"average Dublin house prices should fall to ‘the €300,000 mark" according to Many Lou McD.

Flaneur OBrien

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121552928#Comment_121552928

We used to have the corpo that built houses.

It makes sense to have a nationalised building company that builds social housing, that is owned by the State. If this was to double up as the main national apprenticeship scheme, all the better.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121552983#Comment_121552983

So you want the government to start building houses? with zero experience and zero building staff?

Do you plan on putting these people onto government contract with pension etc?

What type of people are you hiring? how many?

L.Ball

I thought the shinners were going to give everyone free gafs?

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121552923#Comment_121552923

I took it from the library and couldn't get past chapter 1. A transition year student would write a better book.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553035#Comment_121553035

As expected, but it is targeted for Sinn Fein supporters. Funny thing is ask a Sinn Fein supporter and they will tell you about the book but haven't found one who has read it.

Eoin is great so far at sitting behind Mary Lou in Dail and shouting, or reading a written speech. Once he gets into an interview and asked a question it all comes crumbling down.

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553040#Comment_121553040

Lots of SF supporters wouldn't read a book

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553052#Comment_121553052

Ahh now, Im sure they count "Da Sun/Da Mirror" as a book.

I'm more surprised that they are not going nuts over plans for Da guberment to have a stake in houses going forward and they can't rent/sell etc without going and asking the government.

Sinn Fein must be having a chat with their mates in Russia and decided the best way is just to take over media(already happening with the constant legal cases) and then take housing off the population.

Why do you need to buy and own a house when you can just pay for a house and never own it because the government has a cut in it.

Flaneur OBrien

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553023#Comment_121553023

1: Yes. The government should be building social housing. It shouldn't be a commercial enterprise.

2: What zero experience? You think they'd hire fresh out of college graduates to lead projects?

3: Zero building staff? My father in law is a quantity surveyor with over 30 years experience. If there was a state controlled building company offering permanent employment, he would jump at it.

4: Yes. Of course, they would be government workers after all. My local theatre is run by the council, and all the permanent staff there have council pensions.

5: Professionals with experience that want reliability and a pension. Also hiring early entrants and apprentices.

6: How many? I'm sorry, but who do you think you're talking to? I don't have the answers to everything. I can admit that we need to change things and I'm offering up solutions. You just want more of the same which has led to families in hotels and over 10,000 homeless and people priced out of housing in the areas they grew up in, which in turn is destabilising and eliminating generations old communities.

I don't see how more of the same gets us anywhere. How would you solve the housing issue?

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553103#Comment_121553103

The new pension scheme is very different to the old one, so they might be disappointed with it. In most cases it is working out as equivalent to an employer contribution of 7-8%.

Would having a state company increase the number of workers or would it just change who the existing workers were working for?

Does the state typically do a good job of delivering services? Could we expect the same here?

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553103#Comment_121553103

Don’t be a silly billy.

Go out and take a look at any council project involving roads/building etc, it takes months to do relatively straight forward jobs. Can you imagine having 10s of thousands of construction workers who become public servants, Christmas would come every day and if they aren’t happy with their employer, every site in the country would close until they got what they wanted. There was a funny moment on prime time a few months ago when Paul Murphy claimed the Government could build houses at the same cost and rate as a private developer, the developer, I think it was Flynn from Cork laughed at him and said he was welcome to try. The children’s hospital should everyone what they need to know about State involvement in large construction projects, the construction firm treat the State like a cash register, organised construction labour employed directly by the State would do at least the same.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553103#Comment_121553103

1. The government is building houses, they are using construction companies
2. The government has zero experience
3. Im sure he would, but the tax payer has to pay for that. The government currently has no building staff so how do they get the staff?
4. So how much is this costing the tax payer? how much will it drive up the price per unit?
5. How much will all of this cost? you are hiring professionals with experience and then handing them a government pension.
6. So no idea how this will work, how much it will cost, how many people will be hired, what skills will be hired? do you hire people for each phase of building from architects right to the final finish?

See any problems yet? plus how long would it take the government to start this company?

How would I solve the housing crisis?

1. for the moment build apartments and not houses in major cities, proper amenities like playgrounds etc for the apartments. Walk around Berlin and they have done excellent
2. Stop political parties and local government from blocking houses
3. Review the planning laws to stop all these rejections because it "doesnt look the same" as existing
4. Upgrade rail system, put rail into Navan etc so you have a direct link to commuter towns via trains at peak times
5. Continue with the current housing plans
6. In secondary school put together better programs for people looking to move into apprenticeships
7. Change planning laws so that any government/school/datacentre has to fill their roof with Solar PV

That's just a start off top of head

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553142#Comment_121553142

Watch out Clo, EOB might be along to pilfer your ideas. You could end up as a special adviser in the next government.

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553142#Comment_121553142

But but, feelings and real communism has been been achieved yadda yadda.

Pie in the sky waffle that never stands up to scrutiny.

They'll be back with more hot takes no doubt.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553182#Comment_121553182

Too much sense, maybe if I shout "Tiocfaidh ár Lá" at the end it might resonate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553139#Comment_121553139

The best bit was declaring his Dad would love a job, f**king hell of course he would on a government pension. How much it would cost the tax payer is another thing

Former Former Former

A private sector QS with 30 years experience would be earning six figures plus bonus and other perks. There’s no way this public building company will be dishing out those sort of packages.

That poster’s FIL might be happy to take a severe pay cut to finish out his career in the public sector but I’m not sure many others would.

