Housing crisis and unaffordable rent costs in Ireland, caused by immigration? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15257867
RoryHearneGaffs (@roryhearnegaffs) TikTok
video here

A Generation in Ireland is being forced to emigrate because of Govt failure on housing.

"I have a degree, I have a master's, I'm living at home, my boyfriend has emigrated... And I just don't see a future in this country. And these are professionals. I was just looking in the headlines, that schools in Dublin, primary schools, 62 percent of posts are vacant; outside of Dublin, 9 percent. It is because they can't afford to live here. Teachers can't get jobs, guards can't, nurses... Like you talk about hidden homelessness... the Simon Community did a survey which said 250,000 people in a poll they did were potentially in situations like this. Like this is just..."
"Is it just Ireland? Like, is it happening in all other countries? Because there are other countries..."
"Of course there is, but I just showed you the rent costs in Dublin versus... It is nothing like Ireland. Ireland has the worst housing crisis in the EU, and there are other countries that are similar, because they followed similar policies. But there are other countries that don't have this crisis, like Finland, because they do it completely differently."

Ireland AM, episode 322

As some of you may be aware, the country of Ireland took in a lot of immigration during their tech boom, from the mid 1990s to 2007, which was kind of an economic bubble. The Irish still have in their collective memory the time during the mid-1800s when the Irish people were so poor and destitute they had to immigrate en masse to London and America. So, for the most part, they were happy when their country became a destination for immigrants, during their economic boom. That tech boom is now mostly over, but many of the immigrants have remained.

This seems to have put a big strain on the country's housing supply. And with housing shortages, predictable rents and housing prices went up.
Viewed from one perspective, because Ireland took in people from other countries, now Irish people are going to have leave to other countries.

Of course most of the Irish refuse to see any link between their housing crisis and their immigration policy. This is going just going to push the Irish people further to the Left as they complain about the government not solving their housing crisis.
#15257992
One of the ironies is that, in Ireland during the bubble, they brought in a lot of immigrants to do the work of building houses. But it turned out many people could not end up affording those houses. People lost their good paying jobs that were connected to the tech bubble and construction bubble, and then defaulted on their mortgages.
Another problem was that many of these housing developments were built in the wrong areas. During the height of the bubble it had seemed that a house built anywhere would sell. Many of these houses were never even finished, because the bubble popped before the construction was completed.
Most of these immigrant construction workers who were building the new houses could not really afford the new homes they were creating.

As a result, there were still not enough new houses built to accommodate all the additional population from immigration. And there are some people now stuck living in dilapidated communities that are a far distance away from any good job opportunities. Some of the houses are being held by banks and no one can afford it, and the banks don't want to let the houses go. Ireland is poorer than other parts of Europe and has a lower rate of car ownership. Unfortunately much of the new housing communities built during the bubble were designed and built for an affluent middle class who it was assumed would have cars to get around and commute to work.
#15257994
Pants-of-dog wrote:I think you are incorrect.

You have absolutely zero evidence showing this is due to immigration.

Maybe you would like to tell us what the cause of this housing crisis is, then, or at least speculate on some causes?

Let's think about this. Did they simply demolish some of the homes Irish people were living in? Is that what you think?
Do you think that the Irish population has been increasing through natural increase? Because if you look at the statistics, I do not think that's what you will find. (They say the current fertility rate in Ireland is 1.797 births per woman, that is below the replacement rate of 2)

Or maybe you will lean back on your usual go-to, blame CAPITALISM. How predictable.
#15257997
Ireland is suffering from the "longest and most severe" housing crisis the country has ever experienced according to Macdara Doyle, an advocate for housing reform in Ireland. Ireland’s housing crisis has pushed millions of people out of their homes and into poverty with seemingly no end. Irish housing prices and evictions are through the roof.
The housing market has been unable to keep pace with Ireland’s population growth and urban concentration. There are rough estimates that to keep pace with the population growth and job density in cities, particularly in Dublin, there must be 45,000 new houses built a year. Unfortunately, the average annual number since 2015 has been 15,000. The cost of building materials has remained high since the early 2000s.​

source: Ireland’s Housing Crisis Driving Millions Into Poverty - The Borgen Project
https://borgenproject.org/irelands-housing-crisis/
#15257999
Puffer Fish wrote:Maybe you would like to tell us what the cause of this housing crisis is, then, or at least speculate on some causes?


