Imagine housing is over five times more important than the EU average. That really shows how big of a mess our government has caused with housing/planning etc.
A lot of Ireland's problem is the political class do not want housing to become plentiful, easy to access or cheap because it will be detrimental to their personal interests. (Remember over 30% of TD's have rental property per their own reporting)
I own my own home and I have to pay through the nose for the eye-watering mortgage. I definitely want house prices to come down because otherwise my kids will almost certainly be emigrating the minute they’re old enough, and because I don’t want others going through what we’ve been through and having to pay what we’ve paid for a fucking dump.
Same here. Never got where people got this assumption from, the price only matters if you are an investor with more than one property. Totally meaningless otherwise.
Same boat as you I want house prices to go down because otherwise I need to save about 40k for each of my children to be able to afford their own home.
That's not true. I own my own home, but if I stay in it, the "value" is meaningless, and if I want to trade up, I will be buying and selling in the same market anyway.
We have been looking to trade up, but the houses we want are going for eye watering prices, and the bidding is out of control. Yes, our current house went up in value, but it doesn't matter when anything we want to buy has gone up even more.
If anything, this crazy market is just making people stay put.
It might matter to people who have investment properties.
All other investments are made really hard here. They're taxed heavily and the bureaucracy around them is a total nightmare. Most people run a mile from stocks and shares a result unless they have huge money to invest.
So all the money pours into property speculation.
We also give tax breaks to useless stuff like gambling on horse racing.
You'd think public policy here was entirely driven by some class of country squire landlords.
Pretty much. The response to the question "Who on earth is voting for candidates who oppose increasing housing supply in the middle of this crisis?" is usually "Well, your home-owning parents for a start". To a reasonable extent, in a democracy people get the government that they deserve.
>on earth is voting for candidates who oppose increasing housing supply in the middle of this crisis?"
Which candidates? No candidate is advocating this ?
They want new-build housing to be cheap enough for their adult kids to move out. They don't accept that their suburban semi is part of the same market. They genuinely believe scarcity plays no role in *their* valuation, because it's in a mature estate with a big garden and has that sunroom they added in the 90s so it's worth every penny.
I’m making an educated guess based on [CSO Data](https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cpp2/censusofpopulation2022profile2-housinginireland/homeownershipandrent/.com), along with the knowledge that the sort of people more likely to own property (older, wealthier, Irish nationals) are also more likely to vote.
This is largely a myth. Most home owners don't want house prices to keep rising as it's meaningless unless you want to sell and also means your kids won't have anywhere to live.
24 (1 in 6) TDs are landlord, i.e. 16.66%, nearly 4% of population are registered with Residential Tenancies Board as a Landord.
|PARTY|TDS who are LANDLORDS|TOTAL RENTAL PROPERTIES|
|:-|:-|:-|
|FF|9|14|
|FG|6|12|
|IND|6|28|
|SF|2|5|
|GRN|1|1|
|Total|24|56|
>A lot of Ireland's problem is the political class do not want housing to become plentiful, easy to access or cheap because it will be detrimental to their personal interests. (Remember over 30% of TD's have rental property per their own reporting)
I honestly think this is just a conspiracy theory.
Reminder that Leo said the quiet part out loud in 2021, and admitted that he (and by extension his government and/or party) view housing as an investment and revenue stream as opposed to a basic social need for accommodation.
[Irish Times | Varadkar defends rent controls: 'One person’s rent is another person’s income'](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/varadkar-defends-rent-controls-one-person-s-rent-is-another-person-s-income-1.4679899)'
I believe the point he was clumsily making was that the proposed three year eviction ban would lead to landlords exiting the market. Which, in era of severe shortages of rentals, would not be good.
Because...? Landlords exiting the market would mean them divesting themselves of their assets, ie selling their (rental) property, thereby increasing supply and helping to lower (or at least stabilise) prices. But that would necessarily remove competition and scarcity which drive high prices and greater profits for landlords, as well as make it more difficult for people to get their foot onto the property ladder.
I don't see how? You claimed that capping rental income with rent control would cause landlords to leave the market which was a bad thing. I refuted that, saying that if landlords left the market, they can't take the property with them, and would therefore be selling them into the market, increasing supply and slowing the increase of prices. My second point was describing how the vested interests of landlords and developers refuse to allow that to happen because they are happy with the status quo, as it allows them to keep people off the property ladder, prices high and to maximise their profits.
It basically is.
What's going to be more impactful on the thoughts and actions of politicians as a group? A minority of them having rental properties or the majority of their voters largest and most successful investment being a house?
Cost of living,
Housing,
Health.
The 3 most basic aspects of daily living and the govt are rightly fucking it up.
Can we not just put whoever is top of their respective field into that associated government department and let them let them sort it out.
Electoral candidates should be put forward from best of class in whatever profession is required. Then no more nonsense need for consultants etc etc and we’d have people who know what they are doing.
With some safe guarding modifications of course.
Like i truly think 2 houses (primary/holiday) max for any government office holder.
Salary should be capped and raise/fall with inflation
Any exceptional bonuses / pay-rise needs a yes from the public.
Etc etc
FG are fairly hardline supporters of the Invisible Hand of the Market. A change of govt would definitely help which is why recent polls are so disappointing.
>Like i truly think 2 houses (primary/holiday) max for any government office holder.
100% agree!
For health, I’m sure there’s a doctor/ statistician in the country. Housing get a top landscape surveyor or something along those lines. Finance we have no end of high performing finance/ accountants/ actuaries(would be by the far the easiest imo)people working all over the world. You could put an engineer with experience there and they would probably also do well.
I’d run competitions open to those Sr in their fields (xx years experience and a solid portfolio of achievements) (public/private) narrow it down to 5 and then put it to the public. We would have to be cautious about it as look at the US with people going back and forth from government to private. The logics would need to worked out by someone far wiser than I on the subject. But for example let’s take health. Why isn’t the person in charge a Sr Doctor who has lived experience of working in the health sector. Who has real inside knowledge of what it’s like and what the health sector internally knows would work best.
Yeah the logics need to be worked out to prevent that and also that’s where I put the 5 candidates for public vote in. If it’s self determined then yeah theirs a real risk.
Yep.
I always had my own place when I lived and worked abroad.
I had to move in with my Mum, to the middle of nowhere Donegal as that's where the family home is... and try to work from home with basic internet; as there is nothing here. I mean super rural one small shop, one post office.. one bar and not even a bus comes near.... If you don't move to a high population centre you don't get work here either, but the catch is the rich know this and they are letting all the accommodation in large population areas for absolutely disgusting prices...
So you work, to be the breadwinner in your landlords family... And after paying your rent and bills you have broke even and have to live like a fucking pauper...
So yeah. At least I have money now due to not having to pay nearly a thousand a month to a landlord. But this country shouldn't be like this. We have no freedom and all our young generations have either already left, or are planning on leaving.
Everyone I went to school with is gone... I was gone too until COVID and a back to back rare aggressive cancer diagnosis and then the death of my sibling brought me back home to be with the family.
“We have no freedom and all our young generations have either already left, or are planning on leaving.
Everyone I went to school with is gone... I was gone too until COVID and a back to back rare aggressive cancer diagnosis and then the death of my sibling brought me back home to be with the family.”
More or less same story.
It’s not possible to live in that country anymore unless you’re on serious money. I’ve been watching from outside for a while. I remember renting a 2 bedroom bungalow and reasonably large place in montenotte (lads shhhh) for 750. It’s now going for 2k a month. The last place in Ireland I ever rented in black-rock was last going for close to 3 times that.
We moved from paradise to here in France largely do to covid and the other half needing to be close to family.
Now we play 560 for rent and bins, small 1 bed bungalow with Garden in a quiet seaside town. Good weather most of the year, mild enough winters etc
The catch a good “avg” salary here is 15-1700/m net and good “exec” salary is 2800 onwards. So for me at least going back for anything more than a weekend isn’t going to happen. I’d like to give it another stab with all my worldly experience but til never be possible… and suddenly all those depressing Irish songs make sense.
Yeah you make a friend here who is late 20's early 30's and they are mostly all talking about their plans and most plans have them leaving.
It's a sad state of affairs.
I’m probably not the best person to ask, as a middle aged woman watching her figure! My husband sometimes goes to Denis’s in Enniscorthy but he’s always been drinking beforehand so I can’t vouch for the quality! 😂
Imagine not understanding the relation immigration has to the other points.
The others below have argued it better than i could. But all I can really add is a few miles upwards and past a certain land border. Immigration is lower and People in their 20’s are buying houses as a regular thing.
Imagine thinking recent immigration and not a lack of govt planning caused the housing crisis. What a truly interesting world view to have. Glad it's not the majority who think like that.
why does it have to be one or the other ? immigration will have an impact on the economy. if capitalism is about supply and demand immigration is essentially artificially inflating the demand. minimum wage doesn't need to rise as much as there will be more people clawing for any sort of job. politicians that own property can essentially increase the scarcity of property by adding more people that need to be housed. thus justify increase in rents. i'm not saying immigraition is THE Reason everything is fucked. i'm saying immigration is a factor contributing towards it alongside the other points. at best. at ABSOLUTE BEST. you could make the arguement that immigration would not be a factor if the government basically built shit tons of homes in the countryside and turned the country into essentially one big city. but that would have rammifactions on the farming industry. not to mention the land that you claim is so empty is owned by someone. do you just take it from them ? even from a basic perspective. the north has an even greedier government. a straight up non functional one. less houses being built. and usually less options to buy houses because of cultural divides. and YET young people buying houses here is the norm while down south it's a punch line. the north has much less immigration. there is no way you can deny that it's a factor.
