Will the greens be in government after the next general election?

You're claiming 70% of people in Ireland own a house. You're wrong.

That's a nice opinion, but you're wrong. Over 64,000 people departed the State in the 12 months to April 2023, compared with 56,100 in the same period of 2022. This was one of the highest figures of recent years. That's the CSO's figures, not mine. Now sure, some of those are people travelling, "on a gap year", people who want to make a new life for themselves somewhere else and always did. But a huge percentage of those are people who don't see any other option but to leave Ireland. I know loads of kids' peers in that situation. I'm amazed you appear to know none.

When a one-bedroom apartment in the Dublin outer suburbs costs a minimum of €1750 (Dublin 18), €1650 (Dublin 22), or €1,800 (Dublin 13) - and there are literally only a handful available! - then their "choice" is live at home with mam and dad; or emigrate. Because there are very few graduates earning enough to be able to pay that in rent.

Then you're talking through your arse:

"Apartments accounted for 58% of all dwelling units approved, while housing units made up the remaining 42% [countrywide]. Across the four local authorities of Dublin, planning permission was granted for 3,351 apartments in Q2 2023, accounting for two-thirds of all apartments granted planning permission in the state between April and June of this year. More than one in five (21%) of all dwelling units granted planning permission in the state in Q2 2023 were in the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council local authority area, with 1,747 apartment units and 93 houses."

Again, that's the CSO's figures, not mine. 1747:93 is some ratio. But sure, nonsense.

Except the vast majority of people offered a dwelling take it up, despite your opinion.

I'm not praising SF - though they've some excellent spokespeople, they're far from perfect. And I've not seen their supporters complaining about emissions reductions. Not saying it didn't happen, I've just not seen it. I've mostly seen complaints from the IFA (who seem to forget they also represent tillage farmers), who would be much more inclined to support FF and FG.

The EPA says Ireland isn't recycling enough. No ****! Eamonn Ryan's response? "We'll make plans!" Aye, plans. We need more plans. That's what'll get our recycling up. 🙄 Actions? Nah, who needs legislation, statutory instruments, instructions to all public bodies and local authorities...

If you want to claim people don't own a house because they have a mortgage well that's your choice.

Good to see more apartments, we need lots of quality apartments for the growing population, that's planning you provided not actual houses built. If you look back over the years the majority has been houses. See below.

Maybe you could tell us how many are these shoe box that are built? because the info I found said Ireland is typically 11%-19% bigger than Europe. So to help can you point to all these 45m2 apartments?

In terms of graduates, well it depends on what job to do but it clear plenty are because if they didn't then we would have a major issue with employment. Yes we lack some people in some jobs but nothing major yet.

Sinn Fein and excellent spokespeople, who are these? Mary Lou? and?

In reality as I said Ireland is a great country to live in. We always have people who will moan but a lot of the time, not saying this is the case with you, they have never lived outside Ireland so its a case of "grass is greener".

• There were 29,851 new dwelling completions in the whole of 2022, an increase of 45.2% from 2021 and 41.3% up from 2019, pre-pandemic. 
• In October, November, and December (Q4) 2022 there were 9,148 completions, a rise of 31.4% from Q4 2021.
• The number of apartments completed in 2022 was 9,166, up 78.7% from 2021.

Eoin has failed miserably a few times now once he isn't shouting from behind Mary Lou in the Dail or reading from a sheet of paper. Cullinane I haven't seen much of so can't comment

Pearse is just the SF version of Richard Boyd Barrett, the irate TD got old after the first 6 months. He was irate the other day because he dropped one of his sweets.

To make this easier, you can agree that majority of dwelling built so far are houses, the ones that are apartments and sold to people are bigger than 45sqm? The majority of these properties are been sold to home owners.

You switched now to rentals instead of the discussion was on new builds.

The childish "I'm alright Jack" which seems to be commonly used by Sinn Fein supporters has no place in this discussion. If you want to carry on with that then best of luck to you.

The only way car use will be discouraged is if the next government tries to get new companies that locate here to set up in the many commuter towns around Dublin.

People can't afford to live in Dublin so they are forced to commute. The public transport to these towns is beyond a joke. I would use public transport if it was available. The traffic in the mornings coming from my area is nuts at the moment and only getting worse with all the new building going on with people moving down to the sticks.

You asked who I thought were good spokespeople and I answered. You don't have to agree.

I also asked you who you thought was a good minister. You've not answered, for some reason.

What point are you trying to make? I've shown you the figures. New builds are way down on independent (Housing Commission) projections on how many are needed, and they fail to meet the government's own targets. Even if you count rent-only apartments and student accommodation. It doesn't matter what way you try to sell this, the government's housing policy is an abject failure, and there are >13,000 homeless.

/shrug. If the cap fits... You're the one who is saying everything in the garden is rosy, for you. You don't seem willing to recognise it isn't all rosy for a good chunk of society.

They are still building motorways.

They have not increased grants for house insulation or other sustainability measures (I think they've actually reduced some of the grants?) and they have not introduced a low-or zero-interest loan scheme, so that people who can't afford to pay outright for such measures or can't afford/get a loan might also be able to avail of such measures. And it's poorer people who tend to live in the houses that would benefit most from such measures.

They - and other councillors from other parties and none, this is a local government issue! - have improved some cycle lanes in some places. Fair play to them.

They have squandered the opportunities they had by being in cabinet and in government, and gotten very little to show for it. We're supposed to have 1 million EVs by 2030 - 6 years from now - but won't have any way to charge them (no solar at night). The Greens, I believe, are still opposed to having anything nuclear on the island?

Ok, it's "not ruling out", as opposed to "this makes bags of sense and we're going to go for it to secure our energy requirements for the future", but it's progress!