There is almost no new housing, especially new homes built by the government for low income families.

There are tax incentives to turn unused housing properties into unusable properties.

The government has limited the amount of mortgage interest relief there is for landowners who rent housing.

These are just some of the reasons. Immigration does not seem to be one according to a quick Google search.

Let's think about this. Did they simply demolish some of the homes Irish people were living in? Is that what you think?


Yes, actually. Landowners pay no property tax on residential property that is not habitable. So if they have a property that they cannot rent for some reason, they have a financial incentive to remove toilets, stairs, et cetera.

Do you think that the Irish population has been increasing through natural increase? Because if you look at the statistics, I do not think that's what you will find. (They say the current fertility rate in Ireland is 1.797 births per woman, that is below the replacement rate of 2)


The Irish population still has not reached its old pre-industrial levels.

Or maybe you will lean back on your usual go-to, blame CAPITALISM. How predictable.


Are you saying it is immature to blame all the problems on the same thing, over and over, without evidence?
#15258000
The single largest contribution to unaffordable housing for the bottom 80% in Ireland is simple.

Ireland is tax dodgers heaven for multinational corporations. Good for the rich, bad for the poor.

“A report from 2018 showed through statistics that Ireland was the biggest tax haven in the world in 2015, it had more tax evasion and avoidance than all the Caribbean islands put together.”

These are the words Brian O’Boyle, an economics lecturer in St Angela’s college, who together with sociologist Kieran Allen has written Tax Haven Ireland, a book exploring Ireland’s role as one of the world’s major tax havens


The duo had previously written a book called Austerity Ireland dealing with “the failure of Irish capitalism and the response of this country’s elites to the impending housing and banking collapse”.

“It became clear to us there was a bigger story to be told about the true nature of Irish capitalism and the tax haven that was increasingly obviously the centre point of the whole thing,” he said.


The new book looks at the history of the Irish economy, investigates the mechanisms used to create it, examines the role of multinational corporations, law firms as well as the property sector, and demonstrates the social cost and consequences of Ireland’s tax laws.

“You have the European commission, all the serious tax academics, and all the tax justice organisations saying that Ireland is a tax haven and yet all of official Ireland continue to deny it,” he said.

“In a way that undermines our democracy, so we want to make sure the truth is actually out there. In the end tax avoidance hurts everybody.


“If you look at our GDP per capita we have one of the highest in the world. It looks like we are one of the richest countries, but then if you look at our health service, pupil-teacher ratios, cost of childcare, or our record on environmental measures, Ireland comes near the bottom of those lists because we have a very small public sector and the reason for that is because we are a tax haven.


“There is this myth that we are 100% reliant on multinationals and yes, it is true they have brought investment and are responsible for around 7% of jobs in the State, but they have also caused an enormous race to the bottom internationally. They have eroded corporate responsibility and that makes it much more difficult to hold them to account.”



It gets worse as these corporations are not satisfied with the friendliest investment climate in the Western hemisphere. They also use the housing market in order to pay even less money to the government.

While a lot of people might feel like these issues have no bearing on their lives, Brian highlighted the strong link between Ireland’s tax policies and the current housing crisis.

“The centre point of the collapse in Ireland was the housing market because Ireland had traditionally relied on foreign direct investment, a lot of Irish wealth was in housing and property,” he said.

“The first time they stabilised the system through NAMA which was relatively effective to stop the bleeding, putting a floor underneath the collapse and the prices but they were never going to be able to revive the prices on their own.”


Freedom of Information requests reveal that throughout the 2010s there were dozens of meetings between the Department of Finance and representatives of international property funds and “after that you get this sequence of investment funds that are declaring quite high profits in the Irish with very low taxes.”

“Effectively you can legally separate a parent company from a secondary company.

“The secondary company buys the property, makes the profit, and pays interest to the parent declaring the interest as a cost and then uses that as a deduction.

“They then began to partner with existing developers in Ireland and on many occasions they held onto the land because they wanted to artificially increase prices, what they effectively did was hold back supply in the State.

“The implication is we have a huge housing crisis and there is very little building happening in the State.

“In the final year of the Celtic tiger there were 96,00 houses built; they haven’t gotten past 25,000 in the last number of years.”


