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Co-living space being advertised in Dublin. Barta Capital

Minister to assess how co-living developments can be brought under rent legislation

Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien has said he has always been opposed to co-living developments.

GOVERNMENT WILL ASSESS how co-living developments with licence agreements may be brought under rent pressure zone legislation. 

Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien told reporters in Government Buildings today that he was opposed to co-living developments when in opposition and banned them when he entered government. 

In 2020, a decision was made to amend the 2018 Planning Guidelines to restrict all future commercial co-living development in Ireland on the back of a report on co-living from officials in his department. 

The report raised concerns that the number of developments were become less niche and were now playing a greater role in the country’s housing system, and that many potential sites were outside the city centre. 

Prior to the ban, a number of co-living developments had already received planning permission and therefore were permitted to proceed.

The Business Post recently reported that Bartra Capital has started to advertise its first co-living units in Ireland, in Dun Laoghaire, at €1,880 a month, which is nearly €800 more than it told planning authorities the units would cost to rent.

While the minister would not comment today on the specific development, he said there are very few co-living developments coming on stream. 

The minister said some of the co-living developments may have license agreements and do not fall under rent pressure zone (RPZ) legislation.

“Certainly what I’ve said is that where these developments and where there may be license agreements as to how that can be brought in under the legislation, I believe that’s possible,” he said. 

Such changes were made previously with student accommodation developments that were also under licence agreements, said the minister.  

“We were told that wasn’t possible [with student accommodation]. It was possible, we were able do it and we provided protection for students,” he said.

Speaking about rent controls, O’Brien said “that’s certainly something that I am looking at”.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he never took the view that co-living was “going to be the solution to the housing crisis”.

However, he said he believed it could be an option for people who don’t want to house share or for people who come to Ireland and do not want to house share while they search for somewhere else to live. 

Former Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy faced criticism for his defence of such developments in the past, after telling a conference that such blocks offer an “exciting” choice to young workers. However, in 2020 he said O’Brien was right to restrict the developments. 

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11 Comments
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    Mute Dot Com
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:20 PM

    RTE to hand out two abacus

    624
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    Mute Patrick Bateman
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:28 PM

    .. and 6 Pencils (HB with Integrated rubber)

    328
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    Mute Winston Teardrops
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:50 PM

    RTÉ deserve a few boots. This isn’t one of them however.

    37
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    Mute IrishGravyTrain
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    Mar 12th 2015, 5:41 PM

    License increase first though. About €350 extra each should cover the €150 million consultancy fees in to what type of abacus. Wood or Plastic.

    102
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    Mute Play Against Par
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    Mar 12th 2015, 6:12 PM

    11 year old looks at this calculator-like device, then looks at his Xbox 360, then at this calculator-like device, then at his IPad….. 11 year doesn’t look at his calculator-like device ever again!

    61
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    Mute Paul Raven
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    Mar 13th 2015, 6:20 PM

    They would be covered in lead paint and cost 52 million squillion along with a committee to oversee this failure. Just don’t lick the paint

    1
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    Mute Dermot Mc Loughlin
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:31 PM

    BBC hands out free coding devices to help children with programming and give them a leg up in future science.
    RTE reminds children everyday at 6 that a primitive god needs his daily attendance.

    219
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    Mute Winston Teardrops
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:51 PM

    “primitive” – there are modern ones I ought to know about?

    44
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    Mute Dermot Mc Loughlin
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    Mar 12th 2015, 7:02 PM

    There’s thousands of gods, all it takes is some imagination.

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    Mute Richard
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    Mar 13th 2015, 12:39 PM

    I think the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a relatively recent deity.

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    Mute Emachine
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:16 PM

    Step up to the plate RTE

    194
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    Mute Glen
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:19 PM

    Would you be willing to pay extra for your TV licence. You don’t think the overpaid Dobsons & Turbridys of this world are going to take a pay cut now do you.

    127
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    Mute Philip Murphy
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:25 PM

    Why is it their role to do this? If theres benefit schools should be the ones to recieve the funding to provide it. I dont immediately see that the national broadcaster and TV license money should be funding these resources as opposed to the Education Department unless as a rather quirky publicity stunt. If this is assessed as beneficial and worthwhile simply give the Department the extra budget. The BBC is fantastic but no need to ape their every move.

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    Mute Paul Raven
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    Mar 13th 2015, 6:18 PM

    Someone has to pay for the new wine cellar

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    Mute Baz
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:18 PM

    Fair play to BBC

    177
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    Mute Huey
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:27 PM

    If rte handed these out they would also implement the household coding device license fee

    166
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    Mute Symbolism
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:23 PM

    In a few years we will discover they were ‘accidentally’ collecting data on every home with one of these devices.

    118
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    Mute Charles J. Ahern
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:21 PM

    Maybe if they didn’t dumb down the curriculum the kids wouldn’t be idiots over there

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    Mute tmwtbc
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    Mar 12th 2015, 5:16 PM

    Not to mention dumbing down the BBC itself.

