Politicians who are Landlords

I didn't argue that anyone should be stopped from doing anything.

I questioned the morality of a politician buying up properties and putting them on the rental market in a calculated move to increase their own portfolio of properties and then to financially benefit from the housing crisis by charging extortionate rents on said property.

The most important part of the point I'm making is that this person is a politician who currently holds political office. They are out looking to add to their property portfolio at a time when other politicians are under scrutiny for doing exactly what they are doing.

If your argument is "money talks", good for you. If someone wants to bid more on something, that's capitalism, tough sh1t, I'm not whinging about that.

My point is that our political class don't have any interest in solving the housing crisis because they are direct beneficiaries of it.

All you managed to take from the post I wrote originally was that you perceived that I had a problem with people bidding more than others on houses or cars which seems to me to have nothing to do with what I was saying at all.

I go to work every day to financially benefit. I imagine you do the very same as me, for the very same reason, yes? You brought up their net worth in your post, what relevance did that have?

Politicians make decisions every day that affect us, that's what they are elected to do. They should be free to have normal lives outside of that responsibility, within the laws and rules of course.

What would you make of a politician getting a loan from a charity that he was a trustee of, said charity being funded by the taxpayer, and him not paying back the charity?

There's a lack of supply in housing across the board, not just in the rental sector.

If you were in the process of buying a home right now how would you feel about people buying up properties to put onto the rental market?

What you're proposing is just another contrarian argument that offers no solution to the housing crisis.

Do you believe the route out of this crisis is through wealthy people buying up all the housing available to put it on the rental market? Are they hoping to reduce rental costs and help out the people who will be renting from them?

What you're saying makes the actions of these people seems almost altruistic when the opposite is true and it's glaringly obvious to everyone.

No, the thing about Ireland is that whatever the situation, there is always some contrarian voice envious of other's success and wanting something for nothing and only trying to do down those who made a go of things.

Yeah, but our housing market isn't functioning correctly.

I'm not qualified to do that. I am qualified to share an opinion on a situation I witnessed first hand however, and that's what I did.

Seemingly because of that I want "something for nothing" and I'm jealous of other people's success according to one poster.

My contention was that right now is probably not a politically sensitive time for a serving politician to go to view properties with a view to renting them out upon purchase. I also believe that politicians willingness to engage in this type of thing demonstrates why they, as people more qualified than you or I to solve the housing crisis have no reason to do so and in actual fact they stand to benefit from the proliferation of said crisis.

The essence of a rental market is that one party owns a property and rents it to another.

People who want to rent need a supply of properties.

The fact that the market isn't functioning correctly will not be addressed by further restricting supply.

Demonising landlords whether they are politicians or not is a zero sum game.

The problem here is the assumption that all people in the rental market want to be in the rental market.

I've been there, paying crazy rents and at no point did I ever want to be doing so.

That's the problem with renting in Ireland, typically speaking you would pay less for a monthly mortgage repayment on the same property you will pay mad money to rent, that's why virtually nobody who rents in Ireland would pass up the opportunity to purchase their own property instead.

If you ask the wrong question, you won't get the right answer.

The right question is "Is our government doing enough to ensure all the people of Ireland are housed at an affordable price?"

Having read the news about Troy, I can assure you that I'm not in the least bit envious of him. I feel sorry for anyone so grasping, it seems to me that there is a basic flaw in that type of character.

In the particular case, Troy appears to have used his position (Co councillor, TD), connections and insider knowledge for personal benefit. The word for this sort of behaviour in other countries is "corruption". In Ireland though it appears that such a person is a "Q tour" and to be praised and emulated.

I know a TD living in a council house. He lived there before he became a TD - is it your argument that he should move out of the area and away from his neighbours and social circle because he is a TD?

And what about his family - do they get to have an opinion here? Should they be forced to move because the husband/father is a TD? Or maybe he should move out while his family remain behind?

If these are your arguments, they are pretty poor ones.

There's definitely a need for rentals without a doubt, but even for those people the rental sector as it currently exists they are overpaying massively because of that problem of supply for those looking to exit the rental sector.

We have a massive bottle neck creating huge pressures that the few are profiting from.

You are taking a general comment and turning it into a specific one about Troy.

I am sorry, but if you think it is ok for rich households with over 100k income coming in to hold on to council houses when there are many far more deserving, then I don't know where to start.

If you have been paying subsidised council rents for many years, have been on a salary of 100k for a number of years as well, and haven't saved a deposit, then where do you start?

How many of them are dwellings?

On the other hand, if you counted the various properties bought by FFG TDs while councillors or TDs, I feel pretty sure there would be a whole lot more than 50. Sure wasn't one FF TD jokingly referred to as "Forty gaffs" back around the time of the property crash?

Johnny Guirke TD is a SF landlord, and the property of the party itself and its Irish controllers (not counting their ultimate controllers in Thames House) like Slab Murphy is eye watering. Those people who imagine that SF in govt means a life of taxpayer funded idleness in free accommodation will be very disappointed, unless Thames House have decided they want the Irish economy tanked. PBP and others modelled on the British Socialist Workers Party are marginal. A politician as a hypocrite? News at 11. A politician who isn't a dissembler and a hypocrite is some wannabe dreamer in a pub.

The notion that Sinn Fein's dishonesty about their ownership of property somehow legitimizes the behavior of politicians from other parties behavior is laughable.

They all need to be held accountable, this isn't a issue where party political disagreements should be allowed to distract from the issue itself.

They are a political party who have a significant investment in making sure that property values go up. They are also free from the declaration requirements on TDs which is a significant gap in the legislation and oversight and collectively have more power as a political party than a single TD.

Nobody said that SF's dishonesty legitimizes the behaviour of others.

Nobody knows what SF owns, which is a bigger problem than somebody not registering a tenancy one year.