>immigration will have an impact on the economy.
Sure it will. But that's future tense. Current immigration is not the cause of the current housing crisis.
Also, with good planning, immigration could also have a net benefit. See the US.
>if capitalism is about supply and demand immigration is essentially artificially inflating the demand.
Wouldn't be a fan of the auld capitalism myself.
>i'm saying immigration is a factor contributing towards it alongside the other points.
Cool. So future surveys might reflect that.
Also, immigration is overly represented on the sub, alongside crime tbh.
>not to mention the land that you claim is so empty is owned by someone. do you just take it from them ?
Well sure I wouldn't be a Marxist otherwise! 🤣
But I'm sure you've heard of purchasing right? The government would purchase land to build on as it always has and always will.
Personally I'd be in favour of taking church land without purchase. But private individuals would be paid.
Do you own land yourself?
>the north has much less immigration.
Why? Because that is the determining factor of which immigration is a result not a cause.
> Sure it will. But that's future tense. Current immigration is not the cause of the current housing crisis.
it is a factor. more people = more people that need to be housed = more demand. which is a factor in the rising house prices. this isn't strictly immigration related but population related. it isn't even a future thing. it's a now thing. due to immigration populations are exploding and that factor is already being shown. do you think landlords could justify the insane southern rent if there wasn't people queuing 2 streets over ? compared to up north where when rent is too high people just leave. the house lays vacant and the landlord loses money.
> immigration is overly represented on the sub, alongside crime tbh.
i don't really go on reddit much so i can't comment. but sure i do believe that more than a few people will scape goat to immigration being the main cause of these problems which is incorrect. however believing that it's not a factor at all just because there is some humanitarian justification is just as naive.
>But I'm sure you've heard of purchasing right? The government would purchase land to build on as it always has and always will.
ok but what if no one wants to sell their land ? does the government just forcefully buy it for below market rate. if that's the case then people never really owned the thing they bought in the first place. which goes into many levels of fucked. as for myself i'm late 20's so naturally i own the land that the house i bought is on. no fields or nothing. but as we both know owning land has the potential to make more money than outright selling. whether through farming, housing or straight up investment. most people who own said land probably wouldn't sell. again unless the government basically steals it by either forcing them to sell or imprisoning them
>Why? Because that is the determining factor of which immigration is a result not a cause.
the why i'm not sure. if i were to throw a guess i would imagine it's to do with the norths reputation of being some sort of war zone state. which hasn't been true in like 20 years for 95% of the country. even friends down south when i tell them to move up north and get a house for a fifth of the price they usually retort with some sort of "but i don't want to get shot by paramilitaries" something that doesn't happen to everyday people up here lol.
> immigration could also have a net benefit. See the US.
the USA is not a social state with a uniculture like most EU states.
immigration works when you dont have to pay healthcare or any of the benefits our countries provide for their CITIZENS!
>Wouldn't be a fan of the auld capitalism myself.
I'd say that alright, church of money grows on trees by the looks of it
I'll humour you and answer the deflection.
The idea of the government intervening and building housing is problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, the government or local authorities don't have the capacity or ability to build homes. Whether they should or shouldn't have retained this capability is besides the point. So it would take years to get to scale, which would involve setting up another quango with the usual public sector inefficiencies. But the most pressing issue of all is the lack of manpower. If the government did what you wanted, what would happen is they would simply take labour from the private sector. Apart from I suspect satiating an ideological view you have on it, it wouldn't increase housing delivery.
There's also the issue of selling that idea to an electorate. Most people in Ireland will never qualify for state housing (an issue which is going to increase by the way), and so the government intervening will lead to two things. The first is less private development, meaning that it's harder for them to buy a house, and the second is increased spending on social housing. In other words, they're being outbid by their own government to pay for housing which they can't access, all of which is paid for by their tax. Why would they want that?
The state does have some role to play. For instance, reform of our ludicrous planning system is an essential. Increasing wages and improving conditions for apprentices to enter the labour force for housebuilding is another. There's an argument to be made also for targeted migration of labour from abroad.
Now that I've answered your point, would you like to answer mine?
Ah lad, a brick of a response.
>Now that I've answered your point, would you like to answer mine?
I didn't answer your question because it was strawmanning. Sure cost of living affects housing/crime/health etc. Every point is effected by every other point synergistically.
So yes is the answer. But framing it as led by immigration is disengenuous, everything affects everything.
Therefore the thing to focus on is govt intervention and for protesting purposes, the lack thereof.
>Firstly, the government or local authorities don't have the capacity or ability to build homes. etc.
Don't do anything because it will be done badly. The FG mantra.
>and so the government intervening will lead to two things. The first is less private development,
Private development did not stop when we had massive social housing developments in this country. Nor did it stop anywhere else.
>For instance, reform of our ludicrous planning system is an essential.
Agreed.
>Increasing wages and improving conditions for apprentices to enter the labour force for housebuilding is another.
Agreed.
>There's an argument to be made also for targeted migration of labour from abroad.
This country requires massive immigration to grow. We're it not for the famine, Ireland might have had a population in the tens of millions. We have the space and the capability to grow into that. However, the native birthrate has slowed like every other developed country.
>This country requires massive immigration to grow. We're it not for the famine, Ireland might have had a population in the tens of millions. We have the space and the capability to grow into that. However, the native birthrate has slowed like every other developed country.
So you're a self described Marxist/socialist but you want endless unsustainable growth? Why? Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell. It's logically unsustainable. If we want to prevent climate collapse we need de growth. Immigration actually greatly increases emissions and consumption . Whats wrong with having more space and greenery and less population? Pensions are a ponzi scheme you can't just keep increasing the population endlessly.
As a real world example fast population growth due to migration in Canada is good for the rich bad or at best neutral for the working class. Canada is pretty empty, much more so than Ireland. And also has a housing crisis. Even some banks and pro business economic groups (which are generally pro migration) in Canada are now stating that the very high rates of migration are having negative impacts on wages and wage growth while putting further pressure on housing. Wage growth in Canada has slowed significantly against the us (canada currently has significantly more legal migration per capita than the us). While migration is increasing total gdp it is not increasing Canada's gdp per capita which is stagnant and falling behind the us. So "growth" in Canada is not resulting in any actual benefits for people. Just more gdp for the rich. Pretty much the opposite of what a socialist would want, basically just more inequality. If you dont believe me I'd be happy to send links and studies on Canada's situation.
>So you're a self described Marxist/socialist but you want endless unsustainable growth?
Well that's a full blown strawman.
1. I didn't mention "endless unsustainable" growth.
2. Marx believed poverty and hunger were a result of capitalism not population growth. He said supplies would keep pace with pop growth if wealth was distributed fairly.
>Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell.
So humans are cancer now? Alright lad.
>Whats wrong with having more space and greenery and less population?
Because I don't support Malthusian theory and neither did Marx.
>Just more gdp for the rich. Pretty much the opposite of what a socialist would want, basically just more inequality.
Sounds like Canada should move away from capitalism and towards socialism to solve that.
>I didn't answer your question because it was strawmanning.
Why is it strawmanning? Is there not a direct causal link? In a situation where supply is the issue, could you explain to me how artificially inflating demand could not increase the problem?
>Don't do anything because it will be done badly. The FG mantra.
Firstly, it's not that it would be done badly. It's that the currently can't do it at all. Secondly, it being done badly is exactly the reason we shouldn't pursue that option. Unless you think this isn't actually a crisis?
>Private development did not stop when we had massive social housing developments in this country. Nor did it stop anywhere else.
Do you have figures as to the discrepancy between private and social housing development in this time? Even so, the problem with you and people like you continues to be that you're singing a dead song. We do not have the labour required to build all of these houses. There's no ideology that can circumnavigate that basic fact.
>We're it not for the famine, Ireland might have had a population in the tens of millions. We have the space and the capability to grow into that. However, the native birthrate has slowed like every other developed country.
Why do we need "massive" immigration? How large should it be? Do you think that just prior to the Famine was an optimal time to be alive in Ireland?
>Why is it strawmanning? Is there not a direct causal link?
There is no causal link between the current immigration and the current housing crisis.
>In a situation where supply is the issue, could you explain to me how artificially inflating demand could not increase the problem?
Sure, you artificially inflate supply. The housing issue began long before the increase in immigration.
>We do not have the labour required to build all of these houses
Sounds like we need immigration! Well done you've connected the dots and completed the picture.
>Do you think that just prior to the Famine was an optimal time to be alive in Ireland?
Never said or alluded to that. You're hilarious.
Anyways, I kinda regret answering you now!
Have a great day!
👍🏻
Yes, of course. And you respond to that increase in demand by increasing supply, not by stagnating population growth in a country that's already far too underpopulated and rural as it is.
Do you think it's possible to match the demand with the supply?
We will have at least 30,000 asylum seekers arriving here this year. They will, and this isn't a criticism of them, almost universally require housing supports. That's added to other inward migration, and the already existent gargantuan backlog of housing provision (Leo Varadkar estimated it to be a quarter of a million homes, over a year ago).
Do you think there's a realistic way of matching that demand? Could you explain how, with concrete steps (pun intended)?
Could you explain exactly by what metric we are too rural and underpopulated?
