Last Monday’s Panorama programme on BBC 1 presented by Fergal Keane was a pretty depressing presentation in the main – if you want to watch the programme online and you’re not in the UK you might need to fool the BBC into thinking that your computer is in fact in the UK with IP masking/proxy software like Expat Shield. The programme had the sub-title “How to blow a fortune” and for those of you who didn’t see it, there was a (very) brief look at the boom in the early 2000s (BMW show rooms, leather jackets, a woman buying an apartment in Turkey) and then an extended look at the hangover, including a couple who had lost their jobs and were now each living with their own parents, a teacher living on a ghost estate in Mullingar and a graduate emigrating and her dignified father suppressing grief and anger. An interesting 30 minutes but for my money Rita O’Reilly’s Prime Time programme on the developers aired before Christmas was superior.
But one thing struck me as the cameras captured the interview with the woman who had bought the semi-detached house on the Cloon Lara ghost estate in Mullingar – the house itself was modern, seemed well-built, had double glazing and looking at estate agent details, the houses appear to be 950 sq ft, three bedroom, two bathroom and decorated to a high standard, above average fireplaces, modern kitchens, built-in wardrobes, wooden/tiled floors, double doors internally, natural gas fired central heating and cobble-lock driveway. Sure the estate has not been completed and many of houses are empty, and the female teacher who featured in the programme is bemused at the carloads of ghost estate sightseers who come in to gawk at life in one of the many incomplete ghost estates in the country (far more than the 600 referred to by Fergal, by the way). The owner is more concerned at the fact that the properties have dropped some 50% in value and can apparently be bought today for €130,000. But aside from the fact that the property is worth far less than she paid for it and the estate is incomplete, it struck me that she does at least live in what seems like a very decent home.
Yesterday Eurostat published a report entitled “Housing Conditions in Europe in 2009” (the more summarised press release is here) and guess what? Our housing stock is in a far better state than most of our neighbours, there is less over-crowding and for most of us, our home is our castle and we’re not tied into the nastiness that can be the condominium/leasehold model that typifies apartment ownership. We suffer less pollution and although noise can be a problem for many, we are still amongst the least-affected sufferers in Europe. And lastly our housing is relatively affordable – on this last point, the world has moved on since 2009 and with a raft of tax increases, rampant unemployment, pervasive negative equity and interest rate increases I don’t think we’re as affordable as we once were for existing owners though for buyers, property has not been this affordable for 25 years.
Lastly the report identifies member states where there is over-crowding which can indicate housing shortages. Will we see Irish construction companies selling their services in Bulgaria, Romania and Latvia and Poland?
It doesn’t mention anything about the quality of building, the energy rating and particularly the sound insulation. I can guarantee you half the new houses built were built to the lowest standards possible. What builder would pay more to get it right when he could get away with gerry-building?
Hi Lisa, the report does deal with noise complaints and concludes that we are more satisfied than most of our European neighbours in that area. Insulation/energy efficiency would have been a worthy area to examine but I’m not so sure we would perform relatively badly – I’ve personally come across some pretty badly insulated UK, French, Spanish, Danish housing. The construction boom threw upsome monstrosities and shoe-box accommodation and in some cases defective housing (eg pyrites/pre-formed frames) but on balance I would tend to believe the report’s conclusions that we have *relatively* good housing conditions.
Sorry OT, but what’s your email – just need to ask you something off air?
Hi JP, you can always contact this blog in confidence either through the contact form under the About tab or by email to jagdipsingh2008 [at] hotmail [dot] co [dot] uk
I disagree – the nature of the Irish housing type is a disaster – as the $IMF system begins to collapse the true cost of oil will become apparent.
This may bring back some Asian light manufacturing back to Europe and hopefully Ireland as the present global supply chain is unsustainable but workers will have a lower purchasing power especially for imported goods and commodities.
If there is work in cities then apartments and terraced housing close to factories and services will be necessary for everybody but the upper middleclass and above.
Of course if there is no work in cities they will become uninhabitable and it may be best to head for the hills.
