Sinn Fein and how do they form a government dilemma

I think the CB said they expected 27500 this year rather than the target of 29000.

Still similar numbers, but the govt still thinks they will hit 29000 this year and they did so last year.

Next year & 2025 they are targeting 33 or 34 thousand I believe.

We will know by the end of the year. They wont be far off, even if they do miss.

Paddy praises the Irish government and gets cut down by the multinationals, is another way of looking at it.

If such a law was introduced today, all that would happen is this year's students being protected from any evictions, but then next summer hundreds of beds will be taken off the market and never appear again after the owners reckon it's no longer worth it.

Net result is far fewer places of student accommodation are available and the crisis gets worse.

The townies would want to cop themselves on and stop voting that one back in, she is clueless.

With 39.3% of the vote, Sinn Fein could conceivably take three seats in a five-seater. A very even split of 12-14% for three candidates could see them take the last three seats, as the first preference needed for a seat is 16.6%. However, that level of voting would never give them three seats in a four-seater, where each candidate would have to reach 20%. You need to be hitting 48-52% of the vote to be taking three seats in a four seater.

The danger with running three candidates in a four seater with say, 40% of the vote, is that they split badly. 22% for one candidate and 9% each for the other two, could see them fall short of taking a second seat if transfers don't work out. That is an increased risk where one of the candidates - in this case O'Snodaigh - has a large personal vote. My guess is that SF will run two candidates here, manage the vote well and take two seats. It will be at the expense of Brid Smith not running.

Collins, FF and FG will look for the other two seats, Collins will depend on sweeping up any surplus SF (less likely than last time) plus Smith residue, not a certainty. Greens unlikely to figure, but their first preference last time out was higher than Collins.

This guy is currently giving it 2 SF, 1 FF and 1 PBP. At this point in time, with the polls where they are, hard to argue with that.

On O'Snodaigh more generally, great to see he is doing his bit to help with the housing crisis:

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/sinn-fein-td-aengus-o-snodaigh-objects-to-plans-for-development-of-208-homes-in-his-constituency/a90341705.html

Rather than rely on the words of politicians as some clearly do, I had a look at the development that O'Snodaigh is objecting to.

It is clearly an appropriate high-density use of a site within 5km of the city centre. A clear sense of NIMBYism to the objections.

Just a general comment on why objections might be made.

If the objection is thrown out then that is the end of it.

A housing crisis is no excuse to circumvent the process. God knows we have enough costly bills because regs and process has been ignored. And greed would have been one of the reasons why.

If the objection is legitimate and upheld then the somebody had tried to circumvent.

Do you think a developer or individual should be allowed build where ever they like?

Well the objection will have to be heard before you can say that.

Nobody is making out developers are 'evil' either. But there is a history of bad planning and bad developments in this country that our planning laws should have prevented if properly implemented.

You are engaging in tropes yourself - that everyone who objects is doing so for dubious reasons.

Do you think a developer or individual should be allowed build where ever they like, just because we have a housing crisis?

Can a development destroy or impinge on your quality of life?

We could get into a back and forth here pointing out that all party reps object to housing at times in their locality. That would be pointless (a back and forth) because it is clearly provable.

I have no doubt that some of those objections are cynical nimbyism and this one may very well be but some are genuine too. The proclamations of serial anti-SFers on this planning objection should be treated with the suspicion they deserve TBH 😁

It's also provable that developments have in the past been disastrous and costly because they were not properly scrutinised and many shouldn't have been allowed at all.

What is the solution?

Prevent objection?

Throw out planning law altogether?

Or invest in speeding up the processes so that good development (which this may very well be) can progress?

The levels of hypocrisy are more than variable. There is a direct link between the number of objections by a party and the amount of complaining they do about the lack of housing.