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553236#Comment_121553236

Not initially, but a couple of strikes later and he should be on a good wage.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553236#Comment_121553236

Here is a list of jobs postings looking for carpenters in Dublin. The money doesn't appear to be out of whack with what would be available in the public sector or civil service.

https://ie.indeed.com/jobs?q=carpenter&l=Dublin%2C+County+Dublin

downtheroad

The Office of Government Procurement could be tasked with obtaining house building materials and providing them at cost to developers to build public/social housing, and in turn demand huge economies of scale for the purchase of blocks, timber, steel etc.

This, along with the Land Development Agency, should generate some savings in the process of building social housing, but developers will still need to earn their profit and labourers will still need to be paid market rates (which will not be cheap).

I'd start down that avenue before even contemplating a Department of House Building or whatever it would be called.

Finty Lemon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553035#Comment_121553035

Self published, all done for effect.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553252#Comment_121553252

The SCSI figures include over 50k per unit as "margin" to a developer after calculations based on fully financing all costs - which also means offloading all the risk - and subcontracting the work to others.

The figures are almost envisioning a scenario where a person who knows nothing about development somehow gets a "licence" to develop a site of 100 houses, hires managers and professionals to figure out everything, they hire in subcontractors to do the site work and actual construction, then people to market and sell the property, the banks loan him all the money for the above (also taking the risk), and he can just sit there and at the end of it pocket 5m.

In reality, the developer will put in some effort and add things along the way, but he will be taking a slice for those steps as well. The "margin" is the extra bit at the end. It's double counting.

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553271#Comment_121553271

Is that margin not the reward for taking on the risk of the development?

In reality, what risk. Look at the development in Meath where the developer is refusing to complete the estate unless the purchasers cough up even more money. If he doesn't finish the development there's no doubt he will liquidate his company and sail into the sunset at no major loss, probably to resurface in a year or 2 with a new company and new development in another part of the country.

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553303#Comment_121553303

You need an update unfortunately.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553303#Comment_121553303

The calculations appear to assume it is all financed. If it is hypothetically all financed - and assuming that there is a company structure - then the developer takes zero personal risk. The banks are taking the risk, and the interest they charge includes compensation for that.

If - in reality likely - they do put in some money, they are including the cost of that money already. i.e. if it is going to cost me 30m to buy and develop the site, and I have 30m in my back pocket which I use, then if my cost of building calculation includes a 20% cost for financing (for example) because that is what it would cost to finance the project from start to completion, then I have 6m allocated to my final costs for that. That's already my compensation for putting in the money and taking that risk.

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553247#Comment_121553247

Tradesman minimum salaries are set by the SEO, the state couldn’t pay less than that even if they wanted to.

These “plans” would need an army of professionals; architects, surveyors, engineers, all of whom are very well paid already and will find themselves in even greater demand when this building boom kicks off. It’s optimistic to think they’ll flock in huge numbers to work under a political party who think anyone earning more than 40k is an enemy of the state

Relentless SF shilling aside, this is a plan that doesn’t stand up to any sort of scrutiny, and that’s what Eoin is counting on. Based on this thread, he’s probably safe enough.

Large bottle small glass

Building or buying property is the most expensive investment for most people and is a massive cost for most states.

If you or state get timing wrong it can be a very expensive or relatively cheap.

The Irish State had it's best chance after the last boom; high unemployment, cheap materials and they controlled NAMA. Have away prime property for cents on the Euro that we are now paying through the nose to rent for our citizens.

That was our chance as a nation, the ship has sailed and catching up is going to involve a lot of pain given price of materials and acute shortage of skilled labour.

A mature state would look to keep control on pressures on system(immigration at twice what ESRI predicted and we planned for) and target the immigrants and skills that suit us and what we need.

One of the biggest bottlenecks is where will the new carpenters/plumbers stay.

MakersMark

Like every other far left party on the planet, SFIRA will take us to economic hardship.

Worse than the 80s, and worse than the 2008 crash.

People who have money are terrified of a SFIRA government.

People who have worked hard to buy an extra house are terrified of a SFIRA government.

But there's enough lazy, jealous people in this country to make them a political force.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553456#Comment_121553456

The point I was addressing was the claim/implication that the public sector would not be able to attract tradesmen. There are plenty of tradesmen who aren't on exorbitant money whom I am sure would be happy to take on more secure employment with better benefits.

There would be plenty of engineers etc already working in the public sector.

No need for the strawmen hysterics

(I'm not a SF supporter by any means btw)

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553247#Comment_121553247

You would need to add on pension on top of that

Instead of reducing the price of housing it would send the price through the roof as the construction companies and the government battle with each other to hire people.

Plus then the additional cost would be pushed onto the property, also the additional pension costs would have to be recovered from the property price.

It is a ridiculous idea for the government to create a construction company to rival building companies. Plus talking about what we done nearly 50-100 years is not relevant anymore.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553554#Comment_121553554

Those jobs are private sector jobs. How much do you think the public sector would need to give a carpenter to entice him over from a private sector 45k a year + private pension then? Most of the private jobs also require the tradesman to supply his own tools (and transport) too.

Isn't it mad though. When the prior generation was in charge, the likes of corporations and councils were able to manage such things. Now that we have the boomers in those senior positions........they don't appear to know how to make things work...................I wonder would it be too late for some of them to receive further education and training?

Take the example of the 100 houses. The developer margin is over 5m on those. Do you think that it would be beyond your capability - if you were in a senior public sector role - to locate and hire say 5 competent people on total packages of 100k a year each, and give them 8 years to replicate the herculean personal effort of that developer? Because that would be a saving of a million quid for starters.

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553480#Comment_121553480

then you should have replied to someone who was talking about trades.

For someone who doesn’t support SF, you spend an awful lot of time robustly cheerleading for them on boards.ie.

This “plan” is completely unworkable and can only lead to enormous losses for the state. If the plan is to build these houses at any cost, let them come out and say so.