Lorcan Sirr: "A housing strategy written by Flann O'Brien"

[Brendan Burgess]

Lorcan Sirr: This is a housing strategy written by Flann O’Brien

Renters such as students who have to move each year will get hammered by this provision, while other tenants are more likely to stay put

www.irishtimes.com

These changes are all driven by one overarching aim: a desperate desire to attract the international investment the Government thinks it needs to increase rental supply and help resolve the housing crisis. If new rental supply is triggered by rent inflation, our rising rent problem is apparently going to be solved by allowing rents to rise. Flann O’Brien is now writing housing strategy.

On Tuesday, Minister for Housing James Browne couldn’t say when rents would fall on foot of these changes, hardly a ringing endorsement of his own policy. (Hint, Minister: no realistic amount of new supply will reverse the https://www.rtb.ie/about-rtb/data-insights/data-hub/the-rtb-q4-2024-new-and-existing-tenancies-rent-indices (<u>100 per cent increase in rents</u>) in the last decade.)

 

[T McGibney]

Sirr is a socialist who for years has pushed back against anyone who has said we need to return to the private developer model that delivered 490,000 new housing units in the 2000s.

 

[rungun]

Sirr wrote quite a good piece last week on water, but was unable to do so without bringing up his housing motifs. He will continue to bang the drum of easy solutions and it will be lapped up by those who like the sound of that.

 

[Howth Head]

Yes, he lays on the emotional socialist touchstone "profit-equals-bad" stuff quite heavily throughout the article, e.g. "...these renters will be paying the pensions of comfortable, retired homeowning teachers in the US and elsewhere..." Like the SD housing "expert" there are no realistic solutions offered.

Either way - we seem to be in real trouble re housing solutions with only a reluctant admission emerging that inward population growth is the main driver, along with spirallng costs:

Demand for housing is now the second highest in Europe with prices surging

Demand for housing continues to surge, piling more pressure on the Government.

www.independent.ie

The latest Housing Market Monitor Q1 2025 from the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) also shows that housing commencement numbers for the first four months of 2025 are only around 40pc of those in 2023.

They are now at similar levels to those seen in 2016, a fact that means it could be years before the housing crisis eases.

 

[rungun]

Why is that nonsense stat brought up seriously?

Clearly 2025 is impacted by 2024 and the record commencements.

It is quite frankly embarrassing it is printed.

 

[Sarenco]

Lorcan Sirr’s academic qualifications are all in town planning.

He’s not an economist and I wouldn’t pay much attention to his opinions in this regard.

 

[Persia]

Curiously he seems to have become the go to person for media interviews, I generally turn off when I hear him. He just cant keep the lefty rhetoric out of his commentary.

Ronan Lyons always struck me as a much more measured Property Economist and a great communicator. Yet I never hear him on radio or TV.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

Ronan Lyons always struck me as a much more measured Property Economist and a great communicator. Yet I never hear him on radio or TV.

You clearly don't listen to Morning Ireland, so.

He is rolled out every quarter when Daft issues a new report.

I have probably heard Lorcan Sirr on the radio, but not often.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

Sirr wrote quite a good piece last week on water, but was unable to do so without bringing up his housing motifs.

This is a very interesting point.

Because one does not agree with a socialist point of view, it does not mean that everything they say should be rejected. As I pointed out elsewhere, Paul Murphy of PbP made a good point about the proposed legislation encouraging bad landlords.

Likewise, if you like a right wing commentator, it does not mean that everything they say is right.

Lorcan Sirr has often criticised the impact of local authorities hoovering up privately built houses for social housing. I have also made that point. So it must be a good point.

Brendan

 

[rungun]

Lorcan Sirr has often criticised the impact of local authorities hoovering up privately built houses for social housing.

I'd be careful what you wish for in this regard. Viability to developers comes from having an end buyer where they can make their profit, there hasn't been buyers for many of the unit types that LAs / AHBs have bought up. Developers knew there was always someone at the end willing to pay.

The recent pull back by the Department of Housing on some developments suggests costs are finally in focus for them.

 

[Dr Strangelove]

"...these renters will be paying the pensions of comfortable, retired homeowning teachers in the US and elsewhere..."

This is standard from most academic commentators.

Anyone with half a brain realises the solution involves public AND private capital and people who claim otherwise should be ignored.

 

[ClubMan]

My biggest issue with Sirr's comments is his comparison of the proposals to Flann O'Brien. At least the stuff that Flann wrote was generally entertaining/amusing. Maybe Kafka or the Joyce of Finnegans Wake would've been a better comparison...

 

[Marsupial]

Lorcan Sirr has often criticised the impact of local authorities hoovering up privately built houses for social housing. I have also made that point. So it must be a good point.

Alternatively, as we say in West Cork, even a broken cuckoo clock is right twice a day!

 

[Greenbook]

This is standard from most academic commentators.

Plus he has a cushy 'academic' salary and will have a fine pension someday paid for by renters

 

[T McGibney]

My biggest issue with Sirr's comments is his comparison of the proposals to Flann O'Brien. At least the stuff that Flann wrote was generally entertaining/amusing. Maybe Kafka or the Joyce of Finnegans Wake would've been a better comparison...

Beckett.