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MENTAL HEALTH WAS our subject for this week’s Q&A – we had clinical psychologist Dr Eddie Murphy at TheJournal.ie offices to answer your questions.
Dr Murphy has more than 20 years of experience working in the area and has appeared on RTÉ’s Operation Transformation to offer guidance to participants.
We asked you to send questions you had about mental health and we had a great response in the last 24 hours.
You can watch the full clip above – and if you don’t have time this afternoon, here’s the liveblog of what happened, from our reporter Daragh Brophy…
So, we’re just getting under way here.
Dr Eddie will be with us for around half an hour.
If you have a question you’d like Michelle to ask, don’t forget to send us an email or a tweet (details above).
A reader says he’s being kept awake all night dealing with anxiety – says he can’t stop thinking about his ex-girlfriend, and her new partner and that he feels he may not find a new love.
Dr Eddie says there seems to be a few issues at play here – and that loss may be manifesting itself as anxiety and stress.
“In life we all experience different transitions.”
And during these periods of transition, our stress can increase. If we tackle the stress, then it won’t escalate into anxiety, he says.
“I get the sense that there’s both low mood and anxiety,” Dr Eddie says.
People have also been in contact about medication issues.
A reader says she has been suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and depression, and that her medication has been increased.
She’s concerned she ‘may never have a normal life’.
On the general issue of medication, Dr Eddie says there’s a role for both medication and counselling to deal with mental health issues.
People often approach him, saying they’re on medication and wonder if they should be – and whether they should come off the treatment.
“There are pros and cons,” he says – and it depends on the individual, but in some cases medication can be critical.
A reader asks about getting signed-off from work because of a mental health issue.
Speak to your GP, he says. Often doctors can arrange to have a person signed-out from work because of general medical reasons, and don’t need to give specifics.
These days, more employers are making progress in the area, and arranging for workers to ‘phase in’ to work again after a break.
Another reader says her husband is in his early 60s and suffering from dementia, and that she’s finding it difficult to cope.
Getting good information on dementia and Alzheimer’s is essential, he says. Speak to the wider family about it, speak to support groups and talk about future options.
‘Reminiscence’ therapy is often helpful in later-stages of dementia, he says – going through old photos and letters.
For the moment, it’s all about ‘enjoying the now’ as much as possible.
Another question – from a woman whose husband’s brother is dealing with a very serious mental health issue.
Her husband is being seriously affected too, as a result of her brother’s lifestyle.
He’s being a ‘typical Irish man’ about it, and shuts-down whenever she tries to bring it up.
The man needs to identify what’s making the problem worse, and really should examine the issue and seek help, Dr Eddie says.
After a quick, final question about animal therapy, that’s it for the video Q&A for this afternoon.
Dr Eddie has agreed to stick around to answer a few more questions that came in during the livestream, however.
You can read them here, within the next few minutes….
We didn’t get to some of the questions left in the comments section of this earlier piece and Dr Murphy will address some of them now.
One reader asked: I‘m 2 weeks away from finishing a thesis while caring for my 2 yr old which leaves me with only nights to do a huge amount of work… I’m finding I’m getting overwhelmed and panicky lately with it though and getting NO work done.. Any tips for staying cool to get this done?
Here’s what Dr Murphy has to say…
Take what you have left and break it down into bite-sized chunks. We say eat the elephant one bite at a time. She’s two weeks off from her thesis – how many words has she left to write? Is it written and she’s going back over it and over it? In life we talk about being good enough, it doesn’t have to be perfect. It might be time to draw a line over it, get some of the external readers to look at it.
Can she get some support to mind the two-year-old? It’s like two competing things. Two-year-olds want a lot of your time, that’s their job – to extract as much time as they can. If you’re doing a thesis, are you able to give it? No you’re not really but can you get yourself a two week window? Can someone mind the child while you get a block of work done?
On exam stress in general:
A lot of people when they come to exam time, crunch time, or getting in thesis , it’s a performance isn’t it? And some people might have performance anxiety, for some it might be the first time if they’re in third level. For some people it can be stress and for others it can be a full on panic attack.
What I’d encourage people to do is to plan their study, have a really good study plan, talk to their tutors if they’re in third level and explain that they’re experiencing anxiety, go to the student counselling service. For some, medication, if you’ve only two weeks left you might need to get medication so you can get some sleep and that’ll help you function.
