And back to Leitrim, they don’t actually have any TDs, poor souls. Devins, Scanlon and co. don’t really depend on Leitrim constituents. If they’re fucked, they’re proper fucked.

Thing is, there’s a glut of housing across the country. The national average for unoccupied
housings is 12.1% – and it’s 15% when holiday homes are added into the picture. For example, there’s 45,000 empty housing units in Dublin (25,000 in Dublin city council area alone). In Meath, over 6,000 housing units empty ; In Carlow, over 2,000 ; In Kildare, 6,700, and so on. And not one of these is a holiday home. How is Leitrim, with over 22% of its housing units empty, going to pick up business, even with Bank of America expansion. And as for decentralization!

The overall point is that this was not a housing policy, not in the slightest. Demand was not set by the mick jagger generation, or whatever McWilliams is calling his books these days. Demand was created by substantial government intervention through a policy of lush tax incentives to aid high net worth individuals and corporate investors. Anyone who’s bought in Leitrim in the last few years has been screwed, and all to help the financial backers of FF. And this is before we get into the substandard building materials and techniques used in Ireland. We’ve houses that are being bought over 30 years, that have been built to last twenty, if even that. Again, no government regulation of the building industry. not very comforting, I know. Leitrim should look to Eamon Sacnlon, Jimmy Devlins, and Michael Finnernan each time the mortgage bill arrives. They’ve FF to thank for the rip-off, anyway.

(Leitrim county council has been steadily building – or buying – housing since 1999. Figures below.)

Year: 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Figure: 30 32 63 79 30 80 20 88

As it stands, Carrick-on-Shannon is Leitrim. Drive through it some day. There are many commerical developments still in the construction phase. When completed, this will bring in new blood. Also Bank of America – the single most important employer in the area – is expanding its operations, so that along with the opening of the new government offices will bring in new heads in need of beds. Much of the construction was conducted in anticipation of these new developments. Was that a good idea? Maybe not. But the problem isn’t quite as pronoucned as it might seem from a glance at the figures.

Gordon

and, you’re looking at 22% of all housing in Leitrim completely empty. When holiday homes are taken into account, that rises to 29%.

you actually highlighted the fault-line yourself. Migrant construction workers living in houses that they themselves are there to build. That is not a construction strategy – that’s cowboy stuff.