The accelerating fall in Sinn Féin support

The FHS is not like the SF scheme at all. The SF scheme cannot allow a property price rise, outside of inflation.

The FHS allows the property to grow with the market. If the amount of equity you need to pay back grows, so does the value of your home.

You are going to see a much larger profit on the private market than you would with a SF house; not withstanding the fact that the same house in the same area of Dubin have vastly different starting prices.

The house on the private market & with the bigger starting price is allowed to become more expensive, because it grows with the market and can be sold to anyone.

The cheaper SF house is capped and cannot grow in value at all, outside of inflation. And when you want to sell it, not only are you selling if for a low price compared to the private house across the street, the pool of buyers you have is restricted, so it could take longer to sell.

The cost to the tax payer of hiring a whole new public construction service to deliver SF houses is an increase in govt funding, not a decrease!

Not to mention that those paying the income tax, folks on average incomes or above, wouldn't qualify for the SF homes they are funding anyway, because they earn too much!

The irony.

We judge people by what they do, rather than what they say. Over a period of time.

And FG in particular have had three terms to sort matters and put their stamp on policies.

And we see the results of their policy stamp. Time is up. It's that simple. Maybe in 10-15 years time, they'll get another go.

FG are leading the first preference polls.

They are ahead of SF.

It is more likley we will see a FFG govt than a SF one.

yup, sf have stuffed it, and ffg are playing a stormer, their agreement blocking technique will continue to work well into the 30's, tis all good…..

…and ffg's primarily financialised approach is working by……

…continually implementing policies that are well known to simply push up the price of property and land, i.e. a demand side approach, wont solve this problem, we all know, its a supply side problem, pushing more money into the sector, first time buyers etc, has been done in other countries, and surprise surprise, the result was exactly the same as ireland, i.e. higher prices, this wont solve the problem, its just exasperating it!

sf certainly also dont know what to do about this, but really, have ffg the answers!

…again, dont worry, theres not going to be a sf government, and for a very long time either, its gonna be ffg all the way…..

go again there butty, theres clear evidence both here and in other countries than when governments implement demand side policies towards housing, i.e. push more money into the sector, by whatever means, including and in particular first time buyers etc, that the money is simply used to inflate the price of property, and doesnt actually stimulate the supply side of the equation, i.e. it doesnt actually increase the supply of property.

this approach has clearly been the approach of both ffg, and for many decades now, this approach is also termed financialisation, which ultimately only truly benefits older, asset owning, including pre-existing property and land owners, which is clearly the main voting base of both ffg.

ffg also have a refusal to implement potential capping policies of price inflation such as appropriate land value taxes, dereliction taxes, land and property hoarding taxes, all of which would help suppress inflation, but in saying that, none of the main parties want to go anywhere near potentially one of the better policies of increasing property taxes, to try cap inflation

this dynamic is set to continue for many more years, due to the fact, its not truly possible for an alternative government to be formed, due to the fact, ffg are simply blocking that possibility, as that was the intention of confidence and supply….

again, dont worry, nothings gonna change, if you own assets such as property and land, you re laughing, your kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews may not be though, but shur thats their problem!

…but so to is ffg's, its a mess, so we re just gonna screw your kids, and rock on…..

…im sure it ll just be fine, thankfully some of those younger generations havent moved to more extreme views and extreme groups!

…everything is just fine!

but the reality is, sf have stuffed it, they have completely lost the momentum they had only a few months ago, they made a mess of the referendum and their stance on immigration, so theyre toast, and ffg's experience in governance has truly showed during this time, so it ll be another ffg, and potentially for a long time to come

an alternative government would need to gain an extremely high support, a near majority, in order to make it impossible for another ffg lead government, thats clearly not gonna happen, and theres a good chance it wont happen for a very long either, so…..

…i.e. younger generations are screwed, which means we ll all be eventually, especially when upward mobility becomes virtually impossible, which has already begun!

The best way to help younger buyers, aside from giving them govt paid deposits (which SF are getting rid of) is to build more homes.

I dont see how SF will build more homes than FFG over the next 5 years.

If its a flat out race between building the most homes, FFG won't build as many as we ideally need, but they will build more than SF.

So if we want more homes, I dont see a better option on the table than FFG, who currently have record commencements and will be pushing 50k new homes next year.

Thats a good platform to build on.

I dont see any way SF will hit 50k in 2025, when they wont have time to hire public construction staff in the numbers needed, not to mention the changes in planning and resourcing that would be required.

You're not wrong, there are plenty on the opposition benches who are happy to make a career out of sniping that would be horrified to find themselves in Government realising that it's a thankless task.

Just ask Stephen Donnelly.