If you’re a bit further out, a few months, I’d recommend regular exercise, good nutrition, sleep, starting yoga.
Another email we didn’t get to while we were live:
How are you supposed to be able to pay for mental health when public waiting times range into almost 2 years and health insurance pays literally nothing for mental health therapy or treatments unless you’re being hospitalised?
Dr Murphy said:
That’s a very fair point, it can be very difficult to access good quality therapy or counselling. It depends – there’s free counselling for those who have experienced sexual or emotional abuse through childhood, through the National Counselling Service.
There’s books, we call it bibliotherapy. My book is about tackling anxiety and depression, low self-esteem. Then there’s online therapy – some really good free online therapy, like MoodGym which is an Australian site that’s free that people can access.
There’s a number of free online cognitive behavioural therapy programmes for anxiety and depression that are free. I think more therapies will go online. Face to face is best but for some people that’s not possible.
You can do Skype, remote type therapies. A lot of people in Australia have therapy through Skype. Some people don’t want to see the therapist that’s living in their local area.
I do hear what the person is saying, it’s very difficult to access different therapies. We don’t probably fund enough training of psychologists in Ireland and that’s the reality.
One woman got in touch seeking help with her marriage:
My husband has recently left the family home, and is seeing a counsellor. He has problems in work that haven’t been resolved in the last two years. He is now saying that he is not happy anymore with anything in his life. He would not take medication. I’m so stressed and worried that he will never get better. Can you advise?
Dr Murphy says…
It depends on what the person wants. It sounds like she wants him back and he’s in a situation where he’s unclear about what he wants – whether he’s in conflict or estranged from work and obviously now he’s estranged from family. Sometimes for men they want big bang solutions and sometimes they don’t necessarily want to work through the issues. Men can compartmentalise problems and close the door and think they can just start a new life but I’ve seen men come here from Germany and Australia who thought they could start a new life but they brought that old mindset and those existing problems with them.
So it’s hard and I feel the pain for that person but all she can do is say “we’re here and we’re willing to support you and let’s see can we work a way out of this together”.
Another really interesting one from a woman about her weight:
Hi Dr Eddie. What advice could you offer me please, quite overweight, had lost a fair amount only to put it back on, in a much shorter time. I felt undeserving when i got so many compliments, and i was uncomfortable with the attention, though I personally felt good about myself having lost weight, i am very aware that it is up to me to make changes for me only. Doesnt help that I eat my feelings either! You would have a field day sorting me out, lots of other related issues, but the self-sabotage bothers me most. Thanks in advance.
Here’s his advice:
Irish people can be very uncomfortable with comments, sometimes we need to think American in terms of how give ourselves compliments and how we take compliments. What I hear there is, and we’ve a chapter in the book about emotional eating, sometimes it’s not what you’re eating, it’s what’s eating you.
With that we’d encourage a person to keep a mood diary. It’s a practical guide for a person to check what they’re eating but also the mood that they’re having and then target that particular mood. Is it boredom?
To me it sounds like self-esteem is a big issue here. How does this person love herself? Because it sounds like she has a big problem taking praise and almost re-grew herself in a way not to receive any more compliments. There’s a great sadness in that.
I would say, if you work on that belief, that’s going to be the engine of your change.
If you believe that you’re not worthy of the compliments then the opposite of that is that you’re valued and you’re worthwhile and how do you make that belief work in your life.
And that’s it! We’ve agree to let Dr Eddie Murphy leave TheJournal.ie offices now. He’s off to launch his book at Dubray Books on Grafton Street.
Thanks to all of you who got involved today and to everyone who watched the Q&A live.
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Another project to be handed to a private contractor, which will be out of the reach of those and unaffordable by the time their build.
Make 20% of all estates being built handed over to councils, not hedge funds or capital investments
The developers have already come out and said cost-rental will include profit. Profit does not come into cost.
Also, look at the Investment Fund that just bought up 135 brand new homes in a 170 home estate in Maynooth and they will all go on the rental market. These REITs need to be banned from buying residential property.
@Seán O’Loughlin: This is a Housing Bill that does nothing for building social housing for those who cannot afford their own, rather it’s a bill for subsidising debt.
