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    ESRI: 2/3rds of people living in houses too big for their needs

    Irish Times Article, More than two-thirds of people are living in homes too big for their needs, ESRI research finds. In 1991 the average household size was 3.34 people. It is now 2.7. With a population of 5 million that means we need 1,852,000 housing units. If we had the same average...
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    Alexei Navalny dead

    Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has died in prison in Russia. He was an incredibly brave man and someone who I admired deeply. It's not fashionable to have heroes these days but if I had to pick one he would have been close to the top of my list.
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    Referendums on 8th of March

    What was will people vote in the upcoming referendums? One proposes the addition of the words in italics to Article 41.1: “The State recognises the Family, whether founded on marriage or on other durable relationships, as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral...
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    Private Equity money in Housing

    Given that there is no shortage of money in the country should there be more barriers put in place to stop institutional investors from buying existing homes? If the funding that a developer requires to build the homes comes from institutional investors that's fine but if they are block-buying...
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    RIP Eddie O'Connor

    Eddie O'Connor, renewable energy pioneer, former chair of Bord Na Mona, founder of Airtricity and the co-founder of Mainstream Renewables and SuperNode died last week at the age of 76. He should be regarded as a national hero and lauded as such in his passing by our great and good but the I've...
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    Constitutional Referendum on the role of women in the home.

    We are having a referendum to remove the reference to the role of women in the home next March. I think that's a good idea but why can't we just remove that bit instead of replacing it with some new definition of what a family is? That sort of stuff has no place in a Constitution.
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    Government on course to exceed housing targets in 2023 and 2024

    Great news, the Government is on course to exceed housing targets in 2023 and 2024. "Providing an update on residential housing supply for the first nine months of the year alongside Tánaiste Micheál Martin and Mininster for Housing Darragh O’Brien, Mr Varadkar said based on completion and...
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    Sniffing

    Two of the people I work with currently have colds and are sniffing continuously all day. Is killing them a disproportionate reaction?
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    Minimum Wage Increase

    The National Minimum Wage is to increase to €12.70per hour from the 1st of January. While this looks like a measure to tackle poverty it isn't. Most people who earn the minimum wage live in middle to high income households and social transfers are a much better way of dealing with poverty. What...
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    Hamas attack on Israel

    The shocking attacks on Israel by the fundamentalist Islamic terrorist group Hamas, and particularly their massacre of over 200 unarmed civilians at a music festival, should be condemned strongly and unequivocally by our political leaders, our Taoiseach and our President. Given the previously...
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    Cheap City Breaks

    I just thought of this topic after posting in the Uber thread. I was in Kaunas in Lithuania recently and it's a really beautiful city with a medieval centre, fantastic parks and historical sites and great restaurants and bars. I never would have thought of it as a destination except that the...
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    Neutrality

    The Government has convened the Consultative Forum on International Security Policy to discuss what Irish security policy should be. It is commonly stated that Ireland is Neutral but that is an ill-defined policy with no basis in law. It is more accurate to say that we have a policy is military...
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    Rory Hearne's State run construction company proposal

    Professor Rory Hearne, lecturer in housing policy in Maynooth University and former People before Profit general election candidate and avowed Trotskyite, has proposed that the State set up a company to build public housing. It would directly employ all of the labour and build an additional...
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    Feel and Think

    The words "feel" and "think" are not interchangeable. "I think" and "I feel" are totally different things. If you preface a statement with "I feel" or worse, "I just feel" then you are telling your audience that what you are about to say has no merit, that you haven't considered it, you...
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    Working in the Middle East is like working in apartheid South Africa

    I'd add that working in much of the Middle East is akin morally to working in Apartheid era South Africa. You will be benefitting from and contributing to a system that is grossly exploitative and repressive.
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    RPZ’s and house sales

    The rents that greedy landlords can charge in RPZ’s are capped at 2% more that they charged the previous year. But what about those greedy people selling houses? They are the real reason that housing is unaffordable. Why not cap the price they can sell at? The price should be no more than the...
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    Interview with Doctor who was forced to resign over Covid views

    Vascular surgery Martin Feeley was forced to resign after questioning the States reaction to Covid. Interesting article here
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    Does a grandparent paying creche fees constitute a gift to the child's parent?

    As above, if a grandparent pays the creche fees for their grandchild are there tax implications?
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    Does evicting tenants increase homelessness?

    Given that evicting a tenant from a property does not reduce the housing stock how does it increase homelessness? Is there data to back up the contention that it does?
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    Carnot Engine

    Carnot in the UK say that they can produce engines that do not have to waste power cooling themselves. Currently the most efficient engines have a thermal efficiency of 35% , with another 35% is used on cooling and 30% goes to exhaust. Their engine doesn't use any power to cool the engine so...
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