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

We built the entire housing stock of Galway City last year. In 12 months.

The numbers will be higher again this year.

The problem is that almost all housing completions are taking place in Dublin.

Yes, the Milltown Park objection is ridiculous.

Hopefully these homes get built on what is prime land for families and professionals and has no direct impact at all on the wealthy neighbours.

Galway city is about 30k households, yes.

You could walk into town easily from there.

Where do you suggest the new, cheap houses within the city are built?

And when you name all those areas, where after that?

Land doesnt grow on trees you know.

Yes. If that isnt a good place to build apartments that are not reliant on cars, then nowhere in Dublin is.

The problem is getting a home anywhere is difficult, not just Dublin. If you own a pub, shop or restaurant in Dublins city centre staff are not going to be willing to commute a large distance for minimum wage, they would instead get a job closer to where they live.

That's irrelevant if there is no where left to build on.

Well the banks arent offering large LTV multipliers anymore and so I'd say people can afford it for the most part.

If the MNCs run into trouble, that could cause problems of course - but they may not. The job cuts look to have stabilised.

There are a lot of people with a lot of money in the country and the mortgages are relativley affordable, especially when contrasted against the price of rent (dead money).

Govt will increase new homes target to 50k per year, this year I believe.

Probably an acceptance they wont hit it this year or maybe next, but good to see a more relevant target.

Except the current govt are likley to be returned...

Not really an accurate bet. There are no odds currently offered on Paddy Power on the composition of the next election.

Betting on next Taoiseach has to include certain factors, will there be rotation, and if so, who first? Will the current incumbents be retained as leader?

Based on that, MLMD is bound to be favourite, because the boys in Belfast won't remove her no matter what the result if they end up in government, and secondly, if Sinn Fein are in government, they will insist on first go.

To sum up, those odds mean nothing.

Paddy Power are not the all seeing eye of politics.

Also, those odds are specific to leader, not party.

If you asked the same question to most political commentators, they would not agree that it is 3 times more likley SF will govern vs FF or FG.

The odds for SF to be the largest party are even stronger. The bookies prediction is SF as the largest party in Ireland, with Mary Lou as our Taoiseach, by quite a considerable margin.

These aren't just the odds with Paddypower either, its the same with any bookie that offers political betting.

Political commentators have no skin in the game, it costs them very little personally when they're wrong. And/or they have their own political biases. Their predictions are far less accurate than the bookies. Because when the bookies are very wrong it costs them prohibitively large sums of money.

Sinn Fein are the largest party in the current Dail, they are not in government.

Neither of the two sets of betting odds that you have produced say anything about the likely formation of the next Government.

They say a certain number of things as follows:

1. Sinn Fein are likely to be the largest party in the Dail after the next election, according to the bookies, like duh, have you seen an opinion poll?
2. MLMD is most likely to be still party leader after the next election, again duh, If Leo or MM drop seats, they are dead meat, MM will resign rather than go into coalition with SF, MM and LV have more chance of losing their seats than MLMD, therefore those possibilities reduce their likelihood of being Taoiseach, even if their parties are in government.
3. If SF do go into government , they will be the largest party and more likely to have Taoiseach post, whereas MM and LV, if they end up in government are 50/50 on who is Taoiseach first.

As I said already, the odds tell us nothing about likely government, only about what they say they are about.

Its rather hilarious seeing you tie yourself in knots trying to ignore the numbers here. The bookies figures aren't political, they're based on cold hard money. "the odds for next Taoiseach are unrelated to the odds of Sinn Fein being in government" is a genuinely hilarious line of argument of yours, you've either got no understanding of Irish politics or are deliberately trying to ignore the real world.

There is absolutely zero possibility for Mary Lou to be Taoiseach if our current government is returned.

If the most likely outcome of the next election was a return of our current government then the favourites to be Taoiseach would be one or both of Martin and Varadkar. They're not, by a long shot.

The odds for our next Taoseach tell us very explicitly who is most likely to be leading our next government. Which is Mary Lou apparently, by a large margin. Which will require SF being in government, ie a rather significant change in government.

Firstly - odds aren't set based solely on who the bookmaker thinks will win - it's also weighted by what their exposures from pre-existing bets is. So the odds on MLMD will already be dampened due to people having placed bets on her being the next Taoiseach when SF were polling at 7-9% higher than they currently are.

Secondly - the odds also factor in the likelihood of any particular party leader being ousted by their party before the next Taoiseach is elected by the Dáil.

Hence you've Martin at 4-1, but also McGrath at 25-1; and Varadkar at 4-1 but also Coveney at 14-1 and Donohue at 33-1. For SF, you've MLMD at 8-13, but Doherty only at

66-1.

Current PP odds are

MLMD 8/13 ~ 61.9%

MM 4/1 ~ 20.0%

LV 4/1 ~ 20.0%

Coveney 14/1 ~ 6.7%

McGrath 25/1 ~ 3.8%

Pascal 33/1 ~ 2.9%

Pearse 66/1 ~ 1.5%

Ryan 125/1 ~ 0.8%

Translate those odds to probabilities and it comes to approx. 63% probability for a SF Taoiseach vs 54% probability for a Taoiseach from one of the Govt parties - so SF approximately one-sixth more likely to lead the next Govt according to the bookies. That's not a large margin by any means, and is already weighted by SF likely having attract more bets during the period that they were polling at higher levels than currently.

Again - the odds reflect two things - not solely what the bookies believe is the most likely result.

Betting placed during 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 all weigh into the odds offered by the bookies also, and based on polling during those years it's likely that weighting is also skewed towards MLMD and will have the impact of dampening the odds offered by bookies on her.

But, again, you can make efforts to downplay the MLMD lead, but the odds are still very clearly not pointing towards a a return of the current government.

This isn't even just the bookies alone, as polls show the same thing:

"When it comes to choosing a coalition option for the next government, 27 per cent of voters support a continuation of the present Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael-Green coalition, marginally ahead of having a government led by Sinn Féin without either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael at 25 per cent.

A Sinn Féin-Fianna Fáil coalition is the top choice for 11 per cent, followed by a Sinn Féin-Fine Gael coalition at 6 per cent. Almost one in five voters (17 per cent) would prefer to see another combination, while 14 per cent are undecided."

44% for a government with SF in it, vs 27% for a return of the current government.

And:

"89 per cent of voters would like to see a change to the way in which the country is run.

One in every two voters (51 per cent) support moderate change, while 38 per cent are in favour of radical change. Only a small minority (8 per cent) are wary of change and 3 per cent are undecided."

Again, very clearly suggesting the statement "the current government are most likely to be returned" is an incorrect statement.

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/09/29/poll-shows-the-vast-majority-of-irish-voters-want-change/

Has Sinn Fein come out yet to confirm teh 300k price or was it just the usual noise from them?

Pretty pointless stats because 25% (2nd largest vote) saying they would hypothetically like to see a SF led govt without FFG, is ignoring the reality that the composition of such a govt is almost impossible.

SF get in with FF's blessing.

If they dont have FF as a coalition partner they cant reasonably form a govt.