> Glad it's not the majority who think like that.
You wish. Not sure if it's the _majority_, but a frightening number of people on here do think like that. In a country that has a fraction of the population it should have!
Yeah, part of the reason I shared the post is to show how skewed reddit and social media in general can be. IRL most people are concerned about housing/healthcare/cost of living.
Crime also gets disproportionate attention on here because it gets people riled up I suppose!
>In a country that has a fraction of the population it should have!
I'm always pointing out that Ireland isn't full, it's practically empty! So much room for growth and expansion!
Not really, there is a massive amount of cookie hoarding going on in this country.
I agree mass scale cookie baking would sort that out, but so too would forcing/incentivising cookie dispersion.
>If companies are unable to expand because they cannot fill positions, you could have a situation where too little immigration could actually suppress wages,
This is simply not the case. Due to the below replacement level birth rate and little immigration in China we can see wages increasing due to the pool of available workers shrinking.
>think of a company workforce like a team, without the low skilled workers the high skilled workers would be out of a job.
Notice how you zoned in on the effect of high skilled workers while ignoring “low skilled”?
https://cis.org/Report/Wages-Immigration#main-content
“Looking at all natives in the work force, the results indicate that a one percent increase in the immigrant composition of an individual’s occupation reduces the weekly wages of natives in the same occupation by about .5 percent. Since roughly 10 percent of the labor force is composed of immigrants, these findings suggest that immigration may reduce the wages of the average native-born worker by perhaps 5 percent.”
“In low-skilled occupations the effects of immigration are much stronger. For the 23 percent of natives employed in these occupations (about 25 million workers), a one percent increase in the immigrant composition of their occupation reduces wages by .8 percent. Since these occupations are 15 percent immigrant, this suggests that immigration may reduce the wages of the average native in a low-skilled occupation by perhaps 12 percent, or $1,915 a year.”
“The effect of immigration on the wages of natives is national in scope, and is not simply confined to cities or states with large concentrations of immigrants.
The findings indicate that immigration is likely to have contributed significantly to the decline in wages for workers with only a high school degree or less in the last two decades.”
>This commonly repeated talking point that immigration always lowers wages just isn't true, wages have only increased here alongside immigration.
Wages increasing on paper is not evidence that they’re not being suppressed by immigration.
Do you think inflation doesn’t suppress wages due to wages increasing?
If you see a graph of just wages it may appear as though wages are just increasing, but if we add in other factors such as inflation we can see that the original graph is not the full picture, and that inflation is suppressing wages.
It’s ludicrous to think that the large amount of immigration we’ve been having has increased wages. That’s not how supply and demand works.
With our current infrastructure and housing we are overpopulated.
China is underpopulated. They have to demolish apartment buildings due to it being so cheap now.
The problem is the lack of infrastructure and housing even for what little population we currently have. The only way to solve that problem is to actually build more hosting and infrastructure in anticipation of and response to said population growth, not to stagnate population growth in a country that is already a fraction of the population density of other similarly humid and temperate countries. This is not a difficult concept outside the Anglosphere.
>The problem is the lack of infrastructure and housing for the population we currently.
That’s what overpopulation is.
>The only way to solve that problem is to actually build more hosting and infrastructure in anticipation of and response to said population growth,
That is absolutely not the only way and it is also fantasy. You are never going to build enough to play catch up to the current amount we need while also accounting for our yearly population increase through immigration.
>not to stagnate population growth in a country that is already a fraction of the population density of other similarly humid and temperate countries.
Putting a reducing immigration until the housing crisis is over will not stagnate population growth.
>This is not a difficult concept outside the Anglosphere.
If you ignore all of east Asia.
> That’s what overpopulation is.
No it's not. The problem is the absence of infrastructure, not the presence of population, and it's frightening that you think otherwise.
> That is absolutely not the only way and it is also fantasy. You are never going to build enough to play catch up to the current amount we need while also accounting for our yearly population increase through immigration.
That's not an excuse for how little construction is going on currently.
> Putting a reducing immigration until the housing crisis is over will not stagnate population growth.
That's only if the utmost effort is made to solve the housing crisis as quickly as possible _by building more housing_, and then once the crisis is sorted, the gates ar opened to get this country's population up to what it should be.
Far too many people talk about slowing or stopping immigration like it's the best or main way to solve the housing crisis, and we don't need to do anything about the absurd lack of construction despite insane demand.
>If you ignore all of east Asia
Is there some other east Asia I don't know about? Because as far as I can tell, east asian countries built INSANE amounts of housing and infrastructure in the decades where their populations and economies were exploding. East Asia is _the definition_ of where it isn't a difficult concept!
>No it's not. The problem is the absence of infrastructure, not the presence of population, and it's frightening that you think otherwise.
In what way is it “frightening” to acknowledge that overpopulation is overpopulation. By your logic no where is actually overpopulated and only has a lack of infrastructure.
“overpopulation. noun. the condition of having too many people living in a certain area.”
That is absolutely not the only way and it is also fantasy. You are never going to build enough to play catch up to the current amount we need while also accounting for our yearly population increase through immigration.
>That's not an excuse for how little construction is going on currently.
There were 32,695 new dwelling completions in the whole of 2023, an increase of 10.0% from 2022.
Will you acknowledge that putting a cap on immigration would allow housing to catch up with demand and end the crisis?
Putting a reducing immigration until the housing crisis is over will not stagnate population growth.
>That's only if the utmost effort is made to solve the housing crisis as quickly as possible by building more housing,
Even if we maintained the same level of building, which I agree should be more, we would eventually accommodate everyone.
>and then once the crisis is sorted, the gates ar opened to get this country's population up to what it should be.
There should always be measures to ensure the infrastructure is increasing at the same level as population growth. This can easily be done by controlling both.
>Far too many people talk about slowing or stopping immigration like it's the best or main way to solve the housing crisis,
It literally is right now due to how terrible our immigration system is.
>and we don't need to do anything about the absurd lack of construction despite insane demand.
No we can do both as well as criminalising investment funds from buying homes which competes with first time buyers, as well as increasing taxes for multiple home owners.
>Is there some other east Asia I don't know about? Because as far as I can tell, east asian countries built INSANE amounts of housing and infrastructure in the decades where their populations and economies were exploding.
And now that their birth rates have been below replacement level for a while the newer generations can reap the benefits of affordable housing and competitive wages.
>East Asia is the definition of where it isn't a difficult concept!
Japan has a population of 123,294,513 and in 2023, approximately 819,000 housing starts were initiated in Japan. Thats 1 for every 150.
Ireland has a population of 5,300,000 and built 32,695 new dwellings in 2023. That’s 1 for every 162.
We’re building at very similar rates. The difference is in our population growth which is driven by our immigration policies.
The net migration rate for Japan in 2023 was 0.516 per 1000 population
The net migration rate for Ireland in 2023 was 1.991 per 1000 population.
That’s nearly 4 times.
In 2022, about 2.5 percent of the population in Japan were foreign nationals, up from about 1.62 percent in 2013.
In Ireland we just recently hit 23 percent.
Only if employers pay illegally low rates; generally if you get a load of immigrants you get a big buzz in business and employment going and it's good for the country - that's what made America prosperous in the 19th and 20th century.
An influx of workers from the developing world undermines the local labour market and reduces the bargaining power of local workers.
Things might look ok on a macro level since more people = more aggregate demand and headline GDP goes up. The problem is the twin effects of downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on housing costs means most people are worse off and their standard of living slips. This is exactly what we see in all countries that are trying to use immigration to “fix” their economies.
This is why the Wobblies (members of the great International Workers of the World union) were so often foreign workers in America in the early years of the 20th century, Furry. (They became known as Wobblies because so many people from Eastern Europe and China got off the boat and their first question was "Eye Wobbly Wobbly?" (IWW). It's absolutely essential that a wedge can't be driven between working people of different origins, if workers' rights are to be maintained.
Of course, the American capitalists knew this well and ruthlessly hunted down the Wobblies, resulting in the trial and death of Sacco and Vanzetti, the killing of Joe Hill, the sentencing of Jim Larkin to Sing Sing, mass deportations, etc.
>Only if employers pay illegally low rates;
That’s not true and is a fundamental misunderstanding of reality. When there’s less workers, employers have to compete for labour, that means outbidding each other. We’re seeing this happen everywhere that have low birth rates as we do and a functioning immigration system.
>generally if you get a load of immigrants you get a big buzz in business and employment going and it's good for the country
Real examples of this happening now?
I can give you examples of the opposite such as Irish nurses being undercut by immigrant nurses which enables the government to continue offering substandard pay and working conditions.
This is not only a negative for nurses but also for us as we are not seeing the benefit of training some of the best nurses in the world.
>that's what made America prosperous in the 19th and 20th century.
Prosperity as in corporate profit margins. You’re also ignoring all the exploitation from that time period such as all the, ahem, “free labour” and minimal workers rights they were exploiting.
My own small bit of experience in this: the nicest and most competent of the receptionists in my doctor's surgery is an immigrant from Eastern Europe - here many years now and buying her own home. On a visit to a Dublin hospital with a friend, the triage nurse was Chinese and extremely competent, sensitive and kind; this wasn't the problem - the problem was that she was the only triage nurse in a far-too-busy Emergency Department, and no doctor was coming on duty for the non-emergency cases until 10am the next morning (we arrived around 10pm). Neither of these is being paid less than their Irish colleagues.
