Irish Politics

golden_blunder said:
Not saying that you’re wrong but all the protests I’ve seen are all giving out about immigration of young men from different countries that have different skin colours and speak Arabic. The so called protests have been nothing but an excuse to vent racism
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100% but any legitimacy and talking points by their spokespersons all alluded to the pressure on our marginalised. The whole 'look after our own'. It's disingenuous as feck because none of them cared about wealth inequality unless as you say it was an excuse to vent racism.
 
moses said:
I stand corrected.

But the people you refuse to blame reduced social housing while the population grew. We had the means to avoid or alleviate this in place and it was dismantled.
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There’s two separate issues here. Is the housing crisis all down to Fine Gael policy? I don’t think so. Because we’re seeing the same issues all over the world. Is neoliberalism to blame? Probably?

The second issue is whether FFG are doing what they need to do to fix the crisis. I honestly have no idea. Probably not? But I also have no idea what the solution is. But I’m willing to bet it’s a hell of a lot more complex than just “build more houses”. Yer man, O’ Bróin does speak well on this. But he’s far from the only expert and they don’t all agree on any one approach.
 
@Pogue Mahone The lack of housing is right wing too. The post WW2 grief and guilt and focus on the marginalised was what gave birth to the welfare states that built social housing. The stability that gave society was part of the golden age of capitalism that followed. Les Trente Glorieuses as the French call it. We then got so pleased with capitalism we decided it would fix everything including housing and health, again very right wing fiscally. We've been spiralling ever since.

btw -You can't separate neoliberalism and FG, they are neoliberalists, they chose it.
 
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Pogue Mahone said:
There’s two separate issues here. Is the housing crisis all down to Fine Gael policy? I don’t think so. Because we’re seeing the same issues all over the world. Is neoliberalism to blame? Probably?

The second issue is whether FFG are doing what they need to do to fix the crisis. I honestly have no idea. Probably not? But I also have no idea what the solution is. But I’m willing to bet it’s a hell of a lot more complex than just “build more houses”. Yer man, O’ Bróin does speak well on this. But he’s far from the only expert and they don’t all agree on any one approach.
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But we had a policy in place that was dismantled. And neoliberalism chosen in it's place. Neoliberalism is a policy, not an inevitability. That's pretty direct culpability for FF and FG. Look at the ever decreasing numbers of social housing. And while it's a bit more complex than build more houses, it's not much more complex. Nobody has ever argued otherwise, just who should build them.
 
moses said:
Well let's say it wasn't policy. It was definitely predictable and we have had many many examples of it in the past. It's negligence and disregard for the already marginalised at very best. Which is quite right wing.
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That may be quite right wing but I’ll tell you what’s very right wing. Closing borders and refusing to provide a place of safety to families displaced by war, for economic reasons. Which seems to be the alternative being suggested here.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Which seems to be the alternative being suggested here.
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Forty thousand or so would have been manageable. That's not closing borders. It still would have represented the largest intake of any single immigrant class in the nation's history. And I was not at all against something like that. But when it is closer to 140k~ we derive serious problems upon those who are already suffering the most (and this includes those we accept in the weirdest of ways: we impose sanctions upon them now because war-fatigue has set in and the government wants to appease those completely right-wingers who actually do want completely closed borders).

I was in favor of accepting Syrian refugees 10 years ago (or more). I've never not been in favor of it. It just cannot be to such an extent that it leads to problems most people can predict years in advance which has been the case here.

What should have happened is that the EU built a large fund from all nations and spread it out among a few contiguous nations to Ukraine under the "this is temporary asylum until the war ends". That would have been somewhat logical.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
That may be quite right wing but I’ll tell you what’s very right wing. Closing borders and refusing to provide a place of safety to families displaced by war, for economic reasons. Which seems to be the alternative being suggested here.
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It is not what's being said at all. Definitely not by me. I'd have more of the worlds needy in but I wouldn't be sticking them in backwaters and ruining communities and lining the pockets of shady businessmen.

The policy of bringing so many in, with no structure in place is negligence towards the already vulnerable. That's not about closing borders.
 
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I'm not sure comparing Finland to Ireland really makes a lot of sense. If they have a good system in place then maybe we can learn from it, but last time I checked the countries aren't remotely similar.
 
neverdie said:
Forty thousand or so would have been manageable. That's not closing borders. It still would have represented the largest intake of any single immigrant class in the nation's history. And I was not at all against something like that. But when it is closer to 140k~ we derive serious problems upon those who are already suffering the most (and this includes those we accept in the weirdest of ways: we impose sanctions upon them now because war-fatigue has set in and the government wants to appease those completely right-wingers who actually do want completely closed borders).

