Like the Children's hospital? Once you start dealing with public procurement process the prices inevitably rise. DCC's pretty comprehensive review published in Jan showed it was 40% cheaper for them to acquire private developments via Part V than it was to build themselves.
IT opinion: "lack of housing supply is not the problem"
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If you are referring to this... it would be seem be saying they overpaid, not that its 40% cheaper. Maybe you'd link to what your referring to.
www.independent.ie
The NCH was a political football, compounded by choosing a difficult site, then complex shape, then as I understand it, ever changing requirements, and who knows what management issues. They hit every branch on the Grand Designs how not to run a building project tree.
The chase to outsource public and social housing to save money, both in the acquisition, then in the ongoing costs of such housing. The intent was to offload the some of the costs and burden to the private sector. Who didn't want it. . They had to create legislation to force the private sector to take it on. They still don't want it. It was then compounded by the issues with private sector housing.
Various govts kicking the can down the road, so they don't have to pay for it, has got us where we are. They might be saving money, and some will point at that, but its not delivering housing.
Dublin City Council ‘overpaid by 40pc’ to build social homes, report finds
Dublin City Council overpaid contractors by more than 40pc to build social homes compared to private developers, according to a new report.
www.independent.ie
The NCH was a political football, compounded by choosing a difficult site, then complex shape, then as I understand it, ever changing requirements, and who knows what management issues. They hit every branch on the Grand Designs how not to run a building project tree.
The chase to outsource public and social housing to save money, both in the acquisition, then in the ongoing costs of such housing. The intent was to offload the some of the costs and burden to the private sector. Who didn't want it. . They had to create legislation to force the private sector to take it on. They still don't want it. It was then compounded by the issues with private sector housing.
Various govts kicking the can down the road, so they don't have to pay for it, has got us where we are. They might be saving money, and some will point at that, but its not delivering housing.
Read the report and not the attention seeking headlines.
You could have been referring to anything. What in the report contradicts the papers summary, or that supports your assertion.
DCC seem to paid more even than other authorities doing the same thing. Reports suggests that lack of economy of scale is a factor, and lack of coordinated oversight of the sector.
The headline says they overpaid contractors, the report makes no such finding.
While it does mention scale may be a factor, they go on to conclude:
I think if someone has paid more than their peers to do the same thing, thats overpaid in my book. Considering the report is critical of their awareness of the costs across the sector and their peers doing the same thing for cheaper. They also mention that treated the properties as similar where in fact the DCC properties were often smaller.
That report is trying hard not to point fingers.
That report is trying hard not to point fingers.
Yes, a few "will somebody please think about the children!" emotive talking points really help these discussions.
Thankfully we don't do really stupid things like that anymore.
And those projects were in the 60's and 70's. Our housing and spending policies between the 30's and the 70's were a disaster and kept this country impoverished. The reason we didn't have homelessness back then was because 40,000 or so young people emigrated each year. In the early 80's most homes in this country didn't have central heating. Much of the social housing we were building was worse than the emergency accommodation we have now. That was because of the stupid policies of investing so much in housing and not in education and health. It is only since we stopped doing that, that we have become rich.
So that we don't repeat the moronic mistakes of the past. We want massive social transfers (the highest in Europe), massive healthcare spending (amongst the highest in the world), a good education system and all the other things that developed countries have. If we stopped doing all of that then we could build houses like we did in the 60's and 70's. Still think it's a good idea?
Not sure how you can put emigration at the door of building housing. That's quite the leap.
Most housing today is of a higher standard than that of the past.
unless you don't have any...You can if you choose to ignore the substance of my post.
The 40,000 or so that emigrated each year during the "golden years" of Irish construction didn't have a house here.Most housing today is of a higher standard than that of the past.
Should we wreck the economy again and have moronic economic policies that prioritise public housing over education and health, indeed prioritise it over a developed economy where people can afford their own housing?
The need for public housing is itself a failure of government. If the State and the economy functioned properly then public housing would not be required for people who were of able mind and body as they could provide it for themselves.
What is utterly appalling and totally wrong is the State using public money to buy existing housing to use as public housing. They are spending money that could be used on increasing the overall housing stock and using it to reduce the private housing stock and push up prices.