In fairness, there's a lot of practical issues, including costs, public buy in and ability to deliver.

What point, you made a statement about shoebox apartments which was incorrect. Yet instead of admitting that have jumped around to planning and to rentals etc instead of admitting.

In regards to the failure of housing, you should have a chat with Sinn Fein in terms of the use of planning system to block houses and increase the number of homelessness in Ireland. All the parties are at it but Sinn Fein have strategically blocked properties all over Ireland to slow building project and reduce supply. Have a look at the number of social housing when Sinn Fein took over DCC to the number they ended up when they got removed in 2019.

The "im alright jack" is the typical nonsense spouted by Sinn Fein supporters when they know what they posted was wrong. Go after the poster instead of the post. Trying to say non Sinn Fein supporters don't care about anyone else. Total rubbish

In my first post I said Ireland has issues and I never said we don't. So doesn't really fit does it?

All the SEAI grants got a huge bump recently

Still plenty of issues with the system and but they got improved.

In terms of council houses been upgraded, see below for Dublin alone.

The numbers of EV's on the road will struggle like most countries because the car suppliers have totally overpriced them after covid. Plenty of videos of what is happening in the UK when the second hand market is crashing with huge amount been wiped off electric cars overnight. That's not the green party who can control the over pricing of electric cars by manufacturers. I do believe the grants for electric cars should be removed because it's just been used to fill car dealers pockets and not reducing the price.

In terms of nuclear, yes the Greens are, so are every other party in Ireland unless you can name one?

https://www.independent.ie/regionals/dublin/dublin-news/almost-10000-dublin-city-council-homes-get-retrofitting-upgrade/42363617.html

Still don't know what you think I was wrong about with apartment sizes. They are shoeboxes. There are a grand total of 12 one-bed apartments for sale in my postal district. Ten of them list the size: 5 are under 50m2. 3 of them are exactly 50m2. 2 are bigger than 50m2, but none are bigger than 53m2. Shoeboxes.

And I'm not a Sinn Féin supporter. I'll give them a transfer or two, if their second candidate is also pro-choice. Anyone but FF, FG, or the far right. The Greens might even get my last transfer, unless they run another anti-choice candidate.

You completely failed to address any of my points about young people and people starting out in "middle-class" occupations like teaching and nursing literally being unable to afford to live in Dublin, so yeah, if the cap fits, Jack...

Quick look at daft, apartment for sale. 75m2, 81m2, 71m2. Cheapest apartment for sale is in Limerick and is 60m2 and one just sold 65m2

The shoebox apartment in reality is something spun on the web. Im sure if you trawl around long enough you will find some but in reality the majority are way bigger.

The "Im no Sinn Fein supporter" is about 5 posts too late😂

Tell you what, have a look at Louise O'Reilly performance in the Dail on her and Mary Lou twitter. See any issues? then watch the people you claimed to be good and notice the similarities

Grand, so, I'll tell my kid about the apartment in Limerick, four-hour commute a day will build character, sure. 🙄

Sure, we can use the filters and look for the biggest apartments. Now don't do that and just search 1 bed apartments in Dublin areas. You'll find the results are quite different.

Well, given the people of Midleton apparently objected to a solar farm (because of the noise?!) - yeah, that'd certainly be an issue!

See. I no longer believe you.

"I have no idea if you can filter or not"?

No one can believe that. You think if you're looking for a 3 bed in Mayo, you have to trawl through the 1 beds in Dublin?

Go away out of that and enjoy your life. Others aren't as fortunate.

Edit: Didn't see mod warning

They've been so slow on tackling food waste as well. Apparently it's been on their agenda for a long time.

Start with fruit and veg. There is so much waste from people having no choice but to buy 3 onions when one would do. It having to buy a kilo of carrots when they want one.

There's also the ridiculous amount of plastic that vegetables come wrapped in. Sorry, but bananas don't need a plastic bag to protect them, mother nature has done a grand job, thanks.

EPA have started a food waste campaign. Veg packaging is a problem in more ways than just the volume, e.g. carrots in sweaty plastic bags that'll rot them.

I think its very new; and possibly over-reliant on online ads which lots of people block.

Actually nearly 2 years ago now, time flies

S PV is flying out the door and with the competitive buy back via FiT now available the pay back is quicker than ever. The grant was in place because the FiT wasn’t available. Also the payback for a lot of people was too long, mainly due to the low generation available per panel. Now with 400watt nearly as standard with a mate getting 430w per panel quote today, even smaller roofs can generate enough to make the payback achieveable

Also the original installation without FiT only made sense with expensive batteries which is no longer the case.

I looked into solar prior to grant and with the size of roof and with no FiT it would make no sense.

The issue is now the cost of materials have come down substantially but the cost of labour has gone up. This of course is just been bumped up by the grant and is not really reducing the price for a lot of installation. This is common issue with grant

Removing and giving higher FiT will be better for consumers

The grants got a bump as I pointed out. All info at the link. I don’t see you mention solar, if you did I do apologise

The biggest delay with solar is you can’t get installers free. More and more are joining daily and as mentioned above my mate got a quote from a guy who has just moved into the market because he seen how profitable it is. Mate hopefully getting a deal to be a reference

So solar is affordable for a lot of people and they are availing of it now, not everyone of course, but lack of companies is a bigger issue to install at present

FYI some companies are doing an installation on a monthly bill, so the saving you make should offset the outlay. That’s the idea, hence why FiT is more critical than a grant which a lot will say is used as profit for the installers

Solar, a topic I know a lot about 👍

If we could do something better on solar thermal that would be interesting as it’s been killed off recently and better at heating water than solar pv connected to a eddi etc