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THE ANTI-AUSTERITY Alliance has slammed government plans to invest in modular housing as the cost for each of these temporary homes is €11,000 higher than building actual houses.
Dublin city councillor Michael O’Brien described the plan as “an utter shambles”.
“The building of each one of these modular units is now going to cost €11,000 more than the cost of building an actual house based on the Department of the Environment’s figures,” he said. “It will cost €191,000 to build each modular house. The minister thinks that the costs are worth it because of the time saved on construction and that hopefully people will be accommodated in them for Christmas.”
However if the Minister had of had a bit of foresight, the council could have used this €4.2 million in funding to begin to purchase houses in the area and this could have been done by now. The average house price in the area is roughly €150,000. This would have allowed homeless families who will be moved into the modular housing to be moved into actual houses and would have added housing to the council’s housing stock rather than spending fortunes on temporary modular accommodation.”
TD Ruth Coppinger was also critical of the plan, saying there should be an immediate review of the scheme.
“The government need to take the housing crisis seriously,” she said.
Paying for speed
In response to criticisms, a spokersperson for the department said the AAA are “as usual, missing the point”.
“The modular housing is a short term measure to provide temporary homes for families who are currently being accommodated in hotel rooms,” they said.
Providing traditional social housing can take anything from two to four years from start to finish depending on planning issues, tenders/contracts and then the build programme. There are currently 4,000 units of social housing under construction – the majority of which will come on stream in 2017. In the mean-time, the state is acquiring, leasing and refurbishing social houses to fill the gap before building comes on stream.
“The Ballymun modular project is a pilot one which is proceeding at emergency pace. As it’s 22 homes, it’s the first of its kind, you are paying for speed and for less economies of scale. Once a successful pilot is initiated, then the lessons learned from this can be applied to a larger programme of modular housing,” they added.
This modular housing is in addition to the €292 million allocated to Dublin City Council to provide social housing by purchasing, building and leasing homes from 2015-2017.
Personally I have a Z3 and find the screen well big enough, any bigger would for me just be a pain to carry around, but it’s personal choice really,
MH, your last point was very helpful….
Will thanks for the compliment, happy it was useful to you as I can see you needed it based on your comment
I have a note 4 and it is a great phone. Size isn’t a problem… in fact I look at the iPhone 5 or regular 6 and they look way too small now.
My point is you get accustomed very very quickly to the larger screen size.
I have never used pure android but find the Samsung stuff really good so far.
I’ve a one plus one it’s the best phone out there
Completely agree. At half the price of the above phone, don’t understand how ppl can justify it. Really hope the OnePlus drives down the cost of the rest of the phone.
The current 6 is poor. Loose screen and shadow on the screen.
Too big a screen.. Unnecessary imo
I use an LG G2 32GB, paid €260 online. Superb phone, decent screen, great camera, awesome battery life…voted best smartphone of 2013. Can’t recommend highly enough :)
http://mobile.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/mobile-phone/3471896/lg-g2-review/
It’s 2015.
It is not the size what matters, it is what you do with it.
Rubbish phones the nexus,only hipsters or developers have any use for them
Clearly you never used one. I had the S4 Google Play Edition and it was amazingly smooth, fast and simple. The big bonus for me was that it was free of Samsung ‘s bloated software. While it was simple (but still customisable but not to the extent of samsung), the software was so good that I didn’t feel the need to change every nook and cranny.
I happened to break that one so I bought an S4 again(2 months ago!!) and rooted it with the software. It’s even better when rooted. And it’s just as fast as the new phones now. Not bad for a 2yr old phone.
My original nexus 5′s battery died while still within warranty and Google were very quick to send a replacement to me so kudos to them and that’s another good reason to purchase a handset from the play store. It’s still a very zippy phone after the lollipop update and I have to admit I’m delighted with it. Being free of carrier and manufacturer bloatware is a bonus, although Google have gone to town with their own car seat of apps, which, incidentally, you are unable to uninstall. The 6 is a bit too phablet for me personally. My best mate has the oneplus one and although it is very cool, it’s just too bloody big!!!
one plus one is indeed a smashing phone especially after the Lollipop update.
I could get the G3 (2015) and spend an extra 400 euro for essentially the same phone (give or take a few tweaks) but that woyld be pretty brain dead.
None of the networks are carrying it.
I’d switch to bill pay in a heartbeat if they have this phone :(
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