Immigration? If by immigration you mean foreign capital, we agree with each other. If you mean human beings, you have never been this wrong about anything. But you have your agenda so what do you care?

How Ireland became one of the World’s biggest tax havens
#15258016
MadMonk wrote:The single largest contribution to unaffordable housing for the bottom 80% in Ireland is simple.

Ireland is tax dodgers heaven for multinational corporations. Good for the rich, bad for the poor.

Keep in mind that is what attracted investment (from other countries in Europe) in the first place, and allowed Irish economy to grow so fast and have its tech boom.

The question is can Ireland compete with the rest of Europe and have tech industry if they have higher taxes.
Because otherwise Ireland is kind of a more remote spot and international businesses would not be the most enthusiastic about locating there.
#15258017
Pants-of-dog wrote:These are just some of the reasons. Immigration does not seem to be one according to a quick Google search.

Do you rely on other people to do your thinking for you?

So what exactly would it take? Would I have to start a blog that would appear in a Google search?

And what type of "study" could possibly "prove" that immigration was the cause. Think about that.
Numerous analysis from different sources indicate that one of the key factors is an excess in the number of people. I'll assume you agree and do not disagree with that.

No, I think what you are asking for is either totally unrealistic, or you are looking for a "credible" news source to give you an opinion so you can adopt it as your own.

All I'm doing is giving you facts (that no one disagrees with), and then giving my interpretation and opinion about how those facts fit together to create a picture.
I get that you don't trust my interpretation and opinion, so maybe you would like try doing your own. Maybe that requires too much work and mental effort. Much easier when you can find a "trusted source" to spoon feed you, and tell you how to think, huh?

What I think you might not really understand is there is a difference between facts, and interpretations or characterisations of those facts. The interpretation of those facts are not really facts.
I can rattle off a long list of statistics, but what does it all really mean?

I think you are deep deep denial and don't want to see the obvious interpretation of the plain facts presented right in front of you.

Rather than the problem being a housing shortage, even though the number of existing homes has not decreased, you view the problem as government not creating enough houses.
Think about that.
#15258019
Pants-of-dog wrote:There is almost no new housing, especially new homes built by the government for low income families.

Another option could be to pass a law requiring immigrants to buy and rent newly constructed housing (like constructed within the last 4 years), and then if they default on their mortgage they get the boot.

This could ensure there is enough housing to keep up with population growth, while at the same time not affecting the market supply of housing for Irish people.

And then also require that immigrant housing to be built outside of Dublin, away from the area where there is already a drastic shortage of housing and available building space for housing.
This might force the developers to have to build better public transportation, rather than just everyone moving to the more expensive overcrowded Dublin area to find an area conducive to non-car transportation.
#15258020
Puffer Fish wrote:Another option could be to pass a law requiring immigrants to buy and rent newly constructed housing (like constructed within the last 4 years), and then if they default on their mortgage they get the boot.

This could ensure there is enough housing to keep up with population growth, while at the same time not affecting the market supply of housing for Irish people.

And then also require that immigrant housing to be built outside of Dublin, away from the area where there is already a drastic shortage of housing and available building space for housing.
This might force the developers to have to build better public transportation, rather than just everyone moving to the more expensive overcrowded Dublin area to find an area conducive to non-car transportation.



It's capitalism at work, Ut allocates the resources and sets the prices. There are enough resources there is no need for shortage just capitalism fails to allocate the resources to to it, the prices of rent is maximized , people ar employed to increase rents. That is their job, tje higher rents they can extract, the higher house prices the more they will be paid,
#15258024
pugsville wrote:It's capitalism at work, Ut allocates the resources and sets the prices. There are enough resources there is no need for shortage just capitalism fails to allocate the resources to to it,

I would argue in this situation that immigration strains the capitalist system, creates greater need for alternatives outside it.

Now, I think it's obvious they're not going to find these solutions before they take on more immigration.
So I think it will be knee-jerk reaction. Create a problem, and then look for a solution. You think that's reasonable and agree, don't you?
#15258049
Puffer Fish wrote:I would argue in this situation that immigration strains the capitalist system, creates greater need for alternatives outside it.

Now, I think it's obvious they're not going to find these solutions before they take on more immigration.
So I think it will be knee-jerk reaction. Create a problem, and then look for a solution. You think that's reasonable and agree, don't you?


