Fomenting dissent, or whatever. Surely we can
Boycott of holiday home owners needed - says County Council manager
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While I disagree with him the fact that he’s a landlord in Galway City is hardly relevant to the substantive point he’s making.
Howth Head
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I wouldn't call his point "substantive." It was a very specific suggestion of ways to make life difficult for people who are legally entitled to enjoy their own property within the law - just as he as a landlord is entitled to run his own property business without interference. He essentially wanted to see locals encouraged to target and intimidate those people - it had sinister undertones. Public policy on holiday homes is another matter altogether.
Simon Bourke: Holiday home owners have simply won at the game of life, it’s not their job to solve housing crisis
Even as a blow-in I’ve developed a level of disdain for them. Having wintered it out, endured the high tides, the eastern beasts, I’m entitled to enjoy the summer months in peace, we all are. But as soon as we feel the sun on our backs, the sand between our toes, they appear. Our neighbours.
www.independent.ie
I live in a small estate in a house approximately 200 metres from the beach. In that estate there are six, maybe seven, permanent residents, a couple of vacant properties, and horror of horrors, another six or seven holiday homes. More than half of those holiday homes are bigger than my house, fancier than my house, and better kept than my house. I have met the people who own those houses and they are all perfectly nice, perfectly pleasant and polite; probably great neighbours to those who live beside them for most of the year.
Last week, Tom Gilligan, the director of services for housing and roads at Mayo County Council, proffered an alternative solution to the nation’s ongoing housing problems by suggesting a ‘boycott’ of all holiday-home owners. This “peaceful, non-violent civil action” would have encouraged those living among Co Mayo’s some six thousand holiday-home owners to avoid any engagement with these “bad neighbours”, embark on public campaigns, host community meetings, and apply “social pressure” to the home-owners via open-letters and local resolutions.
Official who called for boycott of holiday homes puts one of his three houses for sale
The senior council executive who controversially called for a boycott of holiday homes has listed one of his three houses for sale.
extra.ie
Howth Head
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Given how strongly he feels about outsiders, I presume he's only selling it to locals with ties to the area?
Would he be in favour of doing the same thing to owners of large houses around the country in which only one of two people live? If we're talking about the impact of under occupancy on our housing shortage then that's a much bigger problem. He could start a "Boycott the Grannies" campaign.
As long as they are paying the full cost of it themselves then that would work... my point was that targeting holiday homes is populist and would have little impact on the overall national problem.
The answer is staring us all in the face, forced euthanasia for all over 75.
This has the dual advantage of freeing up housing for migrants who entered the country illegally and significantly reducing the burdensome and pesky publicly funded pension costs.
A recent Irish independent survey said 70% of those under 20 were in favour of it or 3 out of every 100 people in that age cohort strongly believing its the only solution.
Let's see if you feel the same way when you're in your seventies
That's a bit severe. How about making it so that retirement benefits last for a maximum of 20 years. After that time you stop getting your pension or access to free healthcare and you are subject to a 10% [property tax. If you're a bricklayer and you're physically crocked at 65 then retire in the comfortable knowledge that you'll be well dead by 85. If you spend your day polishing the backside of your trousers at a desk and are in good health at 65, expecting to live for another 30 years or so, then you should work on until you are 75.
On a serious note I'd increase property tax so that the current annual charge is what is charged per month. I'd double that for second homes and I'd make all indirect taxes fully deductible from income tax.
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Howth Head
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Too funny. Reminds me of the Ballymagash Urban District Council from Hall's Pictorial Weekly...
www.independent.ie
Director of Services Tom Gilligan said he was not “in the habit of sending out hoax emails” and that in future he would mark his communications “confidential” to make clear they were not to be circulated further.
Another person, who said they were not a holiday home owner, said the boycott suggestion was “absolutely unacceptable and disgraceful".
“Such a proposal entails men, women and children being ostracised in the community and being refused goods and services,” said their email. One holiday home owner said they found the suggestion “deeply unsettling.”
They wrote: “It is alarming to think that such an approach could lead to unintended consequences, including reduced property tax revenue for the council if homeowners feel unfairly targeted.”
Another said they had bought their property in Co Mayo when there was “no local demand for housing” and wrote of their “total outrage".
An email said: “Mayo is one of the least populated counties in the country with an abundance of land. There is no excuse for a housing crisis in the county.”
One person said it was “bordering on hate speech” and said they were worried about getting “flak” from their neighbours when they visited
Recriminations at Mayo County Council over who leaked proposed ‘boycott’ of holiday-home owners to press
A senior council official who suggested a boycott of holiday homes in Co Mayo rejected claims that it was intended as a hoax.
www.independent.ie
Director of Services Tom Gilligan said he was not “in the habit of sending out hoax emails” and that in future he would mark his communications “confidential” to make clear they were not to be circulated further.
Another person, who said they were not a holiday home owner, said the boycott suggestion was “absolutely unacceptable and disgraceful".
“Such a proposal entails men, women and children being ostracised in the community and being refused goods and services,” said their email. One holiday home owner said they found the suggestion “deeply unsettling.”
They wrote: “It is alarming to think that such an approach could lead to unintended consequences, including reduced property tax revenue for the council if homeowners feel unfairly targeted.”
Another said they had bought their property in Co Mayo when there was “no local demand for housing” and wrote of their “total outrage".
An email said: “Mayo is one of the least populated counties in the country with an abundance of land. There is no excuse for a housing crisis in the county.”
One person said it was “bordering on hate speech” and said they were worried about getting “flak” from their neighbours when they visited
There’s always been a bit of local resentment with holiday home owners anyway. It’s not necessarily anything to do with housing availability. It’s more to with outsiders “drinking our beer and eating our meat”.
I remember a guy in a pub in castlebar a couple of years ago giving out about the “big Dublin cars flying around the place”. (I don’t think it was the council official but I could be wrong)
I remember a guy in a pub in castlebar a couple of years ago giving out about the “big Dublin cars flying around the place”. (I don’t think it was the council official but I could be wrong)
Did he mention that they also kept the local hospitality businesses open and a good chunk of the jobs sustainable?
Seems exactly the sort of chap who flies his big car\fake off road vehicle around the place.
There's a thread in the main forum about lack of trains \ motorways to Donegal.
Reading this thread it occurs to me that if that was put in place, we'd have locals complaining about an influx of tourists, day trippers, holiday home owners... maybe it is good to leave one part of the country isolated
Reading this thread it occurs to me that if that was put in place, we'd have locals complaining about an influx of tourists, day trippers, holiday home owners... maybe it is good to leave one part of the country isolated
Not while I was there but I’m sure it came up later.
And pyrite in the concrete used to build it.There's a thread in the main forum about lack of trains \ motorways to Donegal.
Reading this thread it occurs to me that if that was put in place, we'd have locals complaining about an influx of tourists, day trippers, holiday home owners... maybe it is good to leave one part of the country isolated
Trying to send a message there, to Hell or Donegal... by the slow road.
"Donegal - you must really want to be here."
The local shop for local people Mayo man should think about emigrating there.
I love that