Prime Time housing debate: Eoin O Broin vs Darragh O'Brien

yea sf are effectively talking from both sides at the moment, they ll change their tune when they get it, and they ll struggle to get building as well...

That is absolutely disgusting. The government should step in to assign conditions to such investment. In times of a crisis regulation by the state is needed.

Now wait till you see the bleeding hearts and Sinn Fein come out in support of rent scroungers

The existing arrears are on FF/FG/Labour etc. policies

What you are going to do now of course is show us the policy SF have to reduce those arrears, how will they get the back payments out of them? (Which is probably a good thing to have in place before giving out lots more accommodation).

If he was that concerned about the mom and pop landlords they could introduce a rent a room type relief for landlords who own one rental property. Cap the relief to a flat 20 or 25% income tax instead of up to 52%, provided the annual rent doesn't exceed €14,000 (or whatever amount). Lower tax for the landlord, lower rental price for tenant, lower rents may force the market to become more competitive, and the policy would also encourage more mom and pop type landlords to buy 1 rental property.

And it would specifically be anti REIT or institutional investor (which would be why FG wouldn't go for such a policy).

All it would result in is more rental properties at the expense of supply being reduced for FTB’s.

without the supply coming on line any policy from any political party will just move the pressure point from one area to another.

sign me up, whats the catch?

OK, so due to lacking any policy in the area, arrears are likely to continue to grow as SF plan to favour these tenants of state built/bought (i.e. extremely expensive housing for the state to supply) accommodation.

Do you not think it would be good to have a policy on reducing arrears before doing that?

So far the policy is:

• Not bother with existing arrears which will just continue growing and get worse
• Compete with other home buyers by buying accommodation to then rent to tenants (who have no real incentive to pay)
• Build accommodation without any metrics showing that it's cheaper to do so and has been more expensive when tried in Northern Ireland where SF are in power

Pointing at FF/FG and shouting down and blocking what they're trying to do seems a bit vacuous when there is non-existent or vacuous policies to replace them with.

It's also perfectly understandable why the SF supports start on about whataboutery when asked to cost any of the solutions ("I can't cost the whole country", "go find out yourself", "Well FF/FG are just wrong, c'mon, 'winky face'".

I'm not sure what this post is trying to imply. Not because I lack the ability to do so but because you seem incapable of making a direct point.

By comrade I take it you're implying communism when I infer that state regulation is needed. State regulation comes in many different essential services from infrastructure right through to transport. My former job was health based and looked at the creation of drugs to treat late stage breast cancer. The government stepped in to make drugs affordable to people with late state breast cancer. State aid was visible every step of the way. It is in every facet of society that you benefit from. People are just to ignorant to see it.