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T McGibney
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Agreed.
It's very very simple. No state anywhere in the world can afford to provide all its citizens with free or almost-free lifetime housing unless it makes very painful and unpalatable spending decisions elsewhere.
They might be looking at similar end products, but the process of delivering them is significantly different.
There are very significant differences in how private developers and local authorities commission work. The LA procurement process is onerous and introduces additional risks for contractors that gets factored into the price they charge.
The report also mentions the impact of the complex internal approval process, their reliance on external consultants, and how their internal contract monitoring and administration costs are higher than the private sector.
That report is essentially saying they overpaid compared to their LA peers doing the same thing, and perhaps smaller properties.
Trying to make that out that the private sector could do the same thing cheaper is comparing apples with oranges. The private sector is free from the obligations of the public procurement. Its not valid comparison. The report is explaining this, and why there's a range of factors why it's not directly comparable, for example the economy of scale. To then go comparing them out of context is quite something.
I'm not going to go rivet counting through a large report. Trying to prove the private sector is somehow going to fix this. Housing has been effectively outsourced to the private sector for many decades at this point. Ignoring the property crash, when you've had the worst housing crisis in the history of the state for decades. The private sector will not fix this on its own. Granted Govt interventions thus far have been a disaster. But I don't think Irish Govts were genuinely trying to fix the crisis. You can see this in their apathy towards social and public housing completions.
It will take another crash, or a change in the political status quo, which may end up being one and the same. Who knows.
Trying to make that out that the private sector could do the same thing cheaper is comparing apples with oranges. The private sector is free from the obligations of the public procurement. Its not valid comparison. The report is explaining this, and why there's a range of factors why it's not directly comparable, for example the economy of scale. To then go comparing them out of context is quite something.
I'm not going to go rivet counting through a large report. Trying to prove the private sector is somehow going to fix this. Housing has been effectively outsourced to the private sector for many decades at this point. Ignoring the property crash, when you've had the worst housing crisis in the history of the state for decades. The private sector will not fix this on its own. Granted Govt interventions thus far have been a disaster. But I don't think Irish Govts were genuinely trying to fix the crisis. You can see this in their apathy towards social and public housing completions.
It will take another crash, or a change in the political status quo, which may end up being one and the same. Who knows.
No, the click-bait headline says the they overpaid, and versus private developers and not their peers. I didn't read anything in the report suggesting they overpaid for any single service. In 39 pages, the term isn't used once.
But that comparison was the very purpose of the report, to attempt to quantify the difference and identify the drivers behind the higher cost and suggest remediation steps where available.
Like as I said paying more than your peers for the same thing is overpaying. You're arguing over semantics now.
The higher cost relative to other local authorities. How much it costs private developers is neither or there other than a baseline.
If your argument is the local authority should just buy them finished of a developer. Then they are competing with other buyers and that will drive up the cost even further. Been so many complaints about that.
The higher cost relative to other local authorities. How much it costs private developers is neither or there other than a baseline.
If your argument is the local authority should just buy them finished of a developer. Then they are competing with other buyers and that will drive up the cost even further. Been so many complaints about that.
It would appear you haven't read the report. If you want the 30 second confirmation, look at the graphs produced to outline the findings of the review. They compare the costs per unit for DCC, AHBs, and Part V. There wasn't a single unit developed by any other LA included in the review.
Where did I say that?
Yeah, they're Approved Housing Bodies, another layer of complexity where it's not clear whether they're part of the solution or the problem.
Interesting point, but Aisling Reynold's mentioned in one of her papers that we actually lost housing in the 60s and 70s due to the number of homes demolished or lost to total dereliction outnumbering new builds. What is the minimum replacement level to keep the number of homes the same and how do we think about homes being "lost"?
I was living in a gated apartment complex last census, and they kept arriving until someone answered, and spent a lot of time patiently explaining the census to anybody who hadn't great English, as well as explaining how to answer the questions.
Some of the data quality however, would be poor with regard to apartments & pre63 conversions as these are overwhelmingly tenanted, and tenants likely won't know some details, for example the date in which the property was built.
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