This government have been bought and paid for, the only question left is to ask what was the price? Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien said he does not approve of so-called ‘cuckoo funds’ buying up estates for rental purposes. Yet what does he and his colleagues do about this? Nothing. They just make it easier for those in need of a house, which willl become even less available, to get debt. Brilliant, call that housing.
@Arch Angel: Absolutely… The inflated rent trap is dire fir our country, it means less disposable income and more stress, which means less Irish people taking a chance and creating new businesses.. It also means less money for people in general to spend in local businesses that actually pay corporation tax and employment taxes in this country.
@Eddie Michael: If you hand over 20% to councils the cost of the other 80% is going to rise to cover the cost of the 20%. Builders are not going to build them for nothing.
@John: the councils buy them at cost. Legislate for this
@Jess Delahunt: No builder is going to work for free. Builders will cut back on making Houses making Houses more expensive in the long run.
@John: the government need to use state land and run their own builds through fixed contract work. The state has done this successfully in the past – 1930’s Ireland – was the beautiful suburb of Marino built then?
It’s been said countless times, we need to take our lead from Vienna where 80% of builds are by the state each year. To bring prices and deliver decent, spacious homes down we need to take control of the market from developers and investment funds.
The arrogance of this bill is unbelievable. Despite multiple expert groups CLEARLY indicating that it will drive prices up in the absence of high supply; the minister pushes ahead regardless because it seems he just wants to be seen to do something. If you have nothing helpful to contribute minister, better to contribute nothing at all.
I cannot STAND inept politicians like this. How do they get (re)elected.
Cannot understand why they won’t adopt similar policies as Germany and completely ban foreign investment companies form buying the majority of residential properties. leave them to fight over commercial property.
FFG are a scourge on the housing market. you couldn’t ask for poorer representation of the general public’s interests.
@Mr_Bumkee: ffg are the scourge of this country in everything full stop. All they care about is their image, the one time they actually have a serious job to do, they pull out a quote from mean girls
@Mr_Bumkee: nail on the head . It’s an absolute disgrace whats going on out there. My wife abd I expressed interest over the weekend with an auctioneer on a property listed at 259000 in Ennis. Received an email this morning, the current bid on the property is 309000. Successive FF/FG Government after Government policies have led to this supply situation. Vote them out.
@Glenn Halpin: last weeks question to the Taoisigh, listen to mary lou about what really is happening under constant ffg labour and greens watch and then listen to michael martins reply. Beggars belief that people keep voting them in.
@yoloboyz: we need the shinners to build the €60,000 houses
@yoloboyz: let’s not forget it’s all the shinners fault
Just been listening to KFM radio discussing the issue of so-called Vulture Fund investors buying up private houses and apartments and leasing them back to the local authority whereby the foreign investors can review the rents every three years (usually upwards)and at the end of the 25 year lease the investors will own the properties outright. No wonder First Time buyers are being priced out of the housing market.
@Noel Martin: Agreed. I understand some people may have opposing views on this subject however selling of public land in the hope that a small percentage of the houses built on it may be affordable to those with little or nothing is a joke. It might sound good when the politicians spin it but in reality those the land was intended for will be the ones who will never be able to afford those houses, the developers and everyone concerned will make huge profits from this.
What’s needed is to return to building social housing. Whether you agree with it or not is beside the point, it worked. Granted, it had it’s drawbacks, no solution is foolproof, but it’s s better than selling off public assests for profit in the name of Public Hosing. Something it most definately is not.
@Noel Martin:
Foreign landlord bulk-bought this entire estate:
No point in building houses. 0% are for affordable ownership or social renting. Or for Irish citizens.
Instead of waffling, he can do something useful and ban non resident vulture funds buying up housing estates en masse. Its illegal in Germany, but the lads in FFG have to look after their buddies in the vulture and hedge funds.
@Ronaldo Blanc: Historically in this country social housing meant the local Authority building council houses on land it owned. These were then aportioned out to those without the means to afford a mortgage but they had to pay rent, which was decided upon their income.
This bill, claiming to be a Social Housing Bill, is has noting to do with housing. It’s making debt affordable to those on low means, in effect subsidising debt to those for whom it would have been previously unavailable. In reality what’s needed is basic but functional, low cost Council Housing, provide this and we wouldn’t need to be spending €1 billion annually on housing people in rooms that are death traps and seeing kids eating their dinner on the street.
