"average Dublin house prices should fall to ‘the €300,000 mark" according to Many Lou McD.

The mindset in the quote above is part the problem imo. That because most of the world (and this would include desperately poor nations) lives in overcrowded accommodation we should be happy to do so also.

What is wrong with setting a goal that a single person, say a barista in a cafe in Dublin, should within a reasonable distance of their employment be able to afford a basic one bedroom (bedroom, bathroom, kitchen/living room) apartment; initially to rent but with enough spare cash to save for a deposit to purchase a similar dwelling over time?

It won't be realistic to have that tomorrow but as an eventual goal, what is the problem with it? Why would a sane person be against this as a goal?

I'd say I got the cake from the baker.

Exactly the same way the government are getting the hospital from the construction company.

I didn't bake the cake, I paid for it.

The government did not build the children's hospital, they paid for it.

Ok. So if you spec the cake badly or make changes or leave out requirements and the baker has to accommodate them half way through, is that your fault or the bakers?

Unfortunately it is not the first complex project to massively overrun on both cost and timescale.

Define "ordinary"?

I'd consider "ordinary" the 10s of thousands of Irish people who have jobs that are good enough to allow them to pay mortgages OR pay massive rents.

Its not long ago that our future as a country looked an awful lot bleaker than it is right now.

There are many European countries where it much harder to get a well paid job, look around, you will see many of them living and working in Ireland.

What's unfair is expecting someone earning 80K a year not to be "ahead" of the person earning 30K.

Who makes these "concessions" and how do they work in reality? Maybe, just maybe if you are a barista you need to live according to your means? Maybe that means that you need to be a barista in Longford rather than Dublin?

The rest of your post if frankly childish nonsense. I think you need to go take a good hard look at the real world if you think anyone owes you anything. This isnt a commune.

Erm, who is it you think who drove the spec and the tender? Who came up with the requirements? I'll give you a clue, it wasn't BAM. It was the client. The person who asked for the cake. The person you now want to open their own bakery, and somehow do it cheaper than the people who do it for a living, despite this client not even being able to go to tender properly?

"average house 300k (which I think is still quite expensive)."

Reality has left the chat.

SF in the North with tied purse strings compared to a SF govt in the South is comparing apples to oranges. The fact you constantly parrot this line really makes any argument you have seem fruitless.

🤣

Was waiting for the excuses to flow.

The North is a perfect example of Sinn fein in government. Also DCC was a perfect example. The excuses are long and winding when it comes to Sinn Fein

Again I have "no fear or hatred of SF" and I pulled you up on this before

At that time I asked you to discuss their policies and that is the problem I have with them, but again you start this nonsense about fear.

Do you have anything to add on their policies or just post more nonsense about fear because you know I am right?

If you have no hatred nor fear, you spend an awful lot of time arguing against them. For what? The lulz?

I told you before there's literally no point engaging with you when you are so blinded by your fear and hatred of SF that you cannot see anything positive they could potentially bring to the table. That you see no difference between a hand tied SF in the north Vs a possible SF govt in the South, says a lot.

Calling anyone who recognizes that SF has the possibility of doing some good a "SF supporter" also weakens any argument you have.

Anyway, I'm done. Enjoy the circle jerk with the other FFG voters that are happy with a record number of homeless, spiralling insurance costs and a disastrous health dept. But sure look, some people are making bank, so it's not all bad.

🙄

’spiralling insurance costs’ - Car insurance prices are down 30% in the last 5 years with inflation up 20%+. So an effective halving of insurance costs.

They’re down 10% over the last two years when the equivalent in UK has increased almost 50%. It has quietly gone unnoticed that our car insurance is now much much cheaper than UK which was always used a stick to beat the government previously.

The work done to bring down personal insurance prices through Injury Guidelines here has been nothing short of remarkable. If you’re still using this as stick to beat ‘FFG’ you might be suffering from same bias you accuse the other poster.

Commercial insurance is still expensive and they have started tackling that now.

If the policy which Sinn Fein wanted to implement then insurance would have spiralled because it would have banned the insurance companies from giving anyone a discount. That was the minor issue with the proposal from Pearse Doherty.

Like everything with Sinn Fein, once you get past the bluff it falls apart

The issue with commercial insurance is the claims industry which hasn't been resolved yet. It has been tighted down a bit and I see more cases with costs put against the dodgy claim which might help slow down the progress of people who are serial insurance scammers