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Rollingnews.ie

Unless you can magic up a few houses, welfare recipients will need to move away from Dublin

It’s an unpalatable solution politically, but the truth is workers and students need to be in a place while those in receipt of welfare cannot make the same claim.

THERE WILL BE no single-hit solution to the housing crisis that is gripping the capital. We require a range of mitigating actions to be taken to provide alleviation from symptoms until the cure of adequate supply can be administered and take effect. It is depressing, then, to see such salving solutions as moving homeless people to vacant properties around the country be dismissed as “crazy” by opposition politicians.

We do, of course, have something of an historical chip on our shoulders when it comes to population movement. Many people don’t hear “move to available, affordable accommodation in Sligo.” They hear “to hell or to Connaught.” Opposition politicians meanwhile seem to take their title a bit too literally as to mean in all circumstances, make hay.

Vacant and affordable

It is no surprise that as we enter the college season, pressure is increasing rapidly. Homelessness is on the up as people are priced out of the market. Some 556 families were counted as being homeless last month, with many housed temporarily in B&B accommodation. The thing is, there is vacant and affordable property to rent around the country to house these people. For reasons of official lethargy and political sensitivity, we aren’t pursuing the option with vigour.

Folks getting their backs up at the idea that people be displaced for the sake of housing are struggling to win a moral argument with no practical solution to the problem in their back pocket. You can’t magic houses into existence across Dublin. Rent controls don’t work, for reasons I’ve outlined before. But even if we introduced them, the simple fact is that we’re trying to fit more warm bodies into spaces that simply do not exist. A rent control might help keep 500 families, or 1,500 to 2,000 people, in Dublin. But it’ll push out an equal number of students or professionals.

And when the rent control dampens investment into property development, you’ll just see the crisis drag further in time than it is already destined to.

Dublin has a gravitational pull common to all major cities. They suck in economic activity and people, gain the lion’s share of new jobs, college places and general opportunity. If there aren’t enough spaces to house the talent required to fill these jobs, it holds back the economic growth of the city and – as a knock on – the country. If students need to defer college because they cannot get accommodation, it may well hamper their personal economic prospects in the future. This in turn will have a knock on to our economy and society over time.

Politically unpalatable

There is a strong argument for government to incentivise people in welfare assisted housing in general to make a swap and head out from the city in favour of those who need to be there the most. It is a cold reality, and a politically unpalatable one at that. But when we have a situation where supply is insufficient to meet demand, you can try and move people whose housing is paid for by the state to areas where there is more availability and lower cost.

To Let / For Rent signs, Dublin propert Dublin, in particular, is being hit by a chronic shortage in housing supply /Photocall Ireland /Photocall Ireland

We will see housing supply kick up and deliver over time, but it is a long process. New projects are taking a criminal average of 79 weeks to go from planning application to approval and builders on site. Ronan Lyons, assistant professor of economics in Trinity College Dublin, pointed out to the Financial Times recently that the cost of building a home in Ireland is about 80% higher per square meter than in Germany or Northern Ireland.

This is partially driven by populist regulations. People are instinctively getting their backs up at the idea put forward recently that builders be allowed construct smaller family apartments than the current minimum of 85 square meters (915 feet). The same people, who are usually heard to wax lyrical about lower home prices in places like Germany, don’t acknowledge that the European average minimum size for an apartment suitable for a family is 65 sq m (700 sq ft), a 23.5% difference.

It’s not the whole story, but as with the entire crisis it is one part of the puzzle as to why we have more expensive housing and less of it than we require.

As we await the construction of vast housing projects like Project Cherry in Dublin 18, with nearly 4,000 residential units planned in one big lump, we must address ourselves to the problem at hand. We must also avoid the simple minded thinking around panacea solutions, one-hit wonders that we’re told will solve all ills and leave us disappointed when they fail.

Pressure release

An immediate pressure release value that is available to us is to move people out from the city who do not strictly need to be there for the purpose of specific activities they’re carrying out on a daily basis. Students and people at work need to be in a specific place at a specific time. If they can’t be for lack of housing, our capacity to grow the economy and deliver the cash to the state that is required to fix our other societal ills will be harmed.