By the way is anyone exhausted and tired about listening to the government about affordable housing and never doing anything.
Just build the houses and stop allowing vulture funds buy an entire community.
Darragh O’Brien is the new Eoghan Murphy.
@Cookie: He’s worse! Never voted SF and thought I never would. But we desperately need them in power asap.
@Thomas Smyth: I would rather have FFs record in building houses than SF! They are so busy talking, critising, promising but just look at Northern Ireland ? What have they done?……
@anne: the north is totally different there is the DUP and London to contend with, what’s FFs recent record at house building ? because that’s all that counts.
All these schemes do is give assistance to means tested buyers while keeping the cost of housing high.
Why don’t the government reduce the cost of housing at source, so everyone can afford them?
@Cian Martin: because not everyone could afford them even if they were half the price- shared equity is a much better idea than giving people free housing
@John Lyons: I’d like to know where the these free houses are as I live in a private rental with a disabled husband and son I get some help from the state toward my rent on a RAS scheme but I can assure you it’s ain’t free. I have asked the council on many occasion for a transfer to a council owned house to no avail to free up a private rental to someone that can afford to rent it as without the help I get we would be living on the streets. I’d love to be able to buy a house but due to circumstances beyond my control that will never happen and even if I was housed in a council owned house it’s not free I would have to pay rent to the state under the differential rent system.
@John Lyons: there are no “Free” houses given out in Ireland.
A person aged 30 getting a social house while on minimum wage will pay €90 per week rent or €4680 per year or €257,400 over 55 years till the end of their life and still won’t own an asset at the end of the tenancy.
Paying private landlords HAP of €22,000 per year to house families in counterproductive
Social housing generates income HAP costs
@Cian Martin: Lower tax on internally generated construction materials, reduces construction costs and promotes the use of Irish suppliers and thus promotes job generation. But that’s far too logical for our tax loving government who can’t see the woods for the trees.
Some developer with political connections will no doubt be making bank from this little operation
@Tarraing Mo Liathróidí: Printing money!
6,000 over 4 years? You may as well not bother – it won’t make a bit of difference. This is a HUGE issue which requires HUGE ambition, which is government lacks right across the board and has been so clearly evident in the response to the vaccination roll out. Shut the door on your way out.
@Fiona Kelly: spot on. 6000 in 4 yrs is an embarassment
By God.. these Politicians do love to talk… but you rarely see any action..
@Geoff Bateman: he’s had 5/6 years in government or supporting government. No one really trusts this FF stooge to make a difference.
10% social and 10% affordable housing? 80% to private international investment funds then? These “politicians” should be out on their ears this is a national disgrace. Next time a ff or fg politician shows up on your door, show them the gate!
@James Reardon: at one stage in the tiger era affordable in parts of south Dublin was defined as earning 58k or less.
@Petulant mcbarity: unbelievable. The more this goes on I feel worse for first time buyers. A woman posted recently she’d been to dozens of openings and noticed the same woman there she’d seen at a few openings, she asked her what she was looking for and was told she’s not looking, she represents a Chinese investment fund and was told buy up as many 1 bed apartments around Dublin that she can. This is well worthy of a massive protest.
@James Reardon: the woman that posted mentioned she was a single mother running her own business. I can only imagine the stress she’s under. Was saying the banks were making it very difficult for her also.
@James Reardon: Don’t forget even at these “affordable” prices you still need to save 90k towards a mortgage all while paying rent, it’s absolutely rediculous that they won’t take the fact you pay €1200+ a month rent into account when deciding if you can afford to pay the mortgage.
Tell your TD, FF FG and Green u do not want them to vote for that bill. This is the cost of the loan to Ireland made by government, but NEVER approved by DAIL. Government account to no one but DAIL. but TD not holding them to account and wont until voter start holding TD to account,.
Lets be honest here, the vast majority of FF & FG voters are in the older demographics and already property owners. These proposals will always have the protection of existing assets value as the prime concern, it’s why we always see these backdoor “solutions” like grants and shared equity to ensure the seller doesn’t lose out.
We’ll never see a flood of house building under FF/FG to ensure supply meets demand since it’ll devalue their core voters assets as well as many of their passive rental incomes.
A change of government towards those who have even the slightest care for the plight of those under 50 would be the only thing which would make a meaningful difference to the housing market.
