Developers showing signs of panic ?

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Poor developers - now they call for a cut in stamp duty, "a bigger increase in mortgage relief for first-time buyers and a renewed commitment to full implementation of the National Development Plan" and for Govt to borrow as much as possible to keep infrastructure projects going.

http://www.rte.ie/business/2007/0926/construction.html?rss

Where was their concern over stamp duty and mortgage relief during the boom years, eh ? They weren't too bothered then how this affected buyers, but now that their own pockets might be somewhat lighter due to a downturn out comes the 'concern'.
 
This has been talked about for a number of years, but for developers with new developemnts stamp duty is not so much of an issue anyway considering they are mostly marketed at owner occupiers now.
 
and when/if times get tough, car dealers will be shouting for cheaper petrol, cuts in VRT etc.

Is there really any surprise here?
 
It's funny the way builders and "developers" call on the Govt to do things, when so many of them appear on the Revenue list of tax defaulters - if you don't pay tax, you can't call on Govt to do anything, you should just go to jail and stay there. Obviously, not all builders are tax dodgers, but it seems a very large number are.

In the list of tax defaulters published yesterday The largest tax settlement was paid by a building company based in Celbridge, Co Kildare. Midland Contractors of The Mill House, Main Street, Celbridge, Co Kildare, made a settlement of €2.32 million. This was for underpayment of PAYE and PRSI and contracts tax. Whatever about not paying your own taxes, failing to pay over your employees' PAYE and PRSI is stealing, and the owners should go to jail. (Rant over).
 
Hasn't everybody been calling for reform to stamp duty and extending mortgage relief. Every sector also calls on the govt to further their needs, so it seems a little picky to home in on builders.
 
Don't recall the builders calling for this reform when everyone else was.
Surely the time for them to be calling for sd reform was when prices were rising, not falling ? Why make a point, as an industry, in only calling for reform now ?
 
Slash said:
It's funny the way builders and "developers" call on the Govt to do things, when so many of them appear on the Revenue list of tax defaulters - if you don't pay tax, you can't call on Govt to do anything, you should just go to jail and stay there.
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If only this statement were true. The Government (well the FF part of it) were delighted to welcome the principals of Bovale Ltd to the tent at the Galway races both last year and this. The fact that they settled for €22m with Revenue in '06 obviously didn't deter FF from having the crack with them.

Also, even if you do go to jail no action will be taken against you in political life. The jailed councillor from Co. Galway Michael Fahy petitioned Galway County Council to have his seat kept for him, despite the rules stating that after missing meetings for 6 months you have in effect tendered your resignation. Of course they were delighted to oblige !! This is the same guy who was convicted of fraud from the same body!!!
 
YOBR,
I are being a bit hard on poor(sic) FF. They obviously could not remenber that the Bovale lads had not paid their tax, just like the FF Senator (retired) who yesterday claimed that he was doing so much "wheeling'n'dealing in property" that he forgot to pay income tax.
After all would you remember lodging/withdrawing the odd €50,000 to or from your account 10 years ago ?
Alzheimers, sure its.............(I forgot what I was going to say). See.
 
YOBR said:
If only this statement were true. The Government (well the FF part of it) were delighted to welcome the principals of Bovale Ltd to the tent at the Galway races both last year and this. The fact that they settled for €22m with Revenue in '06 obviously didn't deter FF from having the crack with them.
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Its funny how many people seem to make such a big thing of the Baileys' links with FF in view of their tax compliance record (or lack thereof), but don't seem to complain much about the influence wielded by other controversial and well-connected developers - including one very prominent company which not too long ago, was notorious for its appalling health & safety record, including a string of fatalities on its sites and prosecutions by the Health & Safety Authority.
 
As long as political parties are not state funded the problem of actual and perceived influence over those parties by groups or companies will exist. If we want democracy we should be willing to fund it with a system of payments by the exchequer weighted in favour of smaller parties.
As for developers; has anyone on this site ever sold a property for less than the highest bid because they thought that the under bidder deserved it more? If yes then revel in the down turn and pontificate about groups lobbying in their own interest. If no, then stop being so bloody hypocritical.
 
