Fine Gael Demographic

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118047760#Comment_118047760

The only effect that not voting has is that it gives a marginally louder voice to those that do vote. Beyond that nobody will care or notice.

28064212

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118048150#Comment_118048150

Yeah, not voting is a terrible strategy for getting noticed. The general election turnout dropped 7% between 2011 and 2020, the equivalent of approximately 250,000 voters and no-one batted an eyelid. You're talking about a group 1.7 times the size of the entire Green party vote, and it got virtually no coverage.

If you really insist on a protest vote, at the very least spoil your vote. There were ~17,000 spoiled votes in 2020 - if there was an organised movement to protest via spoiling, and it produced 250,000 spoiled votes, that would be newsworthy, and much more difficult to write off as apathy or a statistical anomaly.

Although if you were organised enough to persuade 250,000 people to spoil their vote, setting up your own political party seems like a more worthwhile endeavour...

If we spoil our votes the FG and FF TDs won't give a damn so long as they are re-elected and keep getting the €100k + allowances.

There will be a shift to SF to send a message. Fix the problem or you will be voted out. Promises are no longer going to cut it.

Murph85

Good points. We are all sick of the same BS, the same crap politicians and lies. So you vote SF etc, because they then lose seats and power. Some people just wont vote SF, which is totally fine. You are correct in what you say about spoiling the votes. It would be far more effective..

The housing situation has to and is going to get far worse, traffic and congestion will. Cost of living will. I reckon the next election, it will be a SF / FF coalition. FG will be happy to step off the merry go round, for one round at least, that is my prediction. The soldiers of destiny might try to pin the blame on lack of change at FG door. Then say they are going in with SF to deliver change, the thing is, they will then have to do this to a reasonable extent. I think they decades of waffle is coming home to roost, its not flying any more. Waffle and nothing else, wont cut it with most of us any more...

Such a total pity that Lucinda Creighton, with far more balls than the rest of those jokes in the dail combined. Had the party sank, largely by taking a side on a SINGLE , divisive issue, that was likely going to be passed regardless, such an absolute waste...

Murph85

without starting a new party, does anyone think a "no representation, no vote" movement, would work best. Someone then might step forward and make the move to start a new party, that a significant amount of us would vote for?

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118047015#Comment_118047015

Increasing the price of houses was the whole point of help to buy. It is literally what it was designed to do. This "developers aren't thick" thing makes it sound like they figured out how to game the system, and this "direct transfer to the developer at the expense of the exchequer and the buyer" stuff makes me think your understanding of the purpose of the scheme is fairly loose.

"The value of the tax rebate goes fully to the developer". Yes. Obviously. It was the whole point.

The return on the scheme at this stage is certainly up for debate, but it is an irrefutable fact that the scheme has seen many, many people buy houses years earlier than they would have been able to without the scheme being in place.

The Shinners had a problem with it from day 1 because it also helped the middle classes buy houses rather than just their voter base.

Larbre34

Politics is the art of compromise lads, its about keeping as many as possible just about happy enough and not too unhappy. Thats why all these descriptions of politicians always follow the same mantra of lies and lack of principle and cronyism etc. Its a badge of the coalition based system that we have.

The alternative, by the way, doesn't really bear thinking about either.

So, rather than complaining about those that do get elected, why not pick up a nomination paper and try to do better?

I don't want to be a politician. I want an affordable house.

Murph85

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118049470#Comment_118049470

The art of compromise? Many of us dont have a party even vaguely representing what we want! That's BEFORE the compromise bit!

What do you make of the Housing For All & The Land Development Agency?

podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zb3VuZGNsb3VkLmNvbS91c2Vycy9zb3VuZGNsb3VkOnVzZXJzOjc1NjA2MTYzL3NvdW5kcy5yc3M/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMTE0NDkyOTU4Mw?ep=14

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118049263#Comment_118049263

Like some sort of online petition? I'd say you'd need tens of thousands of signatories before anybody took notice.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118049443#Comment_118049443

The criticism of HTB schemes in both the UK and here is that it is 'helping' those who already are in a position to buy, but they are paying more via the demand side inflationary pressure for no good reason. Price caps set by gov become the new target sticker price for developers. In terms of stated purpose as an intervention for housing affordability issues, it does the exact opposite.