I was in favor of accepting Syrian refugees 10 years ago (or more). I've never not been in favor of it. It just cannot be to such an extent that it leads to problems most people can predict years in advance which has been the case here.

What should have happened is that the EU built a large fund from all nations and spread it out among a few contiguous nations to Ukraine under the "this is temporary asylum until the war ends". That would have been somewhat logical.
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How do you think those “few contiguous nations” would feel about taking on the burden of housing those refugees on behalf of the whole of the EU? No amount of money will make up for the strain it would put on their societies to cope with those sort of numbers. You seem to think that 2-3% of our population is an unbearable burden, what would four or five times that % feel like?

In a way, the wealthiest countries in the EU paying smaller, poorer countries to do their dirty work for them is one of the most right wing policies mentioned in this thread.
 
RedC said:
I'm not sure comparing Finland to Ireland really makes a lot of sense. If they have a good system in place then maybe we can learn from it, but last time I checked the countries aren't remotely similar.
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They had rampant homelessness until they decided to prioritise fixing it. It always comes back to political will in modern western Europe. There are many lessons we can learn. In many ways fixing it was cheaper than the current government policy of paying for temporary accommodation. They did more with less money, that's one way we are nor similar.

from wiki "Finland and Denmark are the only European Union countries where homelessness is currently falling.[3] The country has adopted a Housing First policy, whereby social services assign homeless individuals rental homes first, and issues like mental health and substance abuse are treated second.[4][5] . Since its launch in 2008, the number of homeless people in Finland has decreased by roughly 30%,[1] and the number of long-term homeless people has fallen by more than 35%.[3] "Sleeping rough", the practice of sleeping outside, has been largely eradicated in Helsinki, where only one 50-bed night shelter remains.[3]"
 
Pogue Mahone said:
How do you think those “few contiguous nations” would feel about taking on the burden of housing those refugees on behalf of the whole of the EU? No amount of money will make up for the strain it would put on their societies to cope with those sort of numbers. You seem to think that 2-3% of our population is an unbearable burden, what would four or five times that % feel like?
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Not to be flippant, but ask Turkey about it. They house five million refugees and no one really funds them at all. (The EU did give a few billion after Turkey made that threat to turn them all into the EU).

The entirety of the Ukrainian migrants set up in reasonable accommodation and entirely paid for by the EU in contiguous nations would have been a far better solution. The strain would have been temporary and entirely funded. I.e., you are taking in a vast number of people under a time-limited affair and we will foot that bill. It's not ideal but it would have been better. In contrast, Turkey has accepted so many refugees and no one gives a shit unless it threatens to send them into the European Union (without being paid to keep them as would be the case in this retrospective scenario).

What happened, happened. I don't deny it would have been a burden to these states but it would have been financed by the EU and entirely time-contingent (as and when they can return). We're discussing a moot point but yours isn't without merit, I just think it would have been better or all involved, including the EU which is genuinely undermined when its states go far-right in response to their actual strategy. We probably won't agree.

If it's OK for Turkey, why not EU states (a few of them at that and far better funded)? Again, all a moot point now.
 
moses said:
They had rampant homelessness until they decided to prioritise fixing it. It always comes back to political will in modern western Europe. There are many lessons we can learn. In many ways fixing it was cheaper than the current government policy of paying for temporary accommodation. They did more with less money, that's one way we are nor similar.

from wiki "Finland and Denmark are the only European Union countries where homelessness is currently falling.[3] The country has adopted a Housing First policy, whereby social services assign homeless individuals rental homes first, and issues like mental health and substance abuse are treated second.[4][5] . Since its launch in 2008, the number of homeless people in Finland has decreased by roughly 30%,[1] and the number of long-term homeless people has fallen by more than 35%.[3] "Sleeping rough", the practice of sleeping outside, has been largely eradicated in Helsinki, where only one 50-bed night shelter remains.[3]"
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I’d say it focuses the mind when you’re the government of a country where sleeping on the streets - even for just one night - is basically a death sentence for a big chunk of the year.
 
moses said:
They had rampant homelessness until they decided to prioritise fixing it. It always comes back to political will in modern western Europe. There are many lessons we can learn. In many ways fixing it was cheaper than the current government policy of paying for temporary accommodation. They did more with less money, that's one way we are nor similar.

