Housing in Ireland: A broken system.

Protocol said:
www.independent.ie

‘It should not be allowed to happen’ – Anger as Ryanair buys bulk of Swords housing estate to accommodate staff

Local representatives have voiced anger after Ryanair bought almost an entire housing estate in Swords, close to its headquarters at Dublin Airport, to house staff.
www.independent.ie www.independent.ie


There is a history of businesses providing housing for staff.

I think the Quakers (Cadbury) and Guinness did it?

And now Ryanair.
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If only Ryanair would get into constructing the houses, bound to make it more efficient and cheaper
 
joe sod said:
Also with large migration inflows into Ireland and other European countries, not a largely static population with relatively small internal population flows like we used to have in 70s and 80s, providing social housing like beforehand is no longer sustainable. For example the bar for an Irish immigrant to Australia or Canada to get social housing is very high, you can't get into Australia as a permanent resident unless you already have a skill that commands high income therefore automatically disqualified from social housing
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Nothing stops us from changing migration rules in relation to social housing provision. We can tighten it up like Australia and Canada if we so wish.

We may not have had as much internal migration back then but we had far greater number of children per family. Fertility rates were over 3 at the time. Contraception wasn't legal until 1979. Granted the population did fall a little during the 80's but believe it or not it was higher in the 70's than it is right now, in percentage terms and often in absolute values too.

I want to link to macrotrends website to show the data but it looks like I'm not allowed to post links in replies.
 
T McGibney said:
I would respectfully submit that the lifetime provision of public housing to an individual or family at an initial build cost of €200k-€400k and God knows what maintenance/upkeep, in return for minuscule to zero rents, is a subsidy benefit akin to winning the Lotto.
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That's the system we have right now. So you would be in agreement that we need to reform the system?
 
Protocol said:
There is a history of businesses providing housing for staff.

I think the Quakers (Cadbury) and Guinness did it?

And now Ryanair.
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Rather than drastically boost wages to very high levels they would have to be to afford to rent a one bed in Dublin, €110k year a gross to afford €2000 rent at the 35% of net pay, they've decided to pay staff through subsidised housing. A form of corporate welfare. It can work, it's essentially what's done with healthcare in the USA. The question is if it is what we want. It still removes home ownership. It's a world were you either rent from subsidised social housing or from subsidised corporate housing.
 
Ajax123 said:
It can work, it's essentially what's done with healthcare in the USA.
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I don't think it can work. Or it depends what you mean by it can work.

You potentially have to suffer a crappy job or manager to have healthcare or a roof over your head.
 
joe sod said:
the difference is you have to work in a job for subsidised corporate housing, you don't have to work for subsidised social housing, in fact working is a disadvantage as you might get disqualified for earning too much
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In addition the recipient of subsidised corporate housing will pay BIK on the value of the subsidy.
 
I think a good starting point is to work on the basis that the need to provide social housing to working people is a symptom of a policy failure and economic and social dysfunction as in a proper functioning society working people should be able to provide their own homes.
 
T McGibney said:
Oh yes, most definitely. The current model is a kind of ponzi scheme where workers with crippling housing costs pay 52% taxes to house non-workers with no housing costs.
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The State provides is a strong economic incentive for familial and social dysfunction across the entirety of the services it provides and the goodies it hands out.
 
Ajax123 said:
The inventive to get a higher education is falling. You can spend years getting educated to then spend years working full time with still little hope of owning "capital". As this whole thread is discussing, the incentive to be "middle class" is falling. As some of my examples show, after housing is accounted for, you'd often be in a similar money situation regardless.
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Not only that but a masters degree seems to be becoming the new standard to get into company grad programmes, adding 20-30k plus accommodation costs etc. to the bill of starting out. So you potentially start off with bigger loans than before too.

On the original point, a new development not far from me was bought for social housing, it is subjective observation obviously, but the level of disposable income on show with car models, garden furniture etc. strikes me as really high. 10-15% of income doesn't make any sense if you can afford to buy or finance a minimum 30k euro car for example, the state and tax payers are subsidising an expensive lifestyle for one group selected based on lower income.
 
RonnieShinbal88 said:
the state and tax payers are subsidising an expensive lifestyle for one group selected based on lower income.
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That cohort is getting bigger. A single person in Dublin on €40,000 a year qualifies for social housing. The median wage is around €42,000. We are treating a symptom without addressing the root cause.
 