@Rochelle: What they forget is all these house owners with children in their 30s still living with them. Their days are numbered. They were numbered at the last election but got lucky with the low number of SF candidates. I think they don’t really care about anyone except their rich friends.
Why can new 3 beds in the North be sold for a profit at €150k?
@ChronicAnxiety: I would sooner live in a wheelie bin.
@Martin Scaldbag: A lovy green wheelie bin with the Fianna Fáil logo on it and you’d be happy.
@Seán O’Loughlin: lovely*
€450k is considered “affordable” by a couple on €90k a year. If couples on that significant income need “affordable housing” then something is VERY , VERY wrong with housing market.
How about hear me out. Stop allowing vulture funds to buy up swathes of houses.
I am convinced the only way to buy an affordable home is to
save for a few years,
hope for a recession andpray to god you keep your job.
After maybe 10 years when the economy looks like picking up,.compete with the vulture funds and maybe then you can get a home
Hiw in the name of god is a house at 450:000 affordable?
Awesome, myself and my husband just need to earn another 30k a year to own one of those 450k houses. I’m sure my public sector and his private sector employer will happily give us the pay rises.
He’s so angry and aggressive when challenged on his policies. His bullishness and stubborn nature won’t yield any good results. Not the hallmarks of a level headed reasonable minister.
@Rob Gale: His only experience was working in an insurance company. He has no qualifications or experience for the role he is in. His stubborn stance on things is a sign that he has no idea what he is doing or even trying to do.
@Rob Gale:
The more MW dug in on Morn Ire this am with Q’s on REIT’s, the more animated the Min became. But you couldn’t blame him really, being a greenhorn, as like with most RTE Radio current affairs interrogators, the grilling can be fairly intense, being a zero-bull zone.
All he had to say was, the more residential dev. that takes place around the country until supply equals demand, or even exceeds it, the merrier. There’ll come a time when REIT’s will be left with unlettable stock at prices now being asked.
Current tricks being adopted by Sharks in artificially trying to preserve perceived MV would soon crumble, once S is > or = D, if that ever happens!
With Econ growth rates set to rocket post C-19, and with no shortage of nimby merchants nationwide, little’s gonna change.
@David Corrigan: that’s why most of our ministers have been so inept. None of them have experience. Mostly ex-primary school teachers etc. Then before they know it, they’re in government, and in negotiations with people of real business acumen and cunning. They get rings ran around them and end up gifting half the country to private business and not even knowing how or why they did. Most are in awe just to be at the table in the first place.
The result of this is that Sinn Fein will get a majority in the next election. 100%. If FF had solved the housing problem then maybe not but the fact that they have made it worse means its a certainty. Young people have been treated awfully by these parties and were being blamed front and centre for coved. These people will vote SF because of the health and especially housing situation. FF and FG have had their shot and made a complete balls of housing. Its getting serious because people in the 30s do not own a home and cannot afford it. The older they get the harder they will find it to get a mortgage because of their age.
The last election we say the huge support SF got from the younger voters who are becoming more and more disconnected with the main parties. The trends are that that every election SF gets more and more popular as there are more younger people voting and the age profile of the FF and FG voter gets older.
@Diarmuid O’Braonáin: Probably BUT wont change a thing, cos GOVT bound by term of loan NEVER approved by DAIL. It DAIL voter need to look to TD whose vote needed to put this scheme FF FG and Green and but cost is huge of ignoring them.
Who is going to pay for this scheme that pricing house out of market for citizens forced to rent with no security of tenure cos government not pursuing such a policy and ban investor purchases.
I’m pretty much centre or centre right but the equity stake is nonsense economics. It just increases the price of all houses bought with the scheme. Assuming that this will increase supply is like throwing petrol on a burning building in the hope the fire brigade will turn up faster.
€450,000 is affordable???
I can tell you from experience it is not.
A 90k deposit on a 450k house leaves a €360k mortgage. If we factor in interst on the loan at 3%, and factor in the income tax paid on the earnings over 30 years, these so called affordable homes will cost to mortgage payer 1 million euro in earnings over the life time of the loan.
I dare @journal.ie to fact check how mich a €450k affordable home mortgage will cost. Nobody wants to highlight the money made on mortgages for Lenders.
Dont ya just get totally fed up with the constant dribble. Couldnt organise a kick in a stampede
Another ‘discussion’. NOTHING!