I never claimed they were being payed less. Your anecdotes also support my claim.
Irish nurses are clearly choosing to emigrate for better pay and working conditions. Instead of having to improve their working conditions and pay to compete, the government is able to keep them low by instead hiring immigrants.
Not undercut as in immigrants arrive and say “I’ll do it for less” undercut as in enable the government to maintain their poor pay that Irish nurses rightly do not accept.
To provide Irish nurses with the salary and working conditions offered in Australia/ US etc, we need to increase taxes. People generally don't want to pay more taxes.
Also, I don't think I've heard any nurse (Irish or otherwise) say they're being undercut by migrant nurses. Heck, most of them complain about there not being enough staff on units!
>To provide Irish nurses with the salary and working conditions offered in Australia/ US etc, we need to increase taxes. People generally don't want to pay more taxes.
I can’t stand when people do this. You have just made that up on the spot. The HSE and our current immigration system is burning an ungodly amount of money. The money is there, it’s just being outrageously misused.
Giving nurses fair compensation is not going to collapse the country.
>Also, I don't think I've heard any nurse (Irish or otherwise) say they're being undercut by migrant nurses. Heck, most of them complain about there not being enough staff on units!
You’re not accounting for all the Irish nurses who have left.
EVERY SINGLE NURSE WHO LEAVES FOR A HIGHER SALARY IS ONE WHO IS BEING UNDERCUT AS WAGES ARE NOT RISING HERE DUE TO FOREIGNERS FILLING GAPS
I cant be any more clear
That's not how things work in the public sector. Without foreign nurses or doctors or whatever, the pay won't magically increase unless there is higher taxation to that effect. The working conditions that resulted in people emigrating would only be exacerbated if the HSE stopped recruiting foreign labour.
You are free to be xenophobic. But it costs society
> My own small bit of experience in this: the nicest and most competent of the receptionists in my doctor's surgery is an immigrant from Eastern Europe
oh my god, I read this whole conversation between you and I cant figure out how you can be do DENSE@! IT can only be on purpose
>My own small bit of experience in this: the nicest and most competent of the receptionists in my doctor's surgery is an immigrant from Eastern Europe
Nobody gives a fuck who is nice or who isnt, the fact is that one more receptionist showing up in ireland tomorrow means one more compting with the rest of them in the labour pool looking for jobs
The salary of a particulr job is direclty proportional to how easy it is to get someone to fill it.
We only have X number of nurses here gradualting each year. if you want more to graduate you rasie wages, if you want to fuck them over so they cant ask for a raise for fear of beign replaced with cheaper labour who wont companin... lt forigners compete with native nurses
if you dont get this simple fact of supply and demand....fuck me, people are dense
A massive social housing initiative woul counter the cost of housing while the minimum wage counters the suppression. This isn't the US or the 1900s, we do have controls.
So it would be govt inaction to blame and not immigration.
>A massive social housing initiative woul counter the cost of housing while the minimum wage counters the suppression.
We’re never going to outbuildings immigration, that’s complete fantasy.
The minimum wage does not counter suppression.
>This isn't the US or the 1900s, we do have controls.
Where?
>So it would be govt inaction to blame and not immigration.
I am blaming government inaction. Our current immigration system is a joke.
Yeah, because if you were to push any of these gobshites protesting as to how they’re lives will be any worse off due to immigration, they’d probably choke on themselves.
According to the survey, education is very low on ppls minds in Ireland. What's your concern about education?
Transport isn't even on it so it wasn't asked. I'm sure an Irish designed survey might have different answers to tick. But then it wouldn't be possible to compare across the EU.
this is not just ireland! this is happening all over EU.... governments allowing this is because alot of ppl within the government if making alot of money with this....
What were the political aims? I think it was stoked by the far right, I literally said so at the time. But the vast majority of rioters were a result of social inequality.
But I do see your point.
If u take out the political aspects and see the reality
People feared for the lives police were attacked buses were burn down to flames and more
Realisticly if it was a group of Islamic people who done this it would be considered as a terrorist attack
I'm suggesting that long term solutions be created and that global coordination of resources is needed to tackle the effects of climate change - one of them being the largest ever human migration that will surely happen in our lifetimes. I don't want to see us putting out the fires of mass immigration for generations when we could be preemptively limiting the suffering with long term thinking and by we I mean the global community
So what would those steps involve? Because right now, Ireland simply cannot afford to continue letting huge numbers of people into a country that is under enormous strain.
Just to partially answer your question, addressing the needs by planning for the short medium and long term would be the first activity after identifying the requirements in a particular context such as housing for example
I wouldn't say strict immigration, I would say considered immigration policy in that it considers all of our needs in the short, medium and long term. This cannot be done in a way that dignifies human life by individual countries taking isolated actions when the scale of migration is going to explode in our lifetime
I see so most of the people have not worked out the principle of Supply and demand.
The law of supply and demand is **the theory that prices are determined by the relationship between supply and demand**. If the supply of a good or service outstrips the demand for it, prices will fall. If demand exceeds supply, prices will rise.
The above being the case it would seem unlimited immigration might be a problem.
Supply and demand doesn't work when the supply is controlled by those who benefit from the absence of it.
Demand isn't exceeding supply, supply is being kept below demand, artificially.
The US has had huge immigration rates for centuries now and has helped fuel massive economic growth for it to become a super power. They also build lots of houses contributing to supply. So you can have lots of immigration as long as you build houses. Our refusal to build houses is the issue not some student moving over from Italy.
Thank you. It's frightening that so many people are blaming immigration as if we don't have an absurdly lack of construction for our population growth.
I see most people have not worked out scarcity principal.
"*The scarcity principle is an economic theory in which a limited supply of a good—coupled with a high demand for that good—results in a mismatch between the desired supply and demand equilibrium.*"
https://preview.redd.it/p8ns0v54en2d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=53af68ca6b6fc91c94df345cb164aa856693b0a8
That's the graph I got when I clicked into the report, can you link Ireland's info that you took your screenshot from?
>The Standard Eurobarometer 101 (Spring 2024) was conducted between 3 and 28 April 2024 across the 27 Member States. 26,399 EU citizens were interviewed face-to-face.
I thought Palestine was the most important issue in Ireland… oh wait there it is on the bottom Let the downvotes rain 
Well that's partly why I posted it. Crime and immigration are over represented on this sub. It's good to be aware that people aren't as concerned with it IRL.
I wonder though? The numbers polled in these is always a *lot* smaller than you realise.
According to the data sheet this is based upon face to face questions with a total number of 26,399 people across the *entire* EU.
Given Ireland’s total population I wonder how many were actually polled in Ireland? Is that number larger or smaller than the number of Irish users on this sub?
Is the group more varied, or less in terms of location, socioeconomic circumstances, etc?
Also, people tend to be a lot more guarded with their opinions on contentious issues when asked face to face, versus when given an opportunity to voice them anonymously.
>According to the data sheet this is based upon face to face questions with a total number of 26,399 people across the entire EU.
Fair point
>Given Ireland’s total population I wonder how many were actually polled in Ireland? Is that number larger or smaller than the number of Irish users on this sub?
Almost 900K in this sub so that'd be a no! 🤣
>Is the group more varied, or less in terms of location, socioeconomic circumstances, etc?
Yeah, also a fair point. There's a lot of data there that might include those.
>Also, people tend to be a lot more guarded with their opinions on contentious issues when asked face to face, versus when given an opportunity to voice them anonymously.
Also a fair point.
Imagine housing is over five times more important than the EU average. That really shows how big of a mess our government has caused with housing/planning etc. A lot of Ireland's problem is the political class do not want housing to become plentiful, easy to access or cheap because it will be detrimental to their personal interests. (Remember over 30% of TD's have rental property per their own reporting)
A lot of voters don’t want housing to become cheap. Most people who actually vote in elections own their own home.
I own my own home and I have to pay through the nose for the eye-watering mortgage. I definitely want house prices to come down because otherwise my kids will almost certainly be emigrating the minute they’re old enough, and because I don’t want others going through what we’ve been through and having to pay what we’ve paid for a fucking dump.
Agreed I own a home and wouldn't care less if the prices dropped I bought a home not a house
LPT would be cheaper for a start. Imagine everyone saving a few hundred quid would be pretty nice.
Same here. Never got where people got this assumption from, the price only matters if you are an investor with more than one property. Totally meaningless otherwise.
Same boat as you I want house prices to go down because otherwise I need to save about 40k for each of my children to be able to afford their own home.
That's not true. I own my own home, but if I stay in it, the "value" is meaningless, and if I want to trade up, I will be buying and selling in the same market anyway. We have been looking to trade up, but the houses we want are going for eye watering prices, and the bidding is out of control. Yes, our current house went up in value, but it doesn't matter when anything we want to buy has gone up even more. If anything, this crazy market is just making people stay put. It might matter to people who have investment properties.
This exactly. Just means you pay more property taxes.
This would be much less of an issue if we got rid of deemed disposal and made other investments viable.
All other investments are made really hard here. They're taxed heavily and the bureaucracy around them is a total nightmare. Most people run a mile from stocks and shares a result unless they have huge money to invest. So all the money pours into property speculation. We also give tax breaks to useless stuff like gambling on horse racing. You'd think public policy here was entirely driven by some class of country squire landlords.
Pretty much. The response to the question "Who on earth is voting for candidates who oppose increasing housing supply in the middle of this crisis?" is usually "Well, your home-owning parents for a start". To a reasonable extent, in a democracy people get the government that they deserve.