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    Mute Alien8
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    Mar 12th 2015, 10:27 PM

    The UK has consistently outperformed Ireland every year since records on education index. This kind of programme will ensure that this continues while the department of education and rte still make a mess of getting basic internet and IT to schools. Don’t mock our neighbours as a nation of UKIP following troglodytes when we are playing catchup.

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    Mute Joe Bloggs
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:22 PM

    I didn’t understand any of that.

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    Mute Winston Teardrops
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:53 PM

    They are going to give out little yokes to the kids to play with so they can get jobs doing same when they are big. Because the mines and shipyards are gone and the call centres are in Asia.

    129
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    Mute John Collins
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:24 PM

    God damn I always hoped this age of coding, computers, AI etc would come after my time.

    33
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    Mute Alan R
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:30 PM

    Well if it did you wouldn’t be able to make that comment just there, a touch ironic that eh

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    Mute John Collins
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:40 PM

    No it’s not ironic. You kind of misunderstood my point. I mean a world where everything is about computers, technology etc, which is the age we are about to enter/just entering. We’ve had commenting abilities on the internet for years.

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    Mute Alan R
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    Mar 12th 2015, 6:54 PM

    You do realize that your commenting is enabled by coding and computers, – and lots of it? Probaby millions of lines of code, since you use Twitter’s oauth login to enable the post. Given that you are using our Twitter account to post, – its almost certain that some AI came into it too, for Spam and Web security filtering, especially since you sent your comment also to Twitter.

    I would say it is in fact ironic by definition, since code,computers and probably AI enabled your comment.

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    Mute John Collins
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    Mar 12th 2015, 10:14 PM

    Alan R

    Can you read?

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    Mute pongodhall
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    Mar 16th 2015, 12:43 AM

    I am nit computer literate, as many pensioners/disabled, especially rurals are not.
    No lessons available but an hour a couple of times per week and some buses and we could rectify this gradually.

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    Mute Cupid Stunt
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    Mar 12th 2015, 5:09 PM

    BBC give out coders. Rte give out reminders on behalf of Irish water to sign up or else you will be reduced to a trickle and fined and a lein put against your property.

    26
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    Mute Jack Nolan
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:45 PM

    Have we not given up on rte yet?, apart from the odd decent thing like Notoriuos or L/H wouldn’t go near it!

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    Mute Paul Fanshawe
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    Mar 12th 2015, 6:09 PM

    Don’t understand why you need a device to plug into a computer to start coding. You can write code in any simple text editor.

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    Mute J
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    Mar 12th 2015, 7:19 PM

    That confused me also.

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    Mute Rochelle
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    Mar 12th 2015, 7:38 PM

    The point is for this thing to be a visual incentive to code rather than directly aid coding. It’s a wearable device with scrolling text, flashing lights and other things that make it very obvious what your coding changes are doing. I guess the idea is changing a sequence of lights or flashing your favourite sports team across a screen is more understandable and exciting for learning the impact of code than a hello world screen.

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    Mute Paul Debussy
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    Mar 12th 2015, 8:18 PM

    I’m not convinced. If someone isn’t impressed into coding by seeing games, the internet and everything else related then I doubt that piece of crap will inspire them, flashing lights or not.
    It apparently needs to be plugged into a ‘real’ computer anyway so it’s redundant.

    From the scant information provided in the article it seems to be a poor attempt to make it appear that the British government are doing something to improve their education system when all they are really doing is wasting money by handing out a bit of tat.

    Combined with the fact that the average punter never has had and never will have the need or interest to program anything it looks almost totally useless.

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    Mute Thierry Ratt
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:18 PM

    Coding to be used in wars nice one lads

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    Mute sinlacasa
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:35 PM

    Can’t top that RTE, might as well close down now and save us that licence fee.

    33
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    Mute Winston Teardrops
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    Mar 12th 2015, 5:00 PM

    “Mein Gott! Der Tommy Trojan und der Englander fischingßcam!”
    “Take that Fritz. His firewall has come unstuck chaps. Hurrah for our boys!”

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    Mute J
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    Mar 12th 2015, 5:24 PM

    Permission to shout “Bravo” at an annoyingly loud volume, sir.

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    Mute Dermot Mc Loughlin
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    Mar 12th 2015, 7:05 PM

    TALLY HO!

    6
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    Mute Al Ca
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    Mar 12th 2015, 8:18 PM

    Only a Winston could get away with that…lol +1

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    Mute Paul Debussy
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    Mar 12th 2015, 4:43 PM

    Fairly pointless. What eleven year old in Britain hasn’t already got at least one device that they can code on now if they felt like it?

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    Mute sean conway
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    Mar 12th 2015, 8:08 PM

    And if RTE did do something like this everyone on here would be saying “waste of money” “typical RTE” “They should spend money on decent programming first” blah blah blah. RTE can never be right regardless in the eyes of the “this country is sh!te” brigade that usually comment on here.

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    Mute Brian Gormley
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    Mar 12th 2015, 5:06 PM

    There’s enough gadgets in the class rooms, alot of the kids can’t count without a calculator

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    Mute Seán O'Sullivan
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    Mar 12th 2015, 11:59 PM

    Oh to have a broadcaster where folk dont pay a licence fee for the angelus

    6
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