Reforming the totally broken and unstainable social housing model would help a lot, that never seems to be on the cards for some reason. Hopefully the cost rental scheme will help improve things.
@Shaner Mac: it won’t, because the developers have already signalled they’ll be pricing in profit.
If I were younger I would emigrate to Canada and have a life there. If you miss home, come home for a month in the summer. The politicians are incapable of solving this housing crisis. Outside the box thinking is needed and there is none of it (apart from ideas to increase prices such as this shared equity deal)
@Virgil: Agree: The politicians are incapable of solving this housing crisis.
The Irish must solve this themselves ….
.. insist on a Referendum to establish Family Homes as fundamental to peoples needs … shelter .. then no law can contravene this, including VAT of €28,000 on a new home … obscene from a FF Government who pretend to support home ownership.
https://www.change.org/p/irish-referendum-on-family-home-special-status
David McWilliams (Economist who predicted the 2008 Financial CRASH! )
“The Irish housing market is a scam”.
————————————————-
The root cause of the Irish Housing Crisis is “COST of BUILD” – not “Supply” which is only a symptom. A Referendum on housing is essential to fix this.
https://www.change.org/p/irish-referendum-on-family-home-special-status
All the builders merchants that I know,all gone up 20% across all materials
Quite recently, citizens of Belgium took a class action law suit against the Belgium government over their failure to live up to the government’s own climate action bill.
https://m.dw.com/en/belgian-citizens-sue-government-over-climate-targets/a-57018431
I think it’s high time for the citizens of this country to look at doing the same in terms of the governments housing policy & it’s complete lack of inaction to address the problem. There’s a very strong argument that our government’s housing policy is driving up prices & locking most out of the market entirely.
In the US the same is happening in terms of large investment firms buying up large portions of the housing market & is having the obvious devestating results, alos locking vast ammounts of citizens out of the housing market
Do these people ever learn. Hopefully the 25 to 35 generation who have zero hope vote them out at the next election
Only RADICAL solutions will solve our housing problem and this lot of FF, FG and the Greens, filled with middle class private school educated, landlords, solicitors, career politicians etc will never ever solve it because they don’t want to or really care and they always nod to the developer class with every solution
Think the issue here is why is a first time buyer paying up to 450K for a home?
German investors come here but not allowed to work that way in germany
Typical FFG, the party whofunds the developers. They would need to ask themselves how many developers actually ever built social housing when this was part of their mandate? Practically none. The government need to task local authorities with building proper social housing instead of rewarding their wealthy friends, the property developers.
If only they had built a house for every plan that they have managed to launch…..
So basically anyone looking to avail of this scheme in dunloaghaire rathdown or north Wicklow actually can’t. There has not been a new 3 bed built in these areas for under 450k in 3 years. This clown has no idea of what’s actually going on
So with 10 o/o social and another 10 for affordable Housing Does that mean The Councils are selling our Land for UN affordable Housing ,sounds Very very Dodgy to me and the Dog next Door.
I heard a quote today on the radio saying that we were a country of tenants decades ago, and we are going to be a country of tenants again into the future, we are allowing landlords from other countries own us again.. our young will never own their own houses in the coming decades.. it will be beyond all but the very rich. is this really what we want? We need to close these tax incentives to these large investors. We need to act now, this year.
FFG looking after there developer friends, no surprises.
Lining there pocket again only for rich to get more wealth
It’s like the song “the TD said before the election l’d get a house near me Ma”
Politicians by their nature are not the people who should be tasked with solving the housing crisis.
Great, discussions. They usually wrap these up pretty quickly and arrive at a sensible solution that goes ahead and will most definitely remedy the problem, don’t they?
@This time its personable!: Like putting a band aid on a giant leak
Poor Murphy was hounded out but sure his replacement has done nothing better
Investment companies buying up houses
We need to get this FF government out now
I love how even the Journal is throwing shade by using inverted commas on “affordable home”.
SOCIAL HOUSING!!!! That’s how you solve a housing crisis. It would bring down rents, and more 2nd hand homes would enter the market, increasing supply and reducing the cost of buying a home.