from wiki "Finland and Denmark are the only European Union countries where homelessness is currently falling.[3] The country has adopted a Housing First policy, whereby social services assign homeless individuals rental homes first, and issues like mental health and substance abuse are treated second.[4][5] . Since its launch in 2008, the number of homeless people in Finland has decreased by roughly 30%,[1] and the number of long-term homeless people has fallen by more than 35%.[3] "Sleeping rough", the practice of sleeping outside, has been largely eradicated in Helsinki, where only one 50-bed night shelter remains.[3]"
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Sounds like they made some good decisions, hasn't Denmark just become extremely strict on immigration?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I’d say it focuses the mind when you’re the government of a country where sleeping on the streets - even for just one night - is basically a death sentence for a big chunk of the year.
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Whilst we're clearly not the ice-land that Finland is in climate terms, shouldn't our government be focused when 120~ or so people die on Irish streets from homelessness every year?

Three times the levels of officially recorded homelessness in Ireland. Cutting across state linguistic gibberish, Ireland's homeless is easily twice what it is declared.
 
neverdie said:
Not to be flippant, but ask Turkey about it. They house five million refugees and no one really funds them at all. (The EU did give a few billion after Turkey made that threat to turn them all into the EU).

The entirety of the Ukrainian migrants set up in reasonable accommodation and entirely paid for by the EU in contiguous nations would have been a far better solution. The strain would have been temporary and entirely funded. I.e., you are taking in a vast number of people under a time-limited affair and we will foot that bill. It's not ideal but it would have been better. In contrast, Turkey has accepted so many refugees and no one gives a shit unless it threatens to send them into the European Union (without being paid to keep them as would be the case in this retrospective scenario).

What happened, happened. I don't deny it would have been a burden to these states but it would have been financed by the EU and entirely time-contingent (as and when they can return). We're discussing a moot point but yours isn't without merit, I just think it would have been better or all involved, including the EU which is genuinely undermined when its states go far-right in response to their actual strategy. We probably won't agree.
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"time-limited" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I'm absolutely certain that all the decisions around taking refugees into Ireland (and other EU states) were made on the assumption that this would be a "time-limited" commitment. It's just got messier and messier the longer the war goes on. Which makes decisions that seem reasonable at the time seem less and less reasonable as the war drags on. In the same way that creating some sort of iron curtain to prevent refugees leaving those "contiguous countries" would have seemed monstrous at the time but seems (slightly) less cruel a few years down the road, now we know the long term consequences of this diaspora on underprivileged citizens all over the EU.
 
RedC said:
Sounds like they made some good decisions, hasn't Denmark just become extremely strict on immigration?
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No idea re Denmark and immigration.

I'm very much open borders but it has to be done properly, and for the money we spend, it's not spent at all efficiently or with the proper duty of care to the immigrants or the communities already struggling.
 
neverdie said:
Whilst we're clearly not the ice-land that Finland is in climate terms, shouldn't our government be focused when 120~ or so people die on Irish streets from homelessness every year?

Three times the levels of officially recorded homelessness in Ireland. Cutting across state linguistic gibberish, Ireland's homeless is easily twice what it is declared.
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moses said:
So pneumonia is grand? Come on man.
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How on earth does that comment get interpreted as me saying that pneumonia is grand or people living on the streets is something we don't need to do anything about?!?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
"time-limited" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I'm absolutely certain that all the decisions around taking refugees into Ireland (and other EU states) were made on the assumption that this would be a "time-limited" commitment. It's just got messier and messier the longer the war goes on. Which makes decisions that seem reasonable at the time seem less and less reasonable as the war drags on. In the same way that creating some sort of iron curtain to prevent refugees leaving those "contiguous countries" would have seemed monstrous at the time but seems (slightly) less cruel a few years down the road, now we know the long term consequences of this diaspora on underprivileged citizens all over the EU.
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I think we agree on the substantial point. My only difference is that for me, personally, it was known at the time just because of historical antecedents. But I think you make solid points in the bold.
 
moses said:
No idea re Denmark and immigration.

I'm very much open borders but it has to be done properly, and for the money we spend, it's not spent at all efficiently or with the proper duty of care to the immigrants or the communities already struggling.
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Some of it is the downside to being in the EU. Some of it is that every social system contractor etc. is run with profit seeking intentions at their core. Very hard thing to fix for any government, and it's across the board. That's not to say nobody should try, but it's an incredibly hard thing to get all of these issues completely right when everywhere you turn it's someone looking to line their pockets with government money.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
How on earth does that comment get interpreted as me saying that pneumonia is grand or people living on the streets is something we don't need to do anything about?!?
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In context and in the flow of the discussion it came across as quite dismissive of how grim it is to be on the streets here.
 