Moving people will disrupt them as children move schools and perhaps limit training and job opportunities. So the Department of Social Protection would want to offer a move to long term unemployed people with sensitivity to this. But at the end of the day, saying “I don’t want to move” is perhaps not good enough by itself for those in state-funded housing, or no housing at all, when there exists a crimp on housing supply.

It is a terrible thing to have to contemplate doing, trying to move the population around to fit the economy. This is an example of the long-term consequences of economic mismanagement and the bust of the Fianna Fáil years. The current government will get the stick, including from people like Barry Cowen, for the problem. But at the end of the day, they can’t make houses appear in Dublin from nowhere.

Alternative, sometimes harsh, short term solutions will need to be found.

Aaron McKenna is a businessman and columnist for TheJournal.ie. You can follow him on Twitter here.

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    Oct 28th 2023, 8:03 AM

    There can’t be much of Gaza left at this stage

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    Mute Sam Walsh
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    Oct 28th 2023, 11:34 AM

    @: Blame Hamas. They just use innocent Palestinians as a way of advancing their ideological motives without any concern for people’s lives. They knew the response from Israel would bring hell on Palestine! How do you expect a nation to act if state sponsored terrorists want to destroy them!?

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    Mute kerrill thornhill
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    Oct 28th 2023, 12:47 PM

    @Sam Walsh: Britain managed not to carpet bomb Ireland whenever the IRA carried out an atrocity – because only a psycopath would justify genocide in response to a terrorist attack. The destroying is being carried out by the country that is illegally occupying Palestine, carpet bombing civilians with weapons & propaganda supplied by the EU/US.

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    Mute kerrill thornhill
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    Oct 28th 2023, 2:27 PM

    I can show you multiple article of IDF raping Palestinian prisoners, show me what your claim is based on. Mainstream media have published a trove of unsubstantiated claims to justify carpet bombing civilians – there us no excuse for carpet bombing civilians

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    Mute Rochie1508
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    Oct 28th 2023, 2:51 PM
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    Mute Rochie1508
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    Oct 28th 2023, 3:09 PM

    Oh you’re right, let’s just slaughter them all so! What a pathetic attempt to use the LGBTQ+ community to justify genocide.

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    Mute Rochie1508
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    Oct 28th 2023, 3:19 PM

    Your question is absolutely irrelevant to the situation and is a very bad attempt at dehumanising the Palestinian people, a page right out of the Israeli playbook. Have a read of the below, you might educate yourself but I doubt it.
    https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/232088

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    Oct 28th 2023, 3:25 PM
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    Mute Rochie1508
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    Oct 28th 2023, 3:33 PM

    Ok convince me. You say it’s a load of leftist nonsense, so show me the evidence to prove it. You made a statement, I disagreed and showed evidence to back up my point. Now it’s your turn. Convince me.

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    Mute F Fitzgerald
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    Oct 28th 2023, 3:36 PM

    @kerrill thornhill: Clearly you’ve never even heard of the Belfast Blitz of WWII. Try looking it up on Wikipedia.
    When half of Belfast was being evacuated and flattened by the Luftwaffe, city defenders were afraid to fire on the bombers lest they hit the RAF – who had apparently taken that weekend off and never turned up.
    Unlike the Irish Fire Brigade who crossed the border to help people.

    Ireland is a neutral country. Try to remember that.

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    Mute Rochie1508
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    Oct 28th 2023, 3:55 PM

    Yes there are hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community in Palestine, just as there are in Israel and many other countries.
    https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/article-734812
    Yes there are morality police deployed by hamas, as there are groups in Israel that do the same:
    https://dbpedia.org/page/Mishmeret_tzniyut
    More lefty nonsense?

