Robert Troy - Property Mogul

The issue is security of tenure. Landlords are too powerful if they can evict a tenant who is paying rent, and complying with the lease.

Now certain landlords have been caught with the 'rent pressure zones' where their rents were below par but could not increase them. That is easy to fix through the RTB using a rent review procedure (that does not exist currently).

You cannot be sacked without due process - the same type of system should apply to tenancy issues - both for landlords and tenants. For example, non-paying of rent should be close to near instant eviction - assuming landlord is not at fault. Return of deposits should also be an issue dealt by the RTB.

If there was security of tenure, then that would have to rely on the rent being paid and the (reasonable) terms of the lease complied with, the tenant can not be evicted, otherwise a month's notice is all that is needed.

That is the problem. It is a forever home only if the rent is paid. Otherwise the whole rental market fails - as it is now.

LA used to build houses. Ballyfermot, Ballymun, Finglas, etc. They were well built and well designed.

They stopped building them and sold many off to the tenants at heavily discounted prices. As a consequence, they got rid of all the expertise within the structure and now cannot do anything. It was short sighted penny pinching that allowed their stock of housing to to get so low that they had to buy on the open market causing prices to rise to unaffordable levels.

I agree the LA building houses is no longer possible because they no longer have the skills in house.

However, they could have the architects and contract management skills developed in house, or hire them.

For example, take the Glass Bottle site, they could plan the layout, the size and density of the development, the mix of each property size and type, and provide costings. Divide the project into groups of buildings and look for bids for each group. The contractors would be qualified builders, not developers, and by varying the size of the groups, the number of builders could be maximised. They could also provide a level of finance through Gov agencies. Now the secret is to keep the number of buildings in each group within the capability of each contract.

This would make the LA the developer, rather than the contractor. The developer would normally subcontract out the work so it just moves the top layer into LA control. Management would be crucial, but likely outside the competence of LA skills.

The National Treasury Management Agency has managed the Gov debt very well since its inception and that was an example of solving a national problem by thinking outside the box.