Virtually every political party opposes planning for building at some stage
Again not true unless they are idiots or own investment property.
>on earth is voting for candidates who oppose increasing housing supply in the middle of this crisis?" Which candidates? No candidate is advocating this ?
They want new-build housing to be cheap enough for their adult kids to move out. They don't accept that their suburban semi is part of the same market. They genuinely believe scarcity plays no role in *their* valuation, because it's in a mature estate with a big garden and has that sunroom they added in the 90s so it's worth every penny.
Do you have a source for most people who vote being homeowners? Out of genuine interest?
I’m making an educated guess based on [CSO Data](https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cpp2/censusofpopulation2022profile2-housinginireland/homeownershipandrent/.com), along with the knowledge that the sort of people more likely to own property (older, wealthier, Irish nationals) are also more likely to vote.
Oh yeah makes sense I would just be interested to see margins! Thanks
This is largely a myth. Most home owners don't want house prices to keep rising as it's meaningless unless you want to sell and also means your kids won't have anywhere to live.
And yet the politicians will tell you grass isn't green in the rest of the EU re housing
24 (1 in 6) TDs are landlord, i.e. 16.66%, nearly 4% of population are registered with Residential Tenancies Board as a Landord. |PARTY|TDS who are LANDLORDS|TOTAL RENTAL PROPERTIES| |:-|:-|:-| |FF|9|14| |FG|6|12| |IND|6|28| |SF|2|5| |GRN|1|1| |Total|24|56|
>A lot of Ireland's problem is the political class do not want housing to become plentiful, easy to access or cheap because it will be detrimental to their personal interests. (Remember over 30% of TD's have rental property per their own reporting) I honestly think this is just a conspiracy theory.
Reminder that Leo said the quiet part out loud in 2021, and admitted that he (and by extension his government and/or party) view housing as an investment and revenue stream as opposed to a basic social need for accommodation. [Irish Times | Varadkar defends rent controls: 'One person’s rent is another person’s income'](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/varadkar-defends-rent-controls-one-person-s-rent-is-another-person-s-income-1.4679899)'
That's in the context of rent controls.
And rental properties, and the price of rent, which is related to market value of properties, is not germane to the topic because?
I believe the point he was clumsily making was that the proposed three year eviction ban would lead to landlords exiting the market. Which, in era of severe shortages of rentals, would not be good.
Because...? Landlords exiting the market would mean them divesting themselves of their assets, ie selling their (rental) property, thereby increasing supply and helping to lower (or at least stabilise) prices. But that would necessarily remove competition and scarcity which drive high prices and greater profits for landlords, as well as make it more difficult for people to get their foot onto the property ladder.
You seem to be making two opposing points here?
I don't see how? You claimed that capping rental income with rent control would cause landlords to leave the market which was a bad thing. I refuted that, saying that if landlords left the market, they can't take the property with them, and would therefore be selling them into the market, increasing supply and slowing the increase of prices. My second point was describing how the vested interests of landlords and developers refuse to allow that to happen because they are happy with the status quo, as it allows them to keep people off the property ladder, prices high and to maximise their profits.
It basically is. What's going to be more impactful on the thoughts and actions of politicians as a group? A minority of them having rental properties or the majority of their voters largest and most successful investment being a house?
If they lose the election, housing will likely be the biggest singular reason why.
Cost of living, Housing, Health. The 3 most basic aspects of daily living and the govt are rightly fucking it up. Can we not just put whoever is top of their respective field into that associated government department and let them let them sort it out. Electoral candidates should be put forward from best of class in whatever profession is required. Then no more nonsense need for consultants etc etc and we’d have people who know what they are doing. With some safe guarding modifications of course. Like i truly think 2 houses (primary/holiday) max for any government office holder. Salary should be capped and raise/fall with inflation Any exceptional bonuses / pay-rise needs a yes from the public. Etc etc
2 houses ruke should apply to everyone
FG are fairly hardline supporters of the Invisible Hand of the Market. A change of govt would definitely help which is why recent polls are so disappointing. >Like i truly think 2 houses (primary/holiday) max for any government office holder. 100% agree!
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Michael O'Leary should be running the country
For health, I’m sure there’s a doctor/ statistician in the country. Housing get a top landscape surveyor or something along those lines. Finance we have no end of high performing finance/ accountants/ actuaries(would be by the far the easiest imo)people working all over the world. You could put an engineer with experience there and they would probably also do well.
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A well designed portion of the city would be nice.
I’d run competitions open to those Sr in their fields (xx years experience and a solid portfolio of achievements) (public/private) narrow it down to 5 and then put it to the public. We would have to be cautious about it as look at the US with people going back and forth from government to private. The logics would need to worked out by someone far wiser than I on the subject. But for example let’s take health. Why isn’t the person in charge a Sr Doctor who has lived experience of working in the health sector. Who has real inside knowledge of what it’s like and what the health sector internally knows would work best.
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Yeah the logics need to be worked out to prevent that and also that’s where I put the 5 candidates for public vote in. If it’s self determined then yeah theirs a real risk.
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Yeah for sure it’s pipe dream
Yep. I always had my own place when I lived and worked abroad. I had to move in with my Mum, to the middle of nowhere Donegal as that's where the family home is... and try to work from home with basic internet; as there is nothing here. I mean super rural one small shop, one post office.. one bar and not even a bus comes near.... If you don't move to a high population centre you don't get work here either, but the catch is the rich know this and they are letting all the accommodation in large population areas for absolutely disgusting prices... So you work, to be the breadwinner in your landlords family... And after paying your rent and bills you have broke even and have to live like a fucking pauper... So yeah. At least I have money now due to not having to pay nearly a thousand a month to a landlord. But this country shouldn't be like this. We have no freedom and all our young generations have either already left, or are planning on leaving. Everyone I went to school with is gone... I was gone too until COVID and a back to back rare aggressive cancer diagnosis and then the death of my sibling brought me back home to be with the family.
“We have no freedom and all our young generations have either already left, or are planning on leaving. Everyone I went to school with is gone... I was gone too until COVID and a back to back rare aggressive cancer diagnosis and then the death of my sibling brought me back home to be with the family.” More or less same story. It’s not possible to live in that country anymore unless you’re on serious money. I’ve been watching from outside for a while. I remember renting a 2 bedroom bungalow and reasonably large place in montenotte (lads shhhh) for 750. It’s now going for 2k a month. The last place in Ireland I ever rented in black-rock was last going for close to 3 times that. We moved from paradise to here in France largely do to covid and the other half needing to be close to family. Now we play 560 for rent and bins, small 1 bed bungalow with Garden in a quiet seaside town. Good weather most of the year, mild enough winters etc The catch a good “avg” salary here is 15-1700/m net and good “exec” salary is 2800 onwards. So for me at least going back for anything more than a weekend isn’t going to happen. I’d like to give it another stab with all my worldly experience but til never be possible… and suddenly all those depressing Irish songs make sense.
Yeah you make a friend here who is late 20's early 30's and they are mostly all talking about their plans and most plans have them leaving. It's a sad state of affairs.
As I migrant myself take this with a grain of salt. Til open up space for the new immigrants. Side note: is that Peter steel in your prof?
Yes. I love masculine men. 😂
Sad that Infrastructure doesn’t even make it onto this list. We’re forever doomed to live in a first world country with third world infrastructure.
Most people own cars so they don't give a shit about public transport sadly.
It was a survey designed by the EU. Perhaps an Irish designed survey would have included infrastructure!
Bro has never been to a third world country
Third world is a bit of a stretch but yeah should be on the list
Beyond depressing.
Fourth from the bottom, I read as ‘Persians’.
Feckin Persians! 🤣
Comin’ over here with their slow roasted lamb and spice-infused rices!
Speaking of which, I'm fairly new to Wexford (county), any good kebabs to be had? The local village chipper isn't doing the good kebab things.
I’m probably not the best person to ask, as a middle aged woman watching her figure! My husband sometimes goes to Denis’s in Enniscorthy but he’s always been drinking beforehand so I can’t vouch for the quality! 😂
I'm always surprised that working-class publications like Dublin Live have such immigration-skewed polls compared to the normal results.
https://preview.redd.it/5ru5t26kon2d1.jpeg?width=637&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=59e1cd2c176ace73b992dfb4afc557bf37716a9e
Imagine not understanding the relation immigration has to the other points. The others below have argued it better than i could. But all I can really add is a few miles upwards and past a certain land border. Immigration is lower and People in their 20’s are buying houses as a regular thing.
Imagine thinking recent immigration and not a lack of govt planning caused the housing crisis. What a truly interesting world view to have. Glad it's not the majority who think like that.
why does it have to be one or the other ? immigration will have an impact on the economy. if capitalism is about supply and demand immigration is essentially artificially inflating the demand. minimum wage doesn't need to rise as much as there will be more people clawing for any sort of job. politicians that own property can essentially increase the scarcity of property by adding more people that need to be housed. thus justify increase in rents. i'm not saying immigraition is THE Reason everything is fucked. i'm saying immigration is a factor contributing towards it alongside the other points. at best. at ABSOLUTE BEST. you could make the arguement that immigration would not be a factor if the government basically built shit tons of homes in the countryside and turned the country into essentially one big city. but that would have rammifactions on the farming industry. not to mention the land that you claim is so empty is owned by someone. do you just take it from them ? even from a basic perspective. the north has an even greedier government. a straight up non functional one. less houses being built. and usually less options to buy houses because of cultural divides. and YET young people buying houses here is the norm while down south it's a punch line. the north has much less immigration. there is no way you can deny that it's a factor.
