Rory Hearne's State run construction company proposal

The following already exist:

(1) Housing Finance Agency - this lends to LA to finance capex on housing
(2) Housing Agency - I'm not sure what they do
(3) Land Development Agency LDA - a new body, within last ten years, that assemblies and acquires housing sites from other State agencies / semi-states - this seems to be a good innovation
(4) 31x LA
(5) Hundreds of AHB
(6) I can't believe it, but there is a new AHB regulatory agency: https://www.ahbregulator.ie/

We are not short of State agencies.


I am more of a supply-sider.

I would like to see huge efforts to train staff.

I would go as far as the following:

"No income tax for ten years if you train and work as a builder"
 
In case the links help at all:
Protocol said:
(1) Housing Finance Agency - this lends to LA to finance capex on housing
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About Us | Housing Finance Agency

Housing Finance Agency plc is a company limited by shares promoted by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government under the terms of the Housing Finance Agency Act, 1981 and incorporated on 8 February 1982
www.hfa.ie
Protocol said:
(2) Housing Agency - I'm not sure what they do
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What we do | The Housing Agency

www.housingagency.ie www.housingagency.ie
Protocol said:
(3) Land Development Agency LDA - a new body, within last ten years, that assemblies and acquires housing sites from other State agencies / semi-states - this seems to be a good innovation
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FAQs - lda

lda.ie lda.ie
Protocol said:
(6) I can't believe it, but there is a new AHB regulatory agency: https://www.ahbregulator.ie/
Click to expand...

What we do - Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority

What we do - Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority
www.ahbregulator.ie www.ahbregulator.ie
 
Builders and tradesmen are making a fortune at the moment. If they were to move to the public service, they would look for similar money. But, as they are public service, they also get pension and all the other benefits.

The building industry is an extremely volatile industry to work in with tradesman let go if there's no work for a week and then getting a call a week later if new work has come in. The demands on housing isn't a constant either, so we cannot say how long these workers will be in demand. But they will have permanent positions...
 
thedaddyman said:
We've had a mind shift change in recent years in this country where core services such as bin collecting and water management were either outsourced or moved to a different quango altogether. Was that always a good thing for the end user, possibly not given that things we historically took for granted as being for free we now pay for and it is debatable if the service is better or worse? And we have a housing crisis, especially in The Pale, so why not think differently

If this new body
  • had the power to compulsory purchase land
  • Had the power to crash through planning and stop the nimbyism
  • had a budget to do what it needs to do
  • Had the ability to employ and pay for all of the services and tradesmen needed to complete the building
  • Had a governance process in place to ensure the building was up to scratch and standard
and then if it handed the running of these new houses over to the local authority and they had the power and ability to manage them correctly, then it should in theory work and should in theory be cheaper since it removes the private sector margin

In theory is the word here. In reality and looking at the amount of capital programmes, delays and cost over runs in this country, I'd not have confidence.
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I doubt that the private construction industry would be happy with that kind of preferential treatment. While my remaining life is far too short to be wasted reading any of Hearne's partisan scribblings, I assume that the EU Competitions Commissioner would insist on a level playing field for every company involved in the construction sector.
 
T McGibney said:
That's presumably not unconnected to Hearne blocking everyone on social media who mentions his People Before Profit past.
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Does he now? :rolleyes:
That's a bit unusual. Normally, the comrades wear their membership as a badge of distinction. Wonder what's up with the reticence? His opinions don't seem to have changed much, if at all. I suppose he has successfully infiltrated the RTE/Irish Times general lefty ecosystem. But, then again, a lefty background hardly hinders in those quarters. All part of the "long march through the institutions" so beloved of the left.
 
joe sod said:
It must be remembered that when all those houses were built by the state the workers didn't have much benefits etc, safety culture and compo culture didn't exist. It wasn't that great working for the state vis a vis the private sector back then especially when you were a manual worker.
I saw a clip of the last journey of the howth tram in 1960, they showed a clip of the workers taking up the tram rails. The guy was operating a jack hammer but his face jewels were shaking from the vibration and no hearing protection. This was probably a CIE or affiliated worker. That's why everything could be done so cheaply back then.
Therefore back then the state could build houses cheaply because land was cheap and labour was cheap. If you didn't take up these jobs, the emigration boat was there for you
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According to Prof Michelle Norris, most of the actual building was subcontracted out, pretty much at day rates to actual workers who probably enjoyed something close to zero benefits.

