Mark Stedman / Photocall Mark Stedman / Photocall / Photocall

THIS WEEK HAS seen huge focus on one extremely high-profile repossession.

Solicitor Brian O’Donnell’s stand off in his Killiney mansion has been the attention of much media scrutiny.

New figures for construction also showed that things surged in the early part of last year, before plateauing towards Christmas.

The Big Movers

Construction down to a trickle

Last year saw a much welcomed turn around in the construction industry. However, this growth was shown to slow towards the end of the year. 

This is according to the National Construction Housing Index carried out by consultancy firm Link2Plans. The index is based on planning and project information from every council in the country.

Overall, project commencements were up by 30%. However, things fell considerably in the second half of 2014, with the rate of growth half that of what it had been in the year before.

Rent control?

A group representing landlords this week has said the introduction of rent control is not the answer to the housing crisis.

The Irish Property Owners’ Association (IPOA) has said that what needs to be done instead is the reintroduction of bedsits – which would create extra capacity.

Reintroducing bedsits has been proposed as a way to tackle the housing crisis Shutterstock / photobank.ch Shutterstock / photobank.ch / photobank.ch

This followed announcements by the Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly that he was planning to tackling the problem of excessively high rents.

According to a recent report, 71% of landlords have insufficient incomes to pay their mortgage on their rental property and more than 38,000 buy-to-lets are in arrears with the bank.

Killiney 

Solicitor Brian O’Donnell spent much of this week refusing to leave his familiy’s Gorse Hill mansion in Killiney.

On Tuesday the High Court refused an attempt by the O’Donnell family to have receivers stopped from repossesing their home. The family have been assisted in their cause by members of the New Land League group.

The property was once valued at €30 million and has more than 9,000 sq. ft. of floor space.

The Gorse Hill property in on Vico Road in Killiney Mark Stedman / Photocall Mark Stedman / Photocall / Photocall

Under Construction

• A Japanese hotel chain which is staffed almost exclusively by women has bought Charlie Haughey’s old Kinsealy estate. 
• IKEA has created a range of furniture that comes with a built in wireless charging spot for your phone. Pretty clever.   

IKEA IKEA

• Dublin’s chief architect, Ali Grehan, has said that Ballymun’s flats were a “really good idea”, but that they failed due to poor planning and bad policies. 
• AIB announced it had a €2.8 billion turnaround last year and a 22% drop in Irish homeowners in arrears.  
• Locals in Co Donegal were aggrieved this week over their houses “crumbling around them” due to defective blocks.   

Des Res

According to Business Insider, the Italian property market is inundated with historical properties, as owners no longer wish to pay for taxes and up keep. The upshot of this is that this giant castle of more than 150,000 sq. ft. is now on the market for €29 million.

The 12th-century property comes with 115 bedrooms, a vineyard and olive grove.