Purple said:
As long as political parties are not state funded the problem of actual and perceived influence over those parties by groups or companies will exist. If we want democracy we should be willing to fund it with a system of payments by the exchequer weighted in favour of smaller parties.
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To my mind, state-funding of political parties would lead to political parties becoming ever more divorced from the civil society they purport to represent. Surely, weighting the funding in favour of smaller parties in such a system, would only accelerate this process?
 
room305 said:
Surely, weighting the funding in favour of smaller parties in such a system, would only accelerate this process?
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Especially given

- the current trend of smaller parties going into coalition with bigger parties and in the process abandoning much of what they ever stood for.

- the possibility of backbench TD's quitting or being kicked out of the bigger parties and establishing themselves as one-man "parties" thereafter.
 
I agree with your points ubiquitous but given the dominance of FF and the economies of scale enjoyed by any organisation in an advertising campaign etc, I think that things balance out in favour of a weighted system. Anyway, this is off topic.
 
IMHO the damage to Dublin and other parts of Ireland is already done by poor planning. This was already acknowledged last year in a report by the European Environmental Agency. Since the 1960's we should have had a clear policy on land use planning allied to public transport. However, we have been failed by the political, in particular local government, and planning system.
 
ubiquitous said:
Its funny how many people seem to make such a big thing of the Baileys' links with FF in view of their tax compliance record (or lack thereof), but don't seem to complain much about the influence wielded by other controversial and well-connected developers - including one very prominent company which not too long ago, was notorious for its appalling health & safety record, including a string of fatalities on its sites and prosecutions by the Health & Safety Authority.
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Feel free to enlighten us on this subject. For me, the Bovale example is the most glaring example of a lack of any type of ethics or morale standard.
 
I'm not going to name either this guy or his company for fear of breaking the "no libel" posting guidelines but if you google "worker died on dublin apartment site" or something similar you should get a good idea of the sort of character I am talking about.

It speaks volumes for the level of hypocrisy and double standards in this country that the fact that people actually died as a consequence of this company's malpractices is more or less forgotten a decade or so later, while the Baileys are widely reviled and cited as "the most glaring example of a lack of any type of ethics or morale standard" although nobody died as a result of their crimes.
 
ubiquitous said:
It speaks volumes for the level of hypocrisy and double standards in this country that the fact that people actually died as a consequence of this company's malpractices is more or less forgotten a decade or so later, while the Baileys are widely reviled and cited as "the most glaring example of a lack of any type of ethics or morale standard" although nobody died as a result of their crimes.
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well said
 
ubiquitous said:
It speaks volumes for the level of hypocrisy and double standards in this country that the fact that people actually died as a consequence of this company's malpractices is more or less forgotten a decade or so later, while the Baileys are widely reviled and cited as "the most glaring example of a lack of any type of ethics or morale standard" although nobody died as a result of their crimes.
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I think I know which company you mean although I wound't fully agree that its hypocrisy not too mention them and mention the Bovale example.

I'm not sure if your statement that although nobody died as a result of their crimes is strictly true although I'm not trying to demean the point your making. We pay our taxes to fund public services, especially health services. Those who are less well off depend totally on these public health services. The more money we have, the more we can put into these services and I'm sure that people on these waiting lists have died waiting for vital operations.
 
So throwing another €22m (the amount of the Bovale/Baileys' tax settlement, which btw included a large chunk of interest & penalties) into the €?? billion per annum health budget would have got rid of waiting lists? I doubt it...
 
ubiquitous said:
I'm not going to name either this guy or his company for fear of breaking the "no libel" posting guidelines but if you google "worker died on dublin apartment site" or something similar you should get a good idea of the sort of character I am talking about.

It speaks volumes for the level of hypocrisy and double standards in this country that the fact that people actually died as a consequence of this company's malpractices is more or less forgotten a decade or so later, while the Baileys are widely reviled and cited as "the most glaring example of a lack of any type of ethics or morale standard" although nobody died as a result of their crimes.
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Ever thought that maybe the evasion of taxes by Bovale etc. could have led to funding shortfalls / cutbacks in building inspection services, which could have led to cutting corners knowing the chances of censure were low, which could have led to the tragic death of that worker?
 
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