RedC said:
Some of it is the downside to being in the EU. Some of it is that every social system contractor etc. is run with profit seeking intentions at their core. Very hard thing to fix for any government, and it's across the board. That's not to say nobody should try, but it's an incredibly hard thing to get all of these issues completely right when everywhere you turn it's someone looking to line their pockets with government money.
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Yeah but we should rage against that rather than just accept it as a factor.
 
moses said:
Yeah but we should rage against that rather than just accept it as a factor.
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Seems like a very hard thing to solve without creating an absolutely monumental civil service or something like that to do it all.
 
moses said:
In context and in the flow of the discussion it came across as quite dismissive of how grim it is to be on the streets here.
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Ok, fair. It just struck me how a policy for homelessness where even one night on the street is basically a death sentence will probably have different targets/metrics to a policy in a country like Ireland.

And it should go without saying that I believe that if even one person - in any country - is forced to live rough then society has a duty of care to at least try to put a roof above their head.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Ok, fair. It just struck me how a policy for homelessness where even one night on the street is basically a death sentence will probably have different targets/metrics to a policy in a country like Ireland.

And it should go without saying that I believe that if even one person - in any country - is forced to live rough then society has a duty of care to at least try to put a roof above their head.
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Of course.

Here's a bit on Finland.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thebetter.news/housing-first-finland-homelessness/?amp

The bit I'm always struck with is that it's not only not an expensive fix but it's cheaper than perpetuating the current system of temporary shelter.

@RedC
 
Re immigration, not only do we need to look at the here and now but also longer term when climate change really kicks in and makes some places uninhabitable. Mass migration has to go somewhere, but that’s a bigger problem probably for a different thread
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Ok, fair. It just struck me how a policy for homelessness where even one night on the street is basically a death sentence will probably have different targets/metrics to a policy in a country like Ireland.

And it should go without saying that I believe that if even one person - in any country - is forced to live rough then society has a duty of care to at least try to put a roof above their head.
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I was under the impression that they had refuges for homeless people and that sleeping on the street wasn't that common. I think it might have been someone sleeping rough and dieing that triggered the drive to adopt that policy. Been a while since reading up on it mind you.
 
caid said:
I was under the impression that they had refuges for homeless people and that sleeping on the street wasn't that common. I think it might have been someone sleeping rough and dieing that triggered the drive to adopt that policy. Been a while since reading up on it mind you.
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I read recently that over 100 people still sleep on the streets on any given night in Dublin.

That's the severe end of it. The overwhelming majority of it is expensive temporary housing that drags families all over the place and puts huge pressure on any attempt to work or go to school.
 
moses said:
I read recently that over 100 people still sleep on the streets on any given night in Dublin.

That's the severe end of it. The overwhelming majority of it is expensive temporary housing that drags families all over the place and puts huge pressure on any attempt to work or go to school.
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Add to that, so many local government partnerships with both private and not-for-profit organizations obscures the actual homelessness figure. There are thousands who, if you ask them, will tell you in no uncertain terms that they are homeless which are not classified that way by the state because of legalese and jargon.
 
moses said:
I read recently that over 100 people still sleep on the streets on any given night in Dublin.

That's the severe end of it. The overwhelming majority of it is expensive temporary housing that drags families all over the place and puts huge pressure on any attempt to work or go to school.
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That sounds far too low really. I'd say there was that many 20 years ago and i cant imagine it improving since. We didn't have campsites on the canals or down every other side street then.
 
RedC said:
Thanks, would be interested to understand more about their housing market, from a quick search it seems like they've nowhere near the challenges we have in housing costs and supply.
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Oh yeah, we have overseen quite the descent into housing chaos this last 3 or 4 decades.
 
RedC said:
Thanks, would be interested to understand more about their housing market, from a quick search it seems like they've nowhere near the challenges we have in housing costs and supply.
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Bizarrely this article from 2020 says the costs are identical
 
RedC said:
That's construction costs, I don't think that's taking into account other costs to build like land purchase?
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Yep, just construction costs.

Some land is cheap here too. It would help with the decentralisation we've been avoiding for 50 years too.

Quick search says average land in per acre is Ireland 12k, Finland 4k. You'd fit 6 houses comfortably on an acre. In housing estates it's usually over 10. Not hugely different when the overwhelming main costs is construction. Also we are much richer than Finland. We could build up. Like I said it's usually political will that dictates things.
 
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