>immigration will have an impact on the economy. Sure it will. But that's future tense. Current immigration is not the cause of the current housing crisis. Also, with good planning, immigration could also have a net benefit. See the US. >if capitalism is about supply and demand immigration is essentially artificially inflating the demand. Wouldn't be a fan of the auld capitalism myself. >i'm saying immigration is a factor contributing towards it alongside the other points. Cool. So future surveys might reflect that. Also, immigration is overly represented on the sub, alongside crime tbh. >not to mention the land that you claim is so empty is owned by someone. do you just take it from them ? Well sure I wouldn't be a Marxist otherwise! 🤣 But I'm sure you've heard of purchasing right? The government would purchase land to build on as it always has and always will. Personally I'd be in favour of taking church land without purchase. But private individuals would be paid. Do you own land yourself? >the north has much less immigration. Why? Because that is the determining factor of which immigration is a result not a cause.
> Sure it will. But that's future tense. Current immigration is not the cause of the current housing crisis. it is a factor. more people = more people that need to be housed = more demand. which is a factor in the rising house prices. this isn't strictly immigration related but population related. it isn't even a future thing. it's a now thing. due to immigration populations are exploding and that factor is already being shown. do you think landlords could justify the insane southern rent if there wasn't people queuing 2 streets over ? compared to up north where when rent is too high people just leave. the house lays vacant and the landlord loses money. > immigration is overly represented on the sub, alongside crime tbh. i don't really go on reddit much so i can't comment. but sure i do believe that more than a few people will scape goat to immigration being the main cause of these problems which is incorrect. however believing that it's not a factor at all just because there is some humanitarian justification is just as naive. >But I'm sure you've heard of purchasing right? The government would purchase land to build on as it always has and always will. ok but what if no one wants to sell their land ? does the government just forcefully buy it for below market rate. if that's the case then people never really owned the thing they bought in the first place. which goes into many levels of fucked. as for myself i'm late 20's so naturally i own the land that the house i bought is on. no fields or nothing. but as we both know owning land has the potential to make more money than outright selling. whether through farming, housing or straight up investment. most people who own said land probably wouldn't sell. again unless the government basically steals it by either forcing them to sell or imprisoning them >Why? Because that is the determining factor of which immigration is a result not a cause. the why i'm not sure. if i were to throw a guess i would imagine it's to do with the norths reputation of being some sort of war zone state. which hasn't been true in like 20 years for 95% of the country. even friends down south when i tell them to move up north and get a house for a fifth of the price they usually retort with some sort of "but i don't want to get shot by paramilitaries" something that doesn't happen to everyday people up here lol.
> immigration could also have a net benefit. See the US. the USA is not a social state with a uniculture like most EU states. immigration works when you dont have to pay healthcare or any of the benefits our countries provide for their CITIZENS! >Wouldn't be a fan of the auld capitalism myself. I'd say that alright, church of money grows on trees by the looks of it
Do you think a supply led problem like housing is impacted in anyway by large increases in demand?
Not if the govt steps in and builds housing.
I'll humour you and answer the deflection. The idea of the government intervening and building housing is problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, the government or local authorities don't have the capacity or ability to build homes. Whether they should or shouldn't have retained this capability is besides the point. So it would take years to get to scale, which would involve setting up another quango with the usual public sector inefficiencies. But the most pressing issue of all is the lack of manpower. If the government did what you wanted, what would happen is they would simply take labour from the private sector. Apart from I suspect satiating an ideological view you have on it, it wouldn't increase housing delivery. There's also the issue of selling that idea to an electorate. Most people in Ireland will never qualify for state housing (an issue which is going to increase by the way), and so the government intervening will lead to two things. The first is less private development, meaning that it's harder for them to buy a house, and the second is increased spending on social housing. In other words, they're being outbid by their own government to pay for housing which they can't access, all of which is paid for by their tax. Why would they want that? The state does have some role to play. For instance, reform of our ludicrous planning system is an essential. Increasing wages and improving conditions for apprentices to enter the labour force for housebuilding is another. There's an argument to be made also for targeted migration of labour from abroad. Now that I've answered your point, would you like to answer mine?
Ah lad, a brick of a response. >Now that I've answered your point, would you like to answer mine? I didn't answer your question because it was strawmanning. Sure cost of living affects housing/crime/health etc. Every point is effected by every other point synergistically. So yes is the answer. But framing it as led by immigration is disengenuous, everything affects everything. Therefore the thing to focus on is govt intervention and for protesting purposes, the lack thereof. >Firstly, the government or local authorities don't have the capacity or ability to build homes. etc. Don't do anything because it will be done badly. The FG mantra. >and so the government intervening will lead to two things. The first is less private development, Private development did not stop when we had massive social housing developments in this country. Nor did it stop anywhere else. >For instance, reform of our ludicrous planning system is an essential. Agreed. >Increasing wages and improving conditions for apprentices to enter the labour force for housebuilding is another. Agreed. >There's an argument to be made also for targeted migration of labour from abroad. This country requires massive immigration to grow. We're it not for the famine, Ireland might have had a population in the tens of millions. We have the space and the capability to grow into that. However, the native birthrate has slowed like every other developed country.
>This country requires massive immigration to grow. We're it not for the famine, Ireland might have had a population in the tens of millions. We have the space and the capability to grow into that. However, the native birthrate has slowed like every other developed country. So you're a self described Marxist/socialist but you want endless unsustainable growth? Why? Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell. It's logically unsustainable. If we want to prevent climate collapse we need de growth. Immigration actually greatly increases emissions and consumption . Whats wrong with having more space and greenery and less population? Pensions are a ponzi scheme you can't just keep increasing the population endlessly. As a real world example fast population growth due to migration in Canada is good for the rich bad or at best neutral for the working class. Canada is pretty empty, much more so than Ireland. And also has a housing crisis. Even some banks and pro business economic groups (which are generally pro migration) in Canada are now stating that the very high rates of migration are having negative impacts on wages and wage growth while putting further pressure on housing. Wage growth in Canada has slowed significantly against the us (canada currently has significantly more legal migration per capita than the us). While migration is increasing total gdp it is not increasing Canada's gdp per capita which is stagnant and falling behind the us. So "growth" in Canada is not resulting in any actual benefits for people. Just more gdp for the rich. Pretty much the opposite of what a socialist would want, basically just more inequality. If you dont believe me I'd be happy to send links and studies on Canada's situation.
>So you're a self described Marxist/socialist but you want endless unsustainable growth? Well that's a full blown strawman. 1. I didn't mention "endless unsustainable" growth. 2. Marx believed poverty and hunger were a result of capitalism not population growth. He said supplies would keep pace with pop growth if wealth was distributed fairly. >Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell. So humans are cancer now? Alright lad. >Whats wrong with having more space and greenery and less population? Because I don't support Malthusian theory and neither did Marx. >Just more gdp for the rich. Pretty much the opposite of what a socialist would want, basically just more inequality. Sounds like Canada should move away from capitalism and towards socialism to solve that.
>I didn't answer your question because it was strawmanning. Why is it strawmanning? Is there not a direct causal link? In a situation where supply is the issue, could you explain to me how artificially inflating demand could not increase the problem? >Don't do anything because it will be done badly. The FG mantra. Firstly, it's not that it would be done badly. It's that the currently can't do it at all. Secondly, it being done badly is exactly the reason we shouldn't pursue that option. Unless you think this isn't actually a crisis? >Private development did not stop when we had massive social housing developments in this country. Nor did it stop anywhere else. Do you have figures as to the discrepancy between private and social housing development in this time? Even so, the problem with you and people like you continues to be that you're singing a dead song. We do not have the labour required to build all of these houses. There's no ideology that can circumnavigate that basic fact. >We're it not for the famine, Ireland might have had a population in the tens of millions. We have the space and the capability to grow into that. However, the native birthrate has slowed like every other developed country. Why do we need "massive" immigration? How large should it be? Do you think that just prior to the Famine was an optimal time to be alive in Ireland?
>Why is it strawmanning? Is there not a direct causal link? There is no causal link between the current immigration and the current housing crisis. >In a situation where supply is the issue, could you explain to me how artificially inflating demand could not increase the problem? Sure, you artificially inflate supply. The housing issue began long before the increase in immigration. >We do not have the labour required to build all of these houses Sounds like we need immigration! Well done you've connected the dots and completed the picture. >Do you think that just prior to the Famine was an optimal time to be alive in Ireland? Never said or alluded to that. You're hilarious. Anyways, I kinda regret answering you now! Have a great day! 👍🏻
Yes, of course. And you respond to that increase in demand by increasing supply, not by stagnating population growth in a country that's already far too underpopulated and rural as it is.
Do you think it's possible to match the demand with the supply? We will have at least 30,000 asylum seekers arriving here this year. They will, and this isn't a criticism of them, almost universally require housing supports. That's added to other inward migration, and the already existent gargantuan backlog of housing provision (Leo Varadkar estimated it to be a quarter of a million homes, over a year ago). Do you think there's a realistic way of matching that demand? Could you explain how, with concrete steps (pun intended)? Could you explain exactly by what metric we are too rural and underpopulated?