I am not alone in this criticism - there are members of the cabinet who are known to share the same opinion. You can call my understanding 'loose' if you wish, but you'd be calling a lot of housing economist experts' assessments 'loose' at the same time.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118051817#Comment_118051817

It is not helping those who are already in a position to buy, again this is a fairly loose understanding of what the scheme does.

They are paying more, again this is the whole point. You pay more over the course of 30 years, in exchange the up front immediate cost is massively reduced. As I said, it puts people in a position to buy years ahead of where they would otherwise be. It gets people out of the rental market years earlier than they otherwise would be.

HTB is one of the very few (maybe the only) cases where middle class families / middle earners actually see some real return on their taxes. The people in the middle pay everything and see nothing for it usually, they are completely forgotten about.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118052490#Comment_118052490

Figures released by the Dep of Finance in 2017, revealed that over two-thirds of those availing of HTB didn't need the scheme to afford the 90% mortgage in the first instance. That's a heavier mortgage burden on first-time buyers via fuelling a demand-side 'solution', and contributes to the inflation of new builds generally. Costs the exchequer and the developers get a bung for no reason.

As a policy response to the stated problem (housing affordability for those most in need and two-thirds availing of it not even needing it), it's a failure.

I'll turn this back on you. The evidence shows you have a loose understanding and you've thrown your anchor down on a political point rather than an economic fact.

Same effect in Britain:

https://www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/help-buy-house-prices-loans-first-time-buyers-savings-a8958056.html

Yurt2

And in case you think this is all a Shinner plot, maybe turn your ear towards what the ESRI have to say on the matter:

https://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/help-to-buy-scheme-is-pushing-up-house-prices-claims-esri-39634314.html

"the incentive disproportionately would benefit those who already had the means to buy a new home."

...

"It is likely to fuel property price growth. So, it will push up prices,"

Net effect: Those already with the means to buy a home had there not been any rebates end up with a larger mortgage for no good reason via the macro effect, the minority on the margins who do benefit on the front end pay on the back end via a higher mortgage, and other people can suck eggs in the rental hellscape as house prices run away further because of bad policy.

All round fail.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118042048#Comment_118042048

I'd likely be near double your age. There's a very good reason why SF will never get a vote from me and many others in same demographic. We grew up in the 70s & 80s and came home daily to TV News filled with the horrors of bombings and shootings - a cancer on the island of Ireland, it was sickening what went on. SF were and are still the political wing of Republican armed struggle. They haven't gone away, just receded into the background. If you don't believe this, listen into their Ard Fhéis speeches and election triumphalism by the likes of 'Up the Ra' Cullinane. Putting them in power in this Republic is like playing with a keg of high explosives. They have ONE principal objective, a United Ireland at ANY cost and if that means f***ing you and everyone else over on this island, they're up for it. That is the reason they exist as a party.

But this thread is about FG. I've never voted for the civil war parties and likely never will. When you look down the ballot, it's usually a choice between a variety of so called Independents (many of whom are FG/FF pool), Greens and Labour. I tend to pick between genuine Independents, Labour and stop after that. Occasionally I throw the Greens a vote but they don't do themselves any favours when they get in either, driving up the cost of living.

So there's no real choice after FG/FF in terms of government. But the last thing I would do is vote SF.

I'm far from happy about voting for SF. I'm concerned that the don't seem to have a calculator in their offices and seem to forget to budget for many of their promises. That being said my generation have been fed housing promise after promise by FF/FG and haven't delivered and will continue to do so until they get voted out for a term and the only way to make that happen is to vote SF.

There needs to be tremendous pressure placed on FG/FF to act to solve the immediate housing need by anyone who doesn't want SF to be voted in and bring with them a wealth tax and a much smaller limit on tax free pension contributions and a large reduction in the pension standard fund threshold.

If that means that the value of the house you live in drops for a little while this is ok as most people won't sell during this period so its only a paper valuation but many people will actually see the difference in their occupational and PRSA pensions under SF so when you look at it that way many FG voters are better off if the housing crisis is dealt with as quickly as humanly possible.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118052578#Comment_118052578

"Developers get a bung for no reason."

Please, go educate yourself on this scheme and why it was introduced. Your linking of an article showing HTB pushing up house prices suggests you still don't get it.