Someone has to pay. The developer will pass the cost on to the 80% paying full price. They should sell 90% of the houses at full cost and then the buyer claim vat back on the cost of building if you qualify under some scheme
440k is affordable? Need to save 40 years to reach that amount..pff
Landowner gets a cut, construction gets a cut, bank lender gets a cut, vulture fund gets a cut … we’ve gone back to the 1800s the efforts of 1903 and all that was fought for forgotten. Gov need to watch out, they’re driving the black market. Irish people may be distracted with Covid at the moment but this is gathering pace since before the last election. We all know the cost to build these houses factors in money for nothing profiteering and it’s immoral and criminal playing with peoples lives. Young people stuck between childhood and adulthood unable to settle down and start a family, living in their childhood bedrooms. Gov are elected by the people to serve the people but are not. We don’t need to think up a solution but consult other countries and adapt and adopt.
Ban foreign investment in residential property. It works in other jurisdictions.
What a disaster of a proposal, makes me sick that property prices are being kept artificially high. Affordable supply will never happen in this country with these policies, goodbye ffg nice knowing ye
@SaveTheTrees: and you still need to save a 90k deposit deposit whilst paying rent in your current home which the banks refuse to take into account when assessing if you can afford the mortgage, I mean if you’re paying 1500 rent a month surely that means you can afford a mortgage of 1400 a month but they want you to save that 90k out of the remaining 40% or 50% of your disposable income after paying said rent
The Government that keeps on taking so they can keep giving to the people who don’t work for it .
Why is not questioned properly
He is like a gramophone record
I am no expert and could be wrong but wouldn’t it be better if instead of selling most of the land it owns to developers the government was to build on them social/affordable housing bringing down the costs when dealing with construction firms(I’m not against them making a profit but within reason) and if these companies do not believe it’s worth it why not call on foreign companies?am i missing something?
.
This scheme will see dust if a majority of TD will not VOTE it thru.
In particular the TD in F F , F G and Greens.
So voters get on to your FF, FG and Green party TD and tell them u do not want them to vote for this bill.
All voter doing otherwise giving TD permission to pass on this legacy.
This scheme not only pricing house out of market but saddling citizens and offspring with the costs of it and not enuf money in budget for health ??
The DAIL is It where vote are cast that government needs to implement all these policies that are result of them loan terms.
Only DAIL can put a stop to these policies but TD not doing it and wont until voter start holding them to account. Grossly underestimated and big big price,
I don’t understand people giving out it’s the people voted them in no one else to blame
Poor Murphy was hounded out but sure his replacement has done nothing better
Tells how little research went into this that Kilkenny capped at 250 when the only new houses available at the minute are 370 and 585. 2 previous new builds went for 875 and 350 but sounds like a great plan
@John: the government need to use state land and run their own builds through fixed contract work. The state has done this successfully in the past – 1930’s Ireland – was the beautiful suburb of Marino built then?
It’s been said countless times, we need to take our lead from Vienna where 80% of builds are by the state each year. To bring prices and deliver decent, spacious homes down we need to take control of the market from developers and investment funds. The lack of insight, understanding and commitment to make changes for ordinary working ppl is staggering.
At least the Minister is determent to build houses! Opposition and particularly SF will want him to fail no matter what! Its their route to Government if he fails Let Darragh O’Brien do what the voters in July ’20 elected the Government to do! BUILD HOUSES. This is a big Elephant that needs bite sizing to complete…there are many routes for a successful Housing Policy ..Government is now developing a good one.
@anne: It’s amazing that you can type while you sleep Anne. Time you woke up and smelled the roses. If you think FF are the solution then I really don’t know what to say to you.
@anne: Be part of the solution Anne. Not the problem.
This man has obviously been to a “communications expert” who told him to use his hands more to get across a point. Waving his hand about like a flapping bird, or windmill now.
This government should hang there head in shame 6,000 Houses over 4 to 6 years 6,000 houses should be build in 1 year every year and 450,000 euro price in Dublin the government think that’s affordable they haven’t got a clue election now
My question is when SF are in government, well you know the free 4 bedroom detached house we are all getting is the indoor swimming pool heated or not?
this is what rte is reporting…. imagine whats actually happening …
So now a couple earning €90k will be forced to spend €400k on a house that previously cost them €350k. Extra €50k in the bank for these developers.
(€315k mortgage cap 3.5 times and deposit).
Folks, this is what €185,000 would get you in France if you were to be so bold and move….
have your say