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    Mute Sam Walsh
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    Oct 28th 2023, 5:02 PM

    @kerrill thornhill: You’re telling me the reason Israel is bombing Palestine is because of “Propaganda supplied from the US/EU”?! And not because Hamas just slaughtered the most Jews since the holocaust in one of the greatest terrorist attacks ever, including Irish citizens. I love your great comparison of Hamas and the IRA (provos), perhaps the reason why Ireland wasn’t carpet bombed was because the IRA didn’t live in such a densely populated area and also the IRA didn’t purposely use human shields. The hypocrisy from pro-Palestinians is hilarious, they expect Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East to be destroyed even though it’s ancient Jewish land and Jews have always been persecuted, Israel is tiny sliver of land in the Middle East. Islamist terrorism sympathisers are a plague.

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    Oct 28th 2023, 5:10 PM
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    Mute Sam Walsh
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    Oct 28th 2023, 6:01 PM

    @Rochie1508: I didn’t think we were discussing these topics. Also if you want to converse with me, don’t send a link in which I cannot copy nor paste.

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    Oct 28th 2023, 7:23 PM

    @Sam Walsh: That’s how arguments work, I make a statement and back it up with examples and then you do the same! Your old imperialist argument of Jews being entitled to the land is tired and jaded and shows your true colours. Even the Orthodox population of Israel can’t stand the zionists.
    https://youtube.com/shorts/V6qS3B7onec?si=Y2M-O9BQUjWrPMyv
    The world is slowly but surely waking up to the aggressive hate speech and ott outrage spouted by Israeli officials. The unwarranted attack on Antony Guterres was especially heinous and uncalled for.

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    Mute kerrill thornhill
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    Oct 28th 2023, 8:09 PM

    You coming accross as quite the nut job. I have worked with dozens of Palestinians and Muslims, many of them are gay – they are no different than us. The idea of you playing this card to justify genocide is quite insane. Did you know homesexuality was illegal in ireland until 1993? Would a sane person have used this as an excuse for Britain to carpet bomb Dublin during the troubles…. your morality is perverse!

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    Mute Sam Walsh
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    Oct 28th 2023, 8:20 PM

    @Rochie1508: The entirety of the Middle East equates to an area of over 5 millions square miles, the area of Israel is just over 8 thousand square miles. It so happens to be that those 8 thousand square metres represents the most democratic and least barbaric society in the Middle East. You say Israel is an imperialist state, if that’s the case then isn’t every state imperialist as there has always been transfer of land through means of conflict etc. It is totally accurate to say current day Israel used to be Jewish land, the kingdom of Israel and Kingdom of Judah go back to 2,000 BCE, and this isn’t just document through secondary sources, but also archeological evidence. I’m not going to pretend that Israel is perfect, Palestinians have had a rough time, but Israel aren’t the baddies.

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    Mute Rochie1508
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    Oct 28th 2023, 8:37 PM

    @Sam Walsh: Your lies are absolutely laughable. Israel not barbaric? Please.
    https://www.dawn.com/news/1782010
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_war_crimes_against_Israel
    You are absolutely correct, it USED to be the land of Judea, 2000 years ago. Over the centuries Islam spread to the area but up to the early 20th century Jews and Muslims lived happily together, granted under Ottoman rule. Imagine someone came to your home, told you this was my ancestors house 2000 years ago you need to get out. Then the police arrive and forcibly remove you and if you fight back you get shot. Does that sound fair? Of course not! Your logic is twisted beyond belief!

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    Mute Allo Allo
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    Oct 28th 2023, 8:47 AM

    Leave it to Israel to be one of the few nations capable of even greater atrocities than October 7th, they have shown the world they are worse than Hamas. They will never have peace.

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    Mute kerrill thornhill
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    Oct 28th 2023, 9:29 AM

    Back in the real world, 3000 Palestinian children were killed by carpet bombing a concentration camp, over 9000 civilians. Your still spouting the lie that Hamas beheaded kids & other atrocity porn that has been amplified relentlessly to dehumanise Palestinians and justify genocide. Here you are justifying a real live genocide, while insisting Palestinians/Hamas are the savages – do you work for punch magazine?

