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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Comment
Pat Flanagan

Pat Flanagan column: Big builders getting huge handouts makes little sense

The public got €200 from the Government to help with the soaring cost of living - but wealthy developers will get a handout of up to €144,000.

Could there be anything more Irish than gifting millions more euro of taxpayers’ money to a sector which once wrecked the economy?

What we are witnessing is a form of social welfare, or State handout, for big builders – and there’s no means test.

While the homeless are camped out along Dublin’s canals, it’s as if we’re going back to the days of the Galway Tent.

Whatever happened to capitalism and the free market, or is that only for the little guy?

This is simply a Government scheme which will net big developers huge profits but will do absolutely nothing to make homes more affordable.

What makes this obscene scheme worse is that the cash will be handed over without the Government seeking any reduction in the price when the apartment is sold.

Despite spending sums for each apartment which would actually buy a family home in Co Longford, the taxpayer gets absolutely nothing in return.

There might also be some excuse if the State retained some stake in the properties concerned, but that’s not the case as the profits on the sale – and prices are going through the roof – go straight into the builders’ pockets.

You might find it difficult to believe that during the worst housing crisis in our history the Government is giving €450million of our money to big developer via the Croi Contaithe (Cities) fund.

In most cases the developer will get €120,000, but the subsidy goes as high as €144,000 if builders can argue they will get a lower price for because they are outside Dublin.

Surely if the builders are that impoverished that they can’t find the finance to finish off their apartments the State should take over those developments for social and affordable housing.

That would of course eliminate the huge windfall some of the bigger builders with multiple uncompleted properties are in line to receive. The fact is the State is helping developers increase their profits while doing absolutely nothing to reduce the every increasing price of accommodation.

Oscar Wilde once said that “the problem is the English can’t remember history, while the Irish can’t forget it”.

The great man might have added that the Irish are also doomed to learn absolutely nothing from their history.

Be it handing over a maternity hospital with links to a religious order or looking after developers whose industry crashed the economy, we appear pre-programmed to repeat the past.

After all the disastrous State interventions following the property crash – bailing out the banks and developers and setting up the notorious NAMA – you’d think the last thing a government would want to do is throw money at big builders.

The Cities Scheme is supposed to fund the shortfall between spiralling building costs and current market prices.

But hang on, haven’t property prices soared by 15.3% nationally in the 12 months to February last, as the cost of housing nears the peaks not seen at the height of the boom in 2007?

And a recent survey by the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland found that construction cost inflation was running at an annual rate of just over 13%.

If inflation is spiralling so are property prices so why the need to hand over a €450million taxpayer-funded subsidy if not to boost their profits.

There are tens of thousands of vacant properties around the country which could be renovated with a fraction of the €120,000 given to builders for each of their unfinished apartments.

Sinn Fein’s housing spokesman Eoin O Broin claimed Croi Conaithe cities scheme is “crazy” and “a chronic waste of taxpayers’ money”.

The Social Democrats housing spokesman Cian O’Callaghan hit the nail on the head when he described it as a “sweetheart deal”, and that’s what it is.

This scheme has nothing to do with using taxpayers’ money to provide homes but has everything to do with helping big developers provide a home for our cash.

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