The issue is accountability - LEA's have their own policies, underwritten by local development plans, which often contradict national housing policy. And then wild ideas (such as the hard limit on number of residents in Greystones in Wicklow, and the deliberately anti-development "green necklace" around Swords in Fingal) are often concealed anti-development policies designed to obstruct future building. Shifting the accountability to a state owned agency without demanding 100% accountability of both local authorities AND the government would probably just lead to another Bord Na Mona, Coillte or EirGrid. And you'd need seriously challenging targets to have any impact on current situation.

Under-ambition is currently a big part of the issue, but also accountability, and not just for national government but local government as a whole.
 
What surprised me about the good Doctors article was not a single word on the elephant in the room - a dysfunctional planning system. As for the 'private sector' this would exist if there was relative freedom to enter the building market. The risks of failure on a project means that it is unattractive except for the larger players - its an oligopoly in economist parlance.
 
FintanJ said:
Is this topic we all agree on? No positives at all from Hearne ?
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Sarah McInerney interviewed him yesterday on Drivetime. She pressed him on a few aspects, but overall gave him an easy ride. Seems a pity that RTE couldn't dig up someone with enough knowledge of the topic to dissect his proposal.

Link here for those with lots of spare time on hands (or anyone suffering from insomnia!).
 
Rory Hearne is a committed Marxist ideologue, people like him don’t care if the cost of such a policy was enormous, or if it failed to increase supply

For him it’s all about replacing the so called “ market “ with the state

If the market were comfortably supplying current demand and family homes in Dublin 6 averaged 350 k , folks like Hearne would still present and push for the same radical change
 
Michael O'Flynn, the Cork developer and builder, has had a few animated discussions with Rory Hearne in the media over the last few years.
 
These reports are half-positive - but they do not explain how the labour shortage is to be covered.
 
jpd said:
These reports are half-positive - but they do not explain how the labour shortage is to be covered.
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I think covid , the lockdowns, working from home culture, welfare rates , many builders got the pandemic payments and were off work for months has changed everything. It's very difficult to motivate guys to turn up at 7am every morning, rain, hail, snow and now sun when they have experienced the good life and when they see other people their peers not having to drive to work at all now. Maybe shorter working week for builders and favourable taxation regime would be the only way to attract them into it.
 
What happens to the new state company's workers in say Mayo when there's no projects upcoming for a while....will they all relocate to a part of Ireland where the same state company is short workers? No questions asked, no additional remuneration?

What level of sick days are we looking at in a state company with a lot of manual labour like this?
What happens on site if a key worker for a particular job that day rings in sick? Will all work stop? Will the state company's workforce allow a sub-contractor be called in at short notice?

I know a lot of builders in their 50's who now only work a few days a week, sometimes cash in hand, while claiming benefits for the other days or the full week. They're too old, too tired to do a full, hard week's work on a site. And with the money easily got from the state and the jobs on the side, they can afford to not confront that lethargy.
What will happen with workers that age in this dream world state company?
 
Labour shortages and planning inefficiencies are the main constraints on the delivery of housing. There is no shortage of money. Moving labour from the private sector to the public sector won't increase the supply. Inevitably it will reduce it due to the fact that it will be less mobile.

All of the other things in the proposal can be done better and faster by the private sector if the State can only get out of the way.
 
Delboy said:
know a lot of builders in their 50's who now only work a few days a week, sometimes cash in hand, while claiming benefits for the other days or the full week. They're too old, too tired to do a full, hard week's work on a site. And with the money easily got from the state and the jobs on the side, they can afford to not confront that lethargy
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Those are the guys that make up alot of our construction industry now, the younger guys don't want to do it anymore as discussed above. If the state was to get all heavy handed regarding the welfare fraud they would lose all those construction workers as well. Surely a fast track approach to get asylum seekers legalised here if they agree to work for a set number of years in construction should be explored especially if their claims are dubious otherwise.
 
joe sod said:
Surely a fast track approach to get asylum seekers legalised here if they agree to work for a set number of years in construction should be explored especially if their claims are dubious otherwise.
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Sorry I can't for the life of me see how that could work. It would look too much like forced labour and would probably create another compo crisis debacle.
 
The Irish Times, with their usual tabloid sensationalism, has the headline today that "Government failed to spend 25% of social and affordable housing budget in 2022". Ignoring their mistake in leaving out the "The" at the start of the sentence what it actually shows is that the constraint isn't money, it's labour and inefficiencies and/or lack of human resources in the planning sector and the State sector generally in relation to construction.
 
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