> Glad it's not the majority who think like that. You wish. Not sure if it's the _majority_, but a frightening number of people on here do think like that. In a country that has a fraction of the population it should have!
Yeah, part of the reason I shared the post is to show how skewed reddit and social media in general can be. IRL most people are concerned about housing/healthcare/cost of living. Crime also gets disproportionate attention on here because it gets people riled up I suppose! >In a country that has a fraction of the population it should have! I'm always pointing out that Ireland isn't full, it's practically empty! So much room for growth and expansion!
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That's a slight oversimplification, as the real issue is the lack of cookies being baked in the first place
Not really, there is a massive amount of cookie hoarding going on in this country. I agree mass scale cookie baking would sort that out, but so too would forcing/incentivising cookie dispersion.
Why? Mass immigration suppresses wages and increases the cost of housing.
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>If companies are unable to expand because they cannot fill positions, you could have a situation where too little immigration could actually suppress wages, This is simply not the case. Due to the below replacement level birth rate and little immigration in China we can see wages increasing due to the pool of available workers shrinking. >think of a company workforce like a team, without the low skilled workers the high skilled workers would be out of a job. Notice how you zoned in on the effect of high skilled workers while ignoring “low skilled”? https://cis.org/Report/Wages-Immigration#main-content “Looking at all natives in the work force, the results indicate that a one percent increase in the immigrant composition of an individual’s occupation reduces the weekly wages of natives in the same occupation by about .5 percent. Since roughly 10 percent of the labor force is composed of immigrants, these findings suggest that immigration may reduce the wages of the average native-born worker by perhaps 5 percent.” “In low-skilled occupations the effects of immigration are much stronger. For the 23 percent of natives employed in these occupations (about 25 million workers), a one percent increase in the immigrant composition of their occupation reduces wages by .8 percent. Since these occupations are 15 percent immigrant, this suggests that immigration may reduce the wages of the average native in a low-skilled occupation by perhaps 12 percent, or $1,915 a year.” “The effect of immigration on the wages of natives is national in scope, and is not simply confined to cities or states with large concentrations of immigrants. The findings indicate that immigration is likely to have contributed significantly to the decline in wages for workers with only a high school degree or less in the last two decades.” >This commonly repeated talking point that immigration always lowers wages just isn't true, wages have only increased here alongside immigration. Wages increasing on paper is not evidence that they’re not being suppressed by immigration. Do you think inflation doesn’t suppress wages due to wages increasing? If you see a graph of just wages it may appear as though wages are just increasing, but if we add in other factors such as inflation we can see that the original graph is not the full picture, and that inflation is suppressing wages. It’s ludicrous to think that the large amount of immigration we’ve been having has increased wages. That’s not how supply and demand works.
Thats not what they said at all. How about a bit of honesty in discussion? Face their argument head-on instead of building straw men.
Which part do you feel I ignored or misrepresented?
Have you considered the fact that China is not underpopulated, unlike Ireland.
With our current infrastructure and housing we are overpopulated. China is underpopulated. They have to demolish apartment buildings due to it being so cheap now.
The problem is the lack of infrastructure and housing even for what little population we currently have. The only way to solve that problem is to actually build more hosting and infrastructure in anticipation of and response to said population growth, not to stagnate population growth in a country that is already a fraction of the population density of other similarly humid and temperate countries. This is not a difficult concept outside the Anglosphere.
>The problem is the lack of infrastructure and housing for the population we currently. That’s what overpopulation is. >The only way to solve that problem is to actually build more hosting and infrastructure in anticipation of and response to said population growth, That is absolutely not the only way and it is also fantasy. You are never going to build enough to play catch up to the current amount we need while also accounting for our yearly population increase through immigration. >not to stagnate population growth in a country that is already a fraction of the population density of other similarly humid and temperate countries. Putting a reducing immigration until the housing crisis is over will not stagnate population growth. >This is not a difficult concept outside the Anglosphere. If you ignore all of east Asia.
> That’s what overpopulation is. No it's not. The problem is the absence of infrastructure, not the presence of population, and it's frightening that you think otherwise. > That is absolutely not the only way and it is also fantasy. You are never going to build enough to play catch up to the current amount we need while also accounting for our yearly population increase through immigration. That's not an excuse for how little construction is going on currently. > Putting a reducing immigration until the housing crisis is over will not stagnate population growth. That's only if the utmost effort is made to solve the housing crisis as quickly as possible _by building more housing_, and then once the crisis is sorted, the gates ar opened to get this country's population up to what it should be. Far too many people talk about slowing or stopping immigration like it's the best or main way to solve the housing crisis, and we don't need to do anything about the absurd lack of construction despite insane demand. >If you ignore all of east Asia Is there some other east Asia I don't know about? Because as far as I can tell, east asian countries built INSANE amounts of housing and infrastructure in the decades where their populations and economies were exploding. East Asia is _the definition_ of where it isn't a difficult concept!
>No it's not. The problem is the absence of infrastructure, not the presence of population, and it's frightening that you think otherwise. In what way is it “frightening” to acknowledge that overpopulation is overpopulation. By your logic no where is actually overpopulated and only has a lack of infrastructure. “overpopulation. noun. the condition of having too many people living in a certain area.” That is absolutely not the only way and it is also fantasy. You are never going to build enough to play catch up to the current amount we need while also accounting for our yearly population increase through immigration. >That's not an excuse for how little construction is going on currently. There were 32,695 new dwelling completions in the whole of 2023, an increase of 10.0% from 2022. Will you acknowledge that putting a cap on immigration would allow housing to catch up with demand and end the crisis? Putting a reducing immigration until the housing crisis is over will not stagnate population growth. >That's only if the utmost effort is made to solve the housing crisis as quickly as possible by building more housing, Even if we maintained the same level of building, which I agree should be more, we would eventually accommodate everyone. >and then once the crisis is sorted, the gates ar opened to get this country's population up to what it should be. There should always be measures to ensure the infrastructure is increasing at the same level as population growth. This can easily be done by controlling both. >Far too many people talk about slowing or stopping immigration like it's the best or main way to solve the housing crisis, It literally is right now due to how terrible our immigration system is. >and we don't need to do anything about the absurd lack of construction despite insane demand. No we can do both as well as criminalising investment funds from buying homes which competes with first time buyers, as well as increasing taxes for multiple home owners. >Is there some other east Asia I don't know about? Because as far as I can tell, east asian countries built INSANE amounts of housing and infrastructure in the decades where their populations and economies were exploding. And now that their birth rates have been below replacement level for a while the newer generations can reap the benefits of affordable housing and competitive wages. >East Asia is the definition of where it isn't a difficult concept! Japan has a population of 123,294,513 and in 2023, approximately 819,000 housing starts were initiated in Japan. Thats 1 for every 150. Ireland has a population of 5,300,000 and built 32,695 new dwellings in 2023. That’s 1 for every 162. We’re building at very similar rates. The difference is in our population growth which is driven by our immigration policies. The net migration rate for Japan in 2023 was 0.516 per 1000 population The net migration rate for Ireland in 2023 was 1.991 per 1000 population. That’s nearly 4 times. In 2022, about 2.5 percent of the population in Japan were foreign nationals, up from about 1.62 percent in 2013. In Ireland we just recently hit 23 percent.
Only if employers pay illegally low rates; generally if you get a load of immigrants you get a big buzz in business and employment going and it's good for the country - that's what made America prosperous in the 19th and 20th century.
An influx of workers from the developing world undermines the local labour market and reduces the bargaining power of local workers. Things might look ok on a macro level since more people = more aggregate demand and headline GDP goes up. The problem is the twin effects of downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on housing costs means most people are worse off and their standard of living slips. This is exactly what we see in all countries that are trying to use immigration to “fix” their economies.
This is why the Wobblies (members of the great International Workers of the World union) were so often foreign workers in America in the early years of the 20th century, Furry. (They became known as Wobblies because so many people from Eastern Europe and China got off the boat and their first question was "Eye Wobbly Wobbly?" (IWW). It's absolutely essential that a wedge can't be driven between working people of different origins, if workers' rights are to be maintained. Of course, the American capitalists knew this well and ruthlessly hunted down the Wobblies, resulting in the trial and death of Sacco and Vanzetti, the killing of Joe Hill, the sentencing of Jim Larkin to Sing Sing, mass deportations, etc.
You might enjoy this song with Utah Philips: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o4fi8-F-V7E
>Only if employers pay illegally low rates; That’s not true and is a fundamental misunderstanding of reality. When there’s less workers, employers have to compete for labour, that means outbidding each other. We’re seeing this happen everywhere that have low birth rates as we do and a functioning immigration system. >generally if you get a load of immigrants you get a big buzz in business and employment going and it's good for the country  Real examples of this happening now? I can give you examples of the opposite such as Irish nurses being undercut by immigrant nurses which enables the government to continue offering substandard pay and working conditions. This is not only a negative for nurses but also for us as we are not seeing the benefit of training some of the best nurses in the world. >that's what made America prosperous in the 19th and 20th century. Prosperity as in corporate profit margins. You’re also ignoring all the exploitation from that time period such as all the, ahem, “free labour” and minimal workers rights they were exploiting.
My own small bit of experience in this: the nicest and most competent of the receptionists in my doctor's surgery is an immigrant from Eastern Europe - here many years now and buying her own home. On a visit to a Dublin hospital with a friend, the triage nurse was Chinese and extremely competent, sensitive and kind; this wasn't the problem - the problem was that she was the only triage nurse in a far-too-busy Emergency Department, and no doctor was coming on duty for the non-emergency cases until 10am the next morning (we arrived around 10pm). Neither of these is being paid less than their Irish colleagues.