The last thing we need is state run commercial services, especially house building. Make it easier for the private developers to get shovels into the ground, planning needs a massive overhaul for simple house builds. Building 50 houses is just building one on repeat. Why does it take years and 100s of €k before a builder can lay a brick. Too many state agencies, enabling nimbys and random objectors. A builder I know with full pp reapplied to change about 6 of the houses from type A to B, 4 to 3 beds or something. Nothing had actually been built. You'd swear he'd applied to build a nuclear power station, with all the objectors, and paperwork, and demands for new impact reports, from the public, lefty politicians, and obscure 'agencies'.

Respectfully I disagree. Like FF's long tenure, the narrative of the next election for FG - will be too long in the job. The Greens are gassed and will be tossed aside for another couple of terms. That leaves the obvious FF / SF coalition.

If MM is still leader of FF come election time, I just dont see the party siding with SF over FG. Why would they.

They have run a stable govt for this past term, much safer to stick with what they know and i also think SF having digs at FF over the last term is another reason FF wont choose to cosy up with them.

Nope, the safe bet for FF is to stick with what they know, and thats FFG.

Greens will be gone but there will be independents or a small party to make up the numbers. Doesnt really matter who.

Disagree with that.

The SF scheme blocks buyers from owning homes at market rate and also restricts the pool of people "owners" can sell to.

FHS has none of those restrictions.

A home bought under the FHS is equal to any other private home.

The SF homes are not and are effectivley a 2nd class asset.

Disagree there also.

With the SF house, the tax payer is footing the bill to build the house, pay for the labour, purchase the materials and so on.

They also dont qualify to own ones of the homes at the end of it all, if they earn an average salary or above.

Not sure how any of that can be considered a good deal for the tax payer, when its the tax payer that is excluded from the scheme!

Most homes built under FFG and the FHS are delivered by private companies. Everyone is entitled to access them and the govt isnt footing the bill to deliver the majority of homes.

Many taxpayers own their own homes. But IWT many are like me and don't want to pull the ladder up after us. The next gen in all our families should have a reasonable opportunity to own their own home.

Tell that to all the average salaried folks in Dublin, Cork & Galway that have to house share. You are saying most of them already own their own homes.

If thats the case, why are they living with mom and dad or living in house shares?

And in order for people to own their own homes, we need to build more houses and continue to give govt supports.

FFG are ramping up home building. We will see 40k this year and likley 50k from 2025 onwards. They also provide deposits to get thousands of first time buyers onto the housing ladder, every year.

SFs scheme would result in a slow down in construction, because there is no real home building infrastructure in local councils anymore, so there is nobody to build the state land owned homes.

They would also push out the investment funds that are deliveirng all of todays private estates and apartment complexes.

Put the 2 points together and the end result is a slow down in construction, coupled with removal of help to buy benefits for first time buyers.

I want to see more people own their own homes, not less.

The FFG approach is far from perfect, but its better than what SF are proposing.

They are most tax payers. People earinng less than an average salary pay very little tax.

If that's what you want then when you sell your house sell it for what you paid plus allowance for inflation.

Well, I would have it that the owner/resident, or even the next gen could buy out the state's interest in time. Not interested in locking the house into a false low value.

And when that happens and the estates start to manifest neglected houses, disrepair and unsavoury dens, the responsible sort-of owners will seek an out, and move to private estates, even if it means financial hardship, while their state reacquired house (no private owner will risk it), becomes a full on social house, and we're back to the undesirable area effect all over again. This was probably the reason that local authorities got out of building council estates in the first place, relying instead on the social and affordable quota in private developments. This has a self limiting effect, a builder will only tolerate a small percentage, else his estate becomes socialised and private buyers stay away. Attempts by councils to buy 80-90% of the houses in developments behind the backs of the first 10-20% of already resident new private owners is political suicide for councillors who support this, lefty ones included. Hark back a couple of years to Kildare CC underhand attempts using foreign pension fund leases to buy out an entire development where the first tranch of private residents were already in occupation, and the next batch had had their deposits returned. That approach was abandoned fairly lively, by KCC, builder, Councillors, and significantly, the yank pension fund, who stood to inherit an almost entire estate of council house tenants in 25 years when KCC were done with them. Not much profit in that.

Which is why we need more private owned homes to reduce the demand and cost of rentals. Its all about supply and demand. Funds buying up houses can inflate rental price by controlling supply. It needs enforcement though, an estate near me had non rental or sub letting expressly forbidden in their Ts&Cs and in the final contract of sale (excluding the very few social/affordable quota available to the council), yet we watched the new family home across from a friend being sold to an Asian landlord who promptly installed three families and single men over the three floors, with double the cars allowed parked on the paths.

Irrelevant,the banks will need to follow procedure,so if I want to build a house on my brothers land,not owning the site will I get a mortgage for it ?

To be honest,they've probably calculated that they will never have to,they certainly won't be doing the latter if they don't do the former will they