented to the Dáil.

Under this legislation, a new Office of Public Sector Standards Commissioner was proposed, in addition to various other reforms that had been initially recommended in the Mahon Tribunal.

The commissioner would have the power to initiate investigations, even in the absence of a complaint. (Currently, the Standards in Public Office Commission can only initiate inquiries upon receiving a complaint.) It would also have powers to impose fines.

"For the first time, a uniform framework of ethical regulations will apply at national and local level in Ireland," said Brendan Howlin, the then-Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, in a Dáil debate in January 2016.

"There will now be a consistency of approach to ethical obligations across the public sector and, in a new departure, overarching integrity principles for public officials will be enshrined in legislation."

Of course, all of this sounded promising. But progress on the legislation later ground to a halt.

In August 2017, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe wrote to the Oireachtas Finance Committee to warn that it was "essential that the Committee now quickly moves" to schedule the completion of thecommittee stage of the proposed legislation.

Mr Donohoe said that this was necessary because of the "public interest in implementing the recommendations" of the Mahon Tribunal.

But this request had little impact.

When asked for an update on the legislation in June 2019, an Oireachtas official replied that the Dáil term was due to finish the following month and that "All our remaining meetings are fully accounted for, and there are no plans to deal with this Bill in the remaining time".

The delays continued, and once the 2020 General Election was called, the bill died.

------------------

The FFG governments completely to blame for lack of reform and accountability.

New Politics.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119619237#Comment_119619237

The government are the ones who have to take the final hit as there is really no sense in pointing the finger at the LAs.

We do have a certain level of devolved local government here and housing and housing planning is a core LA remit. Councils are both administrative and legislative. Personally have little time for the shape throwing councillors with delusions of grandeur. Few have any real ability beyond telling people who they are!

The administrative side of it is pretty poor in the vast majority of LAs and that's where the work is supposed to get done. It's not entirely their fault, it's a culture that has existed forever. One simple example of that is the €200m+ in outstanding rent for LAs, nationally.

How well they do things is down to the CEO/County manager and again here councils are not well served. One important function they do have is to enforce a budget when the squabbling councils just can't agree on anything. I know Keegan in DCC has had to do that a number of times and others have had to intervene too. One of the best functioning councils in the country is Fingal and that is because Paul Reid went in and reformed it entirely.

So are governments to blame? To an extent yes on overall public housing policies that date back to the seventies when we adopted the Thatcherite council homes sell-off and stopped building enough to replace them. Councils also began to lose any internal skills they had to make that replacement. In our current version of the problem we were starting from a very low base given that there was little to no building of any kind post-2008 until roughly 2016.

Money did begin to show up then in very large quantities for public housing construction but time and again LAs missed their agreed targets. I tend to see a lot of this current effort as a mismatch between what might be a good plan being assigned to people who just can't deliver it properly.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119619756#Comment_119619756

Limerick has the Civil War parties in power jacking on an extra 15% to the base LPT rate, yet the same crisis exists in Limerick as it does in Dublin... Can you explain that with your logic?

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119621271#Comment_119621271

The housing and homeless issues are larger in Dublin.

jmcc

Admittedly, it is the Indo and Hugh O'Connell but the story is quite mind boggling.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/taoiseach-opens-door-to-return-of-bertie-ahern-to-fianna-fail-for-first-time-41991351.html

I suppose that after having Troy standing beside him for the think-in photos, Martin doesn't see anything wrong with Ahern rejoining FF.

Regards...jmcc

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119621542#Comment_119621542

Woeful stuff.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119621271#Comment_119621271

It's a more common spectacle to see councils reduce LPT every chance they get to the point that the CEO has to warn them not to because it will screw up the budget. Now, if councils would actually collect all the commercial rates and rent owed they might find their finances on a more even keel.

Irish_wolf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119621542#Comment_119621542

Imaging being this out of touch with the common people. I imagine aul Bertie himself has no intention of leaping onto a sinking ship but this is treacherous stuff from the Taoiseach.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119621542#Comment_119621542

You might think so if you just read the headline and stopped there. However, reading further down and into the details of what he said, your conclusion is over the top.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119621542#Comment_119621542

Wow. What are FF thinking !!?? Self destruct mode?

I for one would welcome the move 😉

Did the Mahon tribunal actually happen in the FFG universe ???

New Politics

Shebean

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119619756#Comment_119619756

Can you support that claim? Government keep telling us there's a surplus of billions.

Shebean

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119620404#Comment_119620404

Fianna Fail brought in regeneration, which meant 100% social housing estates were demolished and replaced with private builds 10% social. Then both FF and FG pretty much stopped building social and affordable. These are directives that come from government. An LA cannot simply decide to build a few hundred social houses, without heavy input and funding from government. Planning is rotten, always was.