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    Mute John Smith
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    Oct 28th 2023, 9:39 AM

    @Allo Allo: Israel exaggerated the 7th of October Israeli deaths, the true death toll is closer to 700 than 1400 and about half of the Israeli deaths were soldiers and police, the IDF killed more of their own people than Hamas, Israel has a procedure to stop soldiers being captured, search for “the Hannibal Directive”.
    Hamas are no angels and they murdered Israeli civilians on the day but they aren’t ISIS.
    But most importantly, the people of Gaza are not Hamas.

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    Oct 28th 2023, 11:11 AM

    @Allo Allo: So far they’ve killed more UN staff than Hamas commanders.

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    Mute Martin Mongan
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    Oct 28th 2023, 12:52 PM

    @: the fact you think Palestine/Isreal is right wing/left wing says more about your intelligence to be honest

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    Mute kerrill thornhill
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    Oct 28th 2023, 12:53 PM

    You should read a book called ‘the great delusion’ by John Mearsheimer, the Liberal left as you call it are the main backers of zionism and ‘liberal hegemony’. As someone who works with dozens of Arabs/ Muslims (even gay ones!!!) from multiple countries – your description above is based on your own hatred and racism, not reality. No one ever chants push Jews to the sea, this is a racist trope – they chant Palestine will be free. If you’re worried about hostages, what’s your opinion on the >5000 Palestinians detained without trial?

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    Mute Pato
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    Oct 28th 2023, 9:37 AM

    A dating coach, what next, a divorce coach?

    49
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    Mute mainmsam
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    Oct 28th 2023, 9:52 AM

    @Pato: they are around already in the states

    17
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    Mute Mark Carolan
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    Oct 28th 2023, 10:06 AM

    @Pato: those people who can’t find someone, who struggle for the self confidence, the self belief to be able to find themselves a relationship.. should they just give up.. or can someone help.

    We all need help in different ways. I know someone who used a dating coach and it changed their life.

    Years ago we would have been skeptical of online dating..

    Everyone deserves a chance at having someone.

    And why not a divorce coach. It’s a lot to go through. Some people never recover and never find their way back into their life

    64
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    Mute kerrill thornhill
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    Oct 28th 2023, 10:24 AM

    Take a good close look at what’s happening to innocent Palestinians. You won’t read this in the IDF press releases that pass for journalism: https://twitter.com/PalBint/status/1717953561194078517?t=MykBvZRIY5hsalmFoh3tdQ&s=19

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    Oct 28th 2023, 10:26 AM

    @kerrill thornhill: I could post hundreds of these awful images – if the people being killed were ‘like us’ I would not have to, because they would be plastered all over the front page of every news paper. https://twitter.com/Sprinter99800/status/1718146305946439930?t=iLGgH_7H_6SDTbiqVemEcQ&s=19

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    Oct 28th 2023, 10:42 AM
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    Mute kerrill thornhill
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    Oct 28th 2023, 8:13 PM

    Do you have children, if they died would you consider them ‘collataral damage’? You are using dehumanising psychopathic language. Israel is almost exclusively targeting and killing civilians, yet perversely insisting on the moral high ground – you’ve completely lost your mind, as have most of our journalists by silent accepting the massacre of children. Complete inhumane insanity

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    Mute Kevin O'Brien
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    Oct 28th 2023, 12:53 PM

    The irony is incredible, to me, but probably not for the author.

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    Mute Paul Moloney
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    Oct 28th 2023, 11:49 AM

    Then you should probably not use or listen to this load of bollix ie the journal

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    Mute Paul Moloney
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    Oct 28th 2023, 7:30 PM

    No name blow me u bollix of thing

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    Mute Paul Moloney
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    Oct 28th 2023, 9:12 PM

    @Paul Moloney: no name no answer no balls no brains

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    Mute Jackie McGloughlin
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    Oct 28th 2023, 9:28 PM

    Important points for everyone and especially for those with this specific experience. Thanks for a well-written, well-researched article, Jeanne!

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