Purple said:
I think a good starting point is to work on the basis that the need to provide social housing to working people is a symptom of a policy failure and economic and social dysfunction as in a proper functioning society working people should be able to provide their own homes.
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It's a good idea but it doesn't really work with mixed tenure/income or community integration due to the disparity in cost of identical housing between tenants. When there were a lot of social homes it worked better because a lot of people who lived in these homes worked. Then came the era of deindustrialisation and removal of the manufacturing jobs. Along with it the neo liberal idea of selling all the social homes and not providing anymore. So social homes became tightened up and reserved only for the unemployed and those considered worst off. There are papers out there arguing that this is what helped create the ghettos, not simply the fact they were all social homes. To fix this they simply sprinkle the homes throughout private housing, without giving it much more thought and consider it a job well done.

And here we are at the present day. Where, in my opinion, one of the worst situations you can find yourself in, is earning an average to above average household income, were it is too much for social housing. You pay significantly more than the social tenant in the development to house yourself and still significantly more than if you were in that social home yourself and still working the same job. And if you are in anyway logical you'll be wondering why you bothered all those years to get an education, work full time etc just to end up in the same situation than if you didn't bother. If you don't want to work, you'll have to jump through a lot of hoops with Intreo but if you can manage that successfully you'll have a lot more free time. And if the idea of free time is too much for you, you can work part time and keep a portion of your welfare. Or you can work full time and earn more take home pay after housing costs than if you were a private tenant in that development.

I actually think a lot of people are not aware of how little they are actually incentivised to gain higher incomes, before they get a social house. Especially families were both parents work to afford the mortgage, only to spend most of what left of the second income paying someone else to mind the kids. Unless you want to work all the time and don't value free time to raise your family. You're better off getting an education, parking it, having the family young, getting a social home, then focusing on retraining or working after. As opposed to doing it all in reverse and only starting to have kids in your 30's with a sky high mortgage. The system is unbalanced to say the least.

The question is what is the solution? A campaign to spread awareness amongst the public? A campaign to alert politicians to the issue? One thing that would certainly bring awareness to the issue is if everyone was aware of how we are incentivised. If we all took this path, as opposed to only a portion of the population, surely the system would collapse under pressure fairly quickly.
 
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Purple said:
That cohort is getting bigger. A single person in Dublin on €40,000 a year qualifies for social housing. The median wage is around €42,000. We are treating a symptom without addressing the root cause.
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That's €40,000 net of tax. So €52,200 gross.
 
Dont forget, the goose that is laying large golden eggs. 2023 Corporation tax receipts of c.24billion, were double that in 2018 and in 2007, corporation tax was only 6billion. So thats 18billion extra windfall. The sum total of income tax of all workers was 30billion.

Imagine what level of all taxes would be needed to fill this extra 18,000,000,000E if the corporation tax boom had not happened due to less than 10 US MNCs deciding to offshore their IP to Ireland rather than the Bahamas ?.

Marginal tax rate in 1994 was 48% , its ALWAYS been crippling high. The rate kicked in at c.8000 IR£...I remember paying it. In 1980s I believe top rate for modest incomes was 65%.

PAYE Rates for 91/92 to 94/95

I am trying to reconcile my PAYE, PRSI, Health Levy & Youth Levy for each tax year since 1991/1992. I have found information for 1995/1996 onwards on the web but I have not located any details for 1991/1992 to 1994/1995 inclusive. What I am looking for is the following details: Allowance...
www.askaboutmoney.com

About 20% of a countries population are non productive, for whatever reason. The best worst choice is how to provide for this sector, in cheapest way possible. If you do bugger all (aka US), you end up paying way more for this cost it in a multitude of public costs health, police , prison drugs and an inter-generational habits of this section of society.

There doesnt seem to be a better way than to provide low cost housing, equal opportunity at education, sport and health so at least everyone elses ball and chain is a bit lighter overall . A certain country in n.Europe has figured that out. I wouldnt swap getting up in the dark to go to work , getting paid and having some quality of lifestyle for a one which means getting up at lunch time to watch neigbours after a long dream of Pictures of Lily.
 
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Purple said:
I think a good starting point is to work on the basis that the need to provide social housing to working people is a symptom of a policy failure and economic and social dysfunction as in a proper functioning society working people should be able to provide their own homes.
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Is there any country where people on below-median wages, like 30k full-time, in cities, can provide their own homes?
 
Purple said:
Prior to 2011 (I think) there was a PRSI ceiling above which you stopped paying PRSI. The marginal rate was 40% or 41% and there was no USC.
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30 years ago - 1994, the marginal rates were much higher.

Despite no USC, the rates were higher and the rate bands were narrower.

For a single person:

8,200 @27%
Balance @48%

See FA 1994.
 
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