Your looking for a scapegoat not a solution to the fundamental problems. The Capitalist system strains society.
#15258053
pugsville wrote:The Capitalist system strains society.

Oh please spare us "the Capitalist System" nonsense. What you call the Capitalist System., the system of private property and trade, began over ten thousand years ago. Its probably as old as horticulture itself. Trade is almost certainly older than humanity itself. It almost certainly predates the existence of homo sapiens. Capital also predates humanity, by millions of years. Arguably many animals have capital, what is a spiders web if it is not capital. But certainly by the time of Australopithecus we have something that can unmistakably be called capital. We have industry and we have culturally inherited technology. We have stone tools because they survive, but most of their technology and industry has been lost.

Now we can argue about whether pure hunter gatherers were Communist, but even here they may surprise us. But as soon as you have horticulture proper, as soon as you have gardens to supplement hunting and gathering, even if the village only stays in one place for a single or a couple of seasons you have the beginnings of private property.

Private property and the market have been the basis for all the advanced societies for thousands of years. The only alternatives that have been able to support even a moderate population density have been the historically recent Communist countries.
#15258055
Puffer Fish wrote:Do you rely on other people to do your thinking for you?

So what exactly would it take? Would I have to start a blog that would appear in a Google search?

And what type of "study" could possibly "prove" that immigration was the cause. Think about that.


Any verifiable peer reviewed study will do.

Numerous analysis from different sources indicate that one of the key factors is an excess in the number of people. I'll assume you agree and do not disagree with that.


Again, Ireland had more people in 1840. If higher population was the problem, then the prices would now be at the level of 1840.

No, I think what you are asking for is either totally unrealistic, or you are looking for a "credible" news source to give you an opinion so you can adopt it as your own.

All I'm doing is giving you facts (that no one disagrees with), and then giving my interpretation and opinion about how those facts fit together to create a picture.
I get that you don't trust my interpretation and opinion, so maybe you would like try doing your own. Maybe that requires too much work and mental effort. Much easier when you can find a "trusted source" to spoon feed you, and tell you how to think, huh?

What I think you might not really understand is there is a difference between facts, and interpretations or characterisations of those facts. The interpretation of those facts are not really facts.
I can rattle off a long list of statistics, but what does it all really mean?

I think you are deep deep denial and don't want to see the obvious interpretation of the plain facts presented right in front of you.

Rather than the problem being a housing shortage, even though the number of existing homes has not decreased, you view the problem as government not creating enough houses.
Think about that.


None of this is relevant.

Puffer Fish wrote:Another option could be to pass a law requiring immigrants to buy and rent newly constructed housing (like constructed within the last 4 years), and then if they default on their mortgage they get the boot.

This could ensure there is enough housing to keep up with population growth, while at the same time not affecting the market supply of housing for Irish people.

And then also require that immigrant housing to be built outside of Dublin, away from the area where there is already a drastic shortage of housing and available building space for housing.
This might force the developers to have to build better public transportation, rather than just everyone moving to the more expensive overcrowded Dublin area to find an area conducive to non-car transportation.


No, that would be stupid since immigration is not an issue.
#15258058
Puffer Fish wrote:
with housing shortages, predictable rents and housing prices went up.
Viewed from one perspective, because Ireland took in people from other countries, now Irish people are going to have leave to other countries.

Of course most of the Irish refuse to see any link between their housing crisis and their immigration policy. This is going just going to push the Irish people further to the Left as they complain about the government not solving their housing crisis.



Why isn't the Irish government solving the housing crisis there?

This is fairly widespread and political *only* because the government isn't being held accountable -- people are being politicized due to government *inaction*.


Puffer Fish wrote:
Rather than the problem being a housing shortage, even though the number of existing homes has not decreased, you view the problem as government not creating enough houses.
Think about that.



So, according to *this* rhetoric, you think that a fixed number of housing units is *acceptable* for a growing unhoused population.

In *your* utopia the government doesn't create new homes, the population size always stays the same, and there's zero immigration.


Puffer Fish wrote:
Another option could be to pass a law requiring immigrants to buy and rent newly constructed housing (like constructed within the last 4 years), and then if they default on their mortgage they get the boot.




A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and recreation facilities. They are usually bigger than a model village ("model" in the sense of an ideal to be emulated).