"HTB doing exactly what it was intended to do, working perfectly as designed" is what that headline could literally say.

I am not arguing FOR HTB here, not even suggesting it needs to stay, just taking issue with your odd view of suggesting a scheme hasn't worked when it has achieved exactly what it set out to achieve.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118052641#Comment_118052641

"It is likely to fuel property price growth. So, it will push up prices,"

Yes, again, this was the whole point of it. You still don't get it. Pushing up house prices was not a side effect of HTB, it was literally what it was designed to do.

People pay it back on the morgage. Yes, again totally by design, you save a lot up front and you pay even more in the long term. No surprises there, exactly as intended. Bring people to market much faster, again exactly as intended. People would have afforded anyway, again this is exactly as intended, the scheme was designed to get people there faster. Nothing surprising here, nothing new here, the scheme absolutely did what it was supposed to do.

HTB was a scheme where the more you put in, the more you got out of it. People who pay lots of tax got lots of benefit, people who pay little tax got less benefit. Again, totally as designed.

It was a scheme, from the very beginning, designed to incentivize developers to build houses by increasing demand which would push up prices and make it more profitable. It absolutely did this, there is absolutely no question about this. Whether it has now run out of traction is another discussion entirely.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118053887#Comment_118053887

🤣

https://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/property-mortgages/noonan-sets-up-50000-probe-into-help-to-buy-scheme-35497717.html

Quote: The Government has insisted that the help-to-buy incentive should increase demand for "affordable, new-build homes from first-time buyers", resulting in an additional supply of such properties."

This is the Orwellian realm we're in. On launch in Jan 2017, Michael Noonan explicitly stated that HTB would help with affordability. If you're making the case he was actually saying "we'll make housing more affordable by making it more expensive", then come out and say it. He didn't, he was making the opposite case, he insisted affordability would result.

The government came out at the time and said this was an affordability measure that would help improve affordability. They were warned they were wrong then, and they've been proven wrong every year since that HTB is worsening the affordability situation.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118053872#Comment_118053872

Awec, are you seriously making the case that HTB was designed and implemented by the government as a means to increase the price of houses? As opposed to them merely being utterly wrong about it improving the affordability of homes?

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118054003#Comment_118054003

Absolutely 100% this is what it always was. The entire scheme was designed to increase demand to increase prices to incentivise more building, while at the same time help buyers get around the deposit requirements which was one of the biggest complaints ("I can afford a mortgage easily, but because I'm paying mad rents I can't save for a deposit").

The problem arose when the supply never actually managed to catch up with the demand.

It had the side effect of improving affordability for individuals in the short term. If you do the math on it you can see how it benefits people, even with the increased prices.

Take a house at 450,000. Imagine HTB doesn't exist. The buyer needs a 45,000 deposit.

Now put HTB in play. House instantly goes to 480,000, since the 30 HTB money is basically money for the developer. Buyer needs a 48,000 deposit. However, they get 30k from the government, so they only need 18k of their own money. This has more than halved the amount they need to save for a deposit. They pay it back in the long term, but up front it gets them into market much, much faster.

This in turn frees up a rental property etc etc.

The HTB was not a terrible scheme, it did what it was intended to do. The government dropped the ball on the social / affordable market, there's many valid criticisms that can be thrown there. HTB is not and never was the be-all-and-end-all solution to housing problems.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118054085#Comment_118054085

I don't mean to be rude, but you're talking to yourself here. The government was on record saying this was a measure to improve affordability. They were wrong. They were told at the time by all and sundry from estate agents to the ECB it would exacerbate affordability and prove inflationary but they ignored the warnings and ploughed ahead anyway.

This conversation has turned into doublespeak on your end.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118054111#Comment_118054111

What do you expert here Yurt? A government statement saying "this scheme is designed to increase prices". You are surely not that naive? It was always for developers. Always.

I've given you the facts, I've even given you some figures. I can lead a horse to water and all that, but it is clear that no matter what is put in front of you you've no interest in any objectivity on this point.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118054116#Comment_118054116

Awec, you've tied yourself in knots on this topic. You've fallen short on facts (very thin on the ground) and figures (back of a matchbox and not making much of a point), flipped flopped and generally made no case for your muddled and ultimately political and non-economic point.