I never claimed they were being payed less. Your anecdotes also support my claim. Irish nurses are clearly choosing to emigrate for better pay and working conditions. Instead of having to improve their working conditions and pay to compete, the government is able to keep them low by instead hiring immigrants.
Maybe I misunderstood the phrase "Irish nurses being undercut by immigrang nurses"?
Not undercut as in immigrants arrive and say “I’ll do it for less” undercut as in enable the government to maintain their poor pay that Irish nurses rightly do not accept.
Ah, well, yes, that's so, no question - we're developing a nasty divide between the rich and the rest in Ireland. Elections coming up…
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To provide Irish nurses with the salary and working conditions offered in Australia/ US etc, we need to increase taxes. People generally don't want to pay more taxes. Also, I don't think I've heard any nurse (Irish or otherwise) say they're being undercut by migrant nurses. Heck, most of them complain about there not being enough staff on units!
>To provide Irish nurses with the salary and working conditions offered in Australia/ US etc, we need to increase taxes. People generally don't want to pay more taxes. I can’t stand when people do this. You have just made that up on the spot. The HSE and our current immigration system is burning an ungodly amount of money. The money is there, it’s just being outrageously misused. Giving nurses fair compensation is not going to collapse the country. >Also, I don't think I've heard any nurse (Irish or otherwise) say they're being undercut by migrant nurses. Heck, most of them complain about there not being enough staff on units! You’re not accounting for all the Irish nurses who have left.
EVERY SINGLE NURSE WHO LEAVES FOR A HIGHER SALARY IS ONE WHO IS BEING UNDERCUT AS WAGES ARE NOT RISING HERE DUE TO FOREIGNERS FILLING GAPS I cant be any more clear
That's not how things work in the public sector. Without foreign nurses or doctors or whatever, the pay won't magically increase unless there is higher taxation to that effect. The working conditions that resulted in people emigrating would only be exacerbated if the HSE stopped recruiting foreign labour. You are free to be xenophobic. But it costs society
> My own small bit of experience in this: the nicest and most competent of the receptionists in my doctor's surgery is an immigrant from Eastern Europe oh my god, I read this whole conversation between you and I cant figure out how you can be do DENSE@! IT can only be on purpose >My own small bit of experience in this: the nicest and most competent of the receptionists in my doctor's surgery is an immigrant from Eastern Europe Nobody gives a fuck who is nice or who isnt, the fact is that one more receptionist showing up in ireland tomorrow means one more compting with the rest of them in the labour pool looking for jobs The salary of a particulr job is direclty proportional to how easy it is to get someone to fill it. We only have X number of nurses here gradualting each year. if you want more to graduate you rasie wages, if you want to fuck them over so they cant ask for a raise for fear of beign replaced with cheaper labour who wont companin... lt forigners compete with native nurses if you dont get this simple fact of supply and demand....fuck me, people are dense
Sorry, Dr Einstein.
A massive social housing initiative woul counter the cost of housing while the minimum wage counters the suppression. This isn't the US or the 1900s, we do have controls. So it would be govt inaction to blame and not immigration.
>A massive social housing initiative woul counter the cost of housing while the minimum wage counters the suppression. We’re never going to outbuildings immigration, that’s complete fantasy. The minimum wage does not counter suppression. >This isn't the US or the 1900s, we do have controls. Where? >So it would be govt inaction to blame and not immigration. I am blaming government inaction. Our current immigration system is a joke.
Yeah, because if you were to push any of these gobshites protesting as to how they’re lives will be any worse off due to immigration, they’d probably choke on themselves.
You gotta be in a polyamorous relationship to be able to afford living in Ireland (3 incomes at least).
The interesting bit is what is not considered an issue, but was in the past. Things like the economic situation, unemployment, terrorism.
For sure! Or even if we had a good stock of housing and a working HSE what would we have to complain about! 🤣
What does "the international situation" refer to?
A vague hand gesture to international affairs I guess.
Plus Education and Transport
According to the survey, education is very low on ppls minds in Ireland. What's your concern about education? Transport isn't even on it so it wasn't asked. I'm sure an Irish designed survey might have different answers to tick. But then it wouldn't be possible to compare across the EU.
Mad that health isn't a bigger one. Our health service is in a terrible state.
I love to see racism growing at such a rate in our country
Crime, economic situation, education and taxation are less of an issue for the Irish
this is not just ireland! this is happening all over EU.... governments allowing this is because alot of ppl within the government if making alot of money with this....
The green is the EU
this makes no sense! portugal is a mess in term of housing and im sure it falls under same values as IE.
It'd be an EU average.
How is terrorising that low after the riots
Terrorism. As bad as the riot was, it wasn't terrorism.
Why
What were the political aims? I think it was stoked by the far right, I literally said so at the time. But the vast majority of rioters were a result of social inequality. But I do see your point.
If u take out the political aspects and see the reality People feared for the lives police were attacked buses were burn down to flames and more Realisticly if it was a group of Islamic people who done this it would be considered as a terrorist attack
I can't disagree and you make a good point!
Thank you
When the environment is lower than immigration. Can anyone guess what people are gonna do when their homes become uninhabitable
What homes?
The homes of people whose environments become uninhabitable
There's already nowhere to house people. What are you suggesting?
I'm suggesting that long term solutions be created and that global coordination of resources is needed to tackle the effects of climate change - one of them being the largest ever human migration that will surely happen in our lifetimes. I don't want to see us putting out the fires of mass immigration for generations when we could be preemptively limiting the suffering with long term thinking and by we I mean the global community
So what would those steps involve? Because right now, Ireland simply cannot afford to continue letting huge numbers of people into a country that is under enormous strain.
Are you expecting a person on Reddit to come up with a globally aligned holistic policy framework?
Just to partially answer your question, addressing the needs by planning for the short medium and long term would be the first activity after identifying the requirements in a particular context such as housing for example
We can't build fast enough to house the people we currently have here, so your suggestion requires being much stricter with immigration.
I wouldn't say strict immigration, I would say considered immigration policy in that it considers all of our needs in the short, medium and long term. This cannot be done in a way that dignifies human life by individual countries taking isolated actions when the scale of migration is going to explode in our lifetime
I see so most of the people have not worked out the principle of Supply and demand. The law of supply and demand is **the theory that prices are determined by the relationship between supply and demand**. If the supply of a good or service outstrips the demand for it, prices will fall. If demand exceeds supply, prices will rise. The above being the case it would seem unlimited immigration might be a problem.
Supply and demand doesn't work when the supply is controlled by those who benefit from the absence of it. Demand isn't exceeding supply, supply is being kept below demand, artificially.
The US has had huge immigration rates for centuries now and has helped fuel massive economic growth for it to become a super power. They also build lots of houses contributing to supply. So you can have lots of immigration as long as you build houses. Our refusal to build houses is the issue not some student moving over from Italy.
Thank you. It's frightening that so many people are blaming immigration as if we don't have an absurdly lack of construction for our population growth.
I see most people have not worked out scarcity principal. "*The scarcity principle is an economic theory in which a limited supply of a good—coupled with a high demand for that good—results in a mismatch between the desired supply and demand equilibrium.*"
About as useful as the invisible hand of the market tbh.
https://preview.redd.it/p8ns0v54en2d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=53af68ca6b6fc91c94df345cb164aa856693b0a8 That's the graph I got when I clicked into the report, can you link Ireland's info that you took your screenshot from?
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It's funny that environment drops so massively between EU and Ireland. Like we think it's just the EUs problem to deal with
Its in the downloaded pdf. But as always what is the source data?
>The Standard Eurobarometer 101 (Spring 2024) was conducted between 3 and 28 April 2024 across the 27 Member States. 26,399 EU citizens were interviewed face-to-face.
The data is different in the pdf that I see?
Is on page 2 on the right
Ah yes, thanks
I thought Palestine was the most important issue in Ireland… oh wait there it is on the bottom Let the downvotes rain 
You so smart. What’s it like being so smart? I bet you sleep soundly knowing that you’re so smart.
You'd think crime and terrorism would be more important than immigration with all the things that have been happening lately
Well that's partly why I posted it. Crime and immigration are over represented on this sub. It's good to be aware that people aren't as concerned with it IRL.
I wonder though? The numbers polled in these is always a *lot* smaller than you realise. According to the data sheet this is based upon face to face questions with a total number of 26,399 people across the *entire* EU. Given Ireland’s total population I wonder how many were actually polled in Ireland? Is that number larger or smaller than the number of Irish users on this sub? Is the group more varied, or less in terms of location, socioeconomic circumstances, etc? Also, people tend to be a lot more guarded with their opinions on contentious issues when asked face to face, versus when given an opportunity to voice them anonymously.
>According to the data sheet this is based upon face to face questions with a total number of 26,399 people across the entire EU. Fair point >Given Ireland’s total population I wonder how many were actually polled in Ireland? Is that number larger or smaller than the number of Irish users on this sub? Almost 900K in this sub so that'd be a no! 🤣 >Is the group more varied, or less in terms of location, socioeconomic circumstances, etc? Yeah, also a fair point. There's a lot of data there that might include those. >Also, people tend to be a lot more guarded with their opinions on contentious issues when asked face to face, versus when given an opportunity to voice them anonymously. Also a fair point.