Some company towns have had high ideals, but many have been regarded as controlling and/or exploitative.[1]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town
#15258069
Rich wrote:Oh please spare us "the Capitalist System" nonsense. What you call the Capitalist System., the system of private property and trade, began over ten thousand years ago. Its probably as old as horticulture itself. Trade is almost certainly older than humanity itself. It almost certainly predates the existence of homo sapiens. Capital also predates humanity, by millions of years. Arguably many animals have capital, what is a spiders web if it is not capital. But certainly by the time of Australopithecus we have something that can unmistakably be called capital. We have industry and we have culturally inherited technology. We have stone tools because they survive, but most of their technology and industry has been lost.

Now we can argue about whether pure hunter gatherers were Communist, but even here they may surprise us. But as soon as you have horticulture proper, as soon as you have gardens to supplement hunting and gathering, even if the village only stays in one place for a single or a couple of seasons you have the beginnings of private property.

Private property and the market have been the basis for all the advanced societies for thousands of years. The only alternatives that have been able to support even a moderate population density have been the historically recent Communist countries.



(1) The system is capitalist.
(2) It is controlled by small sector of the population seeking to get maximum return form the rest of society,
(3) High rents and lack of housing is the result of capitalist principles and operating trends in the housing sector,.
#15258071
Rich wrote:
Oh please spare us "the Capitalist System" nonsense. What you call the Capitalist System., the system of private property and trade, began over ten thousand years ago. Its probably as old as horticulture itself. Trade is almost certainly older than humanity itself. It almost certainly predates the existence of homo sapiens. Capital also predates humanity, by millions of years. Arguably many animals have capital, what is a spiders web if it is not capital. But certainly by the time of Australopithecus we have something that can unmistakably be called capital. We have industry and we have culturally inherited technology. We have stone tools because they survive, but most of their technology and industry has been lost.

Now we can argue about whether pure hunter gatherers were Communist, but even here they may surprise us. But as soon as you have horticulture proper, as soon as you have gardens to supplement hunting and gathering, even if the village only stays in one place for a single or a couple of seasons you have the beginnings of private property.

Private property and the market have been the basis for all the advanced societies for thousands of years. The only alternatives that have been able to support even a moderate population density have been the historically recent Communist countries.



- Simple local in-person person-to-person cooperation is *not* capitalism.

- Capitalism did *not* begin 10,000 years ago with the agricultural revolution.

- 'Trade' cannot precede the *participants* of trade themselves.

- Animals do not use capital.

- Pre-surplus hunters and gatherers had *no need* for private property, and did *not practice* private property.

- Village life is not private property.

- Private property and markets rely on a *government* for their overhead, and private-property-administrating government has only been around as long as *private property* has existed, and not longer.
#15258072
@Rich what do you consider capital because in Marx it has a specific character such that if you simply generalize its shared qualities with past production you’re thinking only as far as humans = ape ancestor wothout any qualitative distinction.

And while markets and such have existed prior to capitalist production, their significance in relation to society as a whole was qualitatively different. To make no distinction is to side step the issue entirely as many have done in naturalizing capitalism as if the first tool made by a cave man is capital.
Commodities were peripheral to societies and were not a dominating quality of them, markets were not the primary means of interaction.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/articles/universal.htm
In the context of the materialistic conception of the dialectics of history and of thinking, the Hegelian formulas have different significance than in the language of their originator, being shorn of the slightest sign of mystical coloring. The “universal” comprises and embodies in itself “the entire treasure of particulars” not as an “Idea,” but as a totally real, special phenomenon which tends to become universal and which develops “out of itself,” by force of its intrinsic contradictions new but no less real, phenomena, other “particular” forms of actual progress. Hence, the “genuine universal” is not any particular form found in each and every member of a class but the particular which is driven on to emerge by its very “particularity,” and precisely by this “particularity” to become the “genuine universal.”


So your characterization of capitalism is simply ahistorical, universalizing features shared across ime but without any distinction. As said, crude as man is but an ape.
#15258073
Wellsy wrote:



The “universal” comprises and embodies in itself “the entire treasure of particulars”



Just a *sketch* here -- the following diagram *may* be illustrating this dynamic since each of the four 'bulbs' components has a pointy end, and is paired with a like, *complementary* bulb. So we can look into the 'pointy end' - 'other-bulb component' relationship, though offhand it looks like it doesn't correspond linearly to *scale*, from top to bottom ('macro-micro', from other diagrams).


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