Self-praise is no praise as they say, and I'll refer you back to the ESRI and ECB conclusions on HTB. Policy failure for stated aims.

Edit: And by the way, your calculations utterly ignore the inflationary effect of HTB, which is central to the failure of the policy and is the reason it is roundly criticized by experts from within and without of Ireland. What's the point of even having a discussion if you have the blinkers on about the main inflationary by-product of the policy?

Good loser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118054176#Comment_118054176

I'm with awec on this; I think he has a better handle on the the issue than you do.

When it was introduced and all the journalists/economists/experts/SF etc were making the points you're making I always felt that what awec elaborates above ( very clearly) was the essence of the scheme.

As a result of the scheme more NEW houses were built because prices went up tipping developments into profit for the developers, ratcheting up overall supplies. Remember each of these purchasers could/would be in the market for a second hand home; by going for a new one they were lessening the demand for second hand homes causing lower prices for these.

In the context of this scheme its not counterfactual to say that a dearer home could become MORE affordable to those that qualify. You do not seem to understand this. Every house bought under this scheme added one more house to the net stock of houses in the market.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118055883#Comment_118055883

I've never denied for a second that people benefitted from it. But the evidence from both Ireland and the UK is that those who already were primed to afford a home were taking advantage of it, and that's bad policy. If two out of three people availing of the scheme would already purchase a home, and it drives up the price of the property - it has the opposite effect of the intended remedy. Don't take it up with me, take it up with the ESRI, ECB and others. It's clear as day and I'm not sure why you're arguing black is white.

As for the contention that such a policy generates supply, evidence from the UK reveals that the jury is very much out on that presumption (and it is merely an orthodox presumption).

In core markets like London where the issue is most acute, HTB scheme drove up prices and did nothing for supply. In a peripheral market like Wales, it didn't increase prices (nor did it drive them down naturally) but did increase supply in what if we're being real about it, an economic backwater of the UK.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/having-two-help-to-buy-schemes-at-a-time-of-rapid-inflation-is-madness-1.4702765

So, if we're going down the road of evidence, you don't seem to understand this (see what I did there?). There's no use working off low-resolution economic orthodoxy when we actually have evidence rolling in the door and we can look at that.

Yurt2

And if you want a take it up with a Real Estate and Finance academic from the London School of Economics go ahead. Perhaps he doesn't understand either.

He characterises such HTB schemes as 'demand shocks' (and the UK planning system under the microscope is very similar to Ireland in character) and has the following to say....

"So what can we say about the supply side? In the very short-run, housing supply does of course not respond at all to demand shocks because of planning and construction lags, so prices can be expected to rise in the short-run. The trouble is that in the UK, even in the very long-run, supply is incredibly unresponsive to demand shocks (i.e., the long-run supply curve is very steep). Why? The main culprit is the UK planning system, which is, in an international context, extraordinarily inflexible. Since 1947 there are virtually no fiscal incentives at the local level to permit development. Local planning authorities face most of the costs of development but have very few benefits from it. Moreover, local homeowners – in the UK perhaps best described as BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) – oppose (virtually) any development in their backyards.

As a consequence of all this, Help to Buy will likely have the effect of pushing up house prices (and rents) further with very little positive effect on new construction. Housing will likely become less – not more – affordable for young would-be-owners! The beneficiaries of the scheme are the existing (typically wealthier) homeowners who benefit from the capital gain. However, not all homeowners benefit equally. Young expanding families may not benefit at all since their new larger house will also become more expensive."

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/help-to-buy-help-to-who/

The supposedly right-wing FG were the major party in power when the following happened:

Legislation of divorce.

Same-sex marriage.

Abortion rights

A State apology for unmarried mothers.

Recognizing the rights of travellers to see themselves as a minority in the EU.

Making Irish a working language of the EU.

Coveney being the ultimate Foreign Affairs Minister during the realpolitik involved in Brexit.

FG are one of the last classic Christian/Social Democratic parties in Europe. We should all be very careful of what we wish for.

That is great and they are center right and much closer to the center than the right.

That won't stop the young people voting for their immediate needs and the housing situation is basically the sole focus of this generation who will vote SF.

Not recognising that now when there is time to do something about it is a huge mistake. The warning signs are there for all to see.