The council administrative staff are not a special breed. They have to work within the boundaries set. The rent areas is not mostly people not bothering to pay rent, but household incomes having changed and the rent rate, (on these 'free' homes) not following suit. It's not as simply as the council being owed money and not bother to collect. Also the councilors are from FF/FG/Green/SF/PBP?Lab and so on. The government have a lot of pull and authority in how the LA's function.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119622443#Comment_119622443

The local government fund or LGF is part of what many councils largely use to fund themselves. They have no direct access to the Exchequer billions and the LPT Revenue collects is paid into the LGF.

80% of LPT is retained locally in 2015 and 2016 to fund vital public services. The remaining 20% is re-distributed to provide additional funding to certain local authorities that have lower property tax bases due to the variance in property values across the State. Councillors can agree to reduce the LPT by up to 15% so you can easily see where funding issues arise.

You can see the LA funding breakdown on this page.

https://lgiu.org/local-government-facts-and-figures-ireland

Shebean

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119622414#Comment_119622414

Both FF and FG can do what they like. They support each other in everything.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119622490#Comment_119622490

So if the LA's have a housing project they need the minister of housing and LA's who we hear tell isn't responsible for anything. Strange set up.

So LPT isn't used for large projects like building social and affordable housing as claimed. That's what I'd thought. Lack of LPT isn't why they don't build social and affordable.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119622487#Comment_119622487

The reason Revenue got to collect LPT is because it was blindingly obvious that LAs were incapable of it. Rent is only one example, parking fines are haphazardly collected, at barely 50% in some places, and 30% of commercial rates can remain uncollected in some councils. TBH on rent we'd nearly be better off with private HA as they have very clear rules on non-payment!

As for the staff, most have not been exposed to that concept of KPI and how work matters and there is little sign that it will change any time soon in some councils. I disagree on the government input, apart from general policies, and unless a county proposes to turn out enough housing for a new Tallaght they are free to plan as they wish, they just haven't. They may have had funding complaints in the post-Troika days but there is absolutely no excuse now.

And another gentle reminder that councils are run day to day by an executive and CEO/County Manager. Councillors from the various parties just do other "important" things like rejecting permission for some housing and they seem more keen on defunding a council!

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119622494#Comment_119622494

That last claim is really of your own making. LPT has always been for general council funding and they retain 80% of it. There are billions available for building now above and beyond council expenditure. BTW I agree on the Minister but what else can they do? I recall Kenny laying into LAs a good few years ago about this but if people are incapable or not minded you might as well be talking to the wall.

The latest shiny plan now acknowledges this problem and has split the responsibility between LAs at 53% and 47% from HAs for social and cost rental builds.

Here's a summary of what the government/department is responsible for on housing

The government is helping local authorities and developers to plan and build better and more houses for people to live in.

This involves working with other public, private and voluntary bodies to:

• provide social housing supports for people who cannot afford to provide a home for themselves
• create an environment that encourages builders to deliver houses for people who wish to buy their own home
• ensure that the building of houses is to the highest standards and is built in areas where it is needed
• improve the quality of rented housing and strengthening tenant and landlord protection
• provide housing support for vulnerable people

shirrup

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119622534#Comment_119622534

The reason Revenue got to collect LPT is because it was blindingly obvious that LAs were incapable of it.

Yeah right.

The reason Revenue was brought in was because FG/Lab govt didn't cod enough fools with their "Free €100" registration sham for the then HHC, and because of a massive boycott of it, and LPT to begin with, it had NOTHING to do with the LAs being capable of not, of implementing the haimes created by the govt.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/call-for-household-charge-boycott-1.888883

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/household-tax-boycott-to-intensify-1.705400

Bit of revisionism there if ever I seen it.

Shebean

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119622621#Comment_119622621

No. I was discussing housing not being built and a person referenced left parties blocking LPT. You responded in that series of comments.

The current and last number of governments have failed at housing. I'm glad some of them are aware the LA's play a roll. Progress.

jmcc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119622414#Comment_119622414

It is Martin and he had Troy standing beside him for those photo-ops at that FF think-in. This is a few magnitudes higher in terms of cluelessness. While Ahern might still have some support among a small group of FF supporters, this could be another stage of rehabilitating Ahern to be FF's candidate in the presidential election.

Regards...jmcc

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119623328#Comment_119623328

Ah I forgot about the president angle. Still very poor optics for FF.

The message to the electorate is that no matter what FF TDs do at the taxpayer's expense, they will eventually be welcomed back to the trough with open arms.