As regards overcrowding, the other countries in the top ten least overcrowded are some of the highest quality of life nations in the world. Ireland is definitely not worthy of their company in terms of quality and planning of towns and cities. In the richer countries of the Continent, for the most part, people live in dense, walkable towns and cites. In Ireland, we have people trapped inside ghost estates with no neighbors, no services and dependent on their cars. I think the country would benefit from a lot more crowding, practically every town and village in the country would benefit from some shrinking. It would be a ridiculous, embarrassing use of funds, but a much better return on 20 billion euro would have been to employ construction workers to tear down the housing estates they just finished building and make towns denser and more walkable. It would certainly be of more long term benefit to the country than giving it to Anglo. Town planning through the use of a housing estate is pure stupidity.
There was a gapping hole Panorama program. It didn’t address where the banks got the money to lend and the inherent flaw in the Euro – The ECB doesn’t directly regulate and monitor member country banks.
First – Fantastic blog. It should be required reading.
Two comments about the standard of our housing, one of which is statistical and the other is anecdotal.
1. (I don’t know if this table will look ok when posted)…
Year Pop >65 Alone %
1996 413,882 106,943 25.8%
2002 392,836 113,922 29.0%
2006 422,242 121,157 28.7%
Point is, we have 30% of people who are over the age of 65 living alone. Mostly, this is their choice, but the system prefers to put them into nursing homes if they need even minimal/moderate support – at huge expense. One community project I know supports 250 people to live in their own home at the cost per annum of a nursing home bed for 1 person for 11 weeks.
2. My husband, who is in an allied-to-construction trade, has so many horror stories about the materials, specs and finishing of big construction jobs, that it would make your hair stand on end.
So I wouldn’t necessarily equate the quality of housing with number of residents…
And I wouldn’t necessarily equate the quality of housing with the age of the house either…!
PS – How are you voting tomorrow ;-)
Hi Cass, thanks for that, would you care to credit the community project by name / is there a link at all?. Sadly I fear that emigration and cuts to living standards will only make care of seniors and preserving the dignity of the basic freedoms they deserve to enjoy in our society more of a challenge. It’s worth pointing out that the Eurostat study is comparative and although our housing is not at all perfect, I for one have had personal experience of badly converted flats in the UK, glass and steel modern apartments in Spain which were impossible to live in with the sun and badly constructed, poorly specced housing elsewhere. It seems to me that compared with a generation ago, our homes have double glazing, central heating, showers and more sanitary facilities than before, well-equipped kitchens, burglar alarms, bigger windows and more natural light. And whilst there is much to fault with new construction, I really do think on average it’s quite good relative to other countries. There were major disasters with pyrites around Dublin and the pre-cast frames for example in Portarlington and it’s a nightmare to be on an estate where the sewage systems, roads, paths, lighting were left incomplete. But against that, personally I have seen a lot of good construction and good renovations.
As for voting intentions, I think all I can say is I hope there is a huge turnout tomorrow and even if people just go along and spoil their vote that we can all feel some ownership, however remote, of the momentous decisions that will need to be made in the next six weeks. And whoever is at the helm will not be spared criticism on here for failings with NAMA/property/the banks.
OK NWL, you’ve just revealed to all and sundry that you have taken no part whatsoever in the housing boom over the last ten years. You clearly never bought or lived in any of the new houses constructed during the boom!
Construction standards in Ireland were poor to non existant. Witness the recent splurge on home insulation, even for new houses, over this last winter. People were cold, particularly those who were living in supposedly “modern” insulated houses. The developers simply skimped on everything. The closer you come to 2006 vintage houses, the worse standards are likely to be.
We should at least be thankful our houses were not in New Zealand. If an earthquake of half the magnitude of the one that recently hit Christchurch hit this country, every house built post 2000 would instantly disintegrate.
Hi OMF, I’m afraid that although I would agree with you that in some instances constuction standards were poor (in some cases absolutely reprehensible) I think on I will stick with my opinion that compared with other European countries our housing is not at all bad in general and I have had experience of some new build and renovations during the boom. There’s an elaboration on this in the reply to Cass below.
Namawinelake – did you watch the Primetime report about housing with pyrite in foundations? No recourse for 20 years and homebond insurance effectively worthless. Didn’t realise homebond was so tightly linked to the building industry and provides so little cover. that is another regulatory scandal surely
OMF, you betray your youth.
The house I grew up in, a semi-d in Swords constructed in 1973, had single-glazed pine framed-windows (they rotted within two years, but could not be replaced due to cost), no insulation, an oil-fired heater in the centre of the house that 1. broke down and could not be fixed and 2. couldn’t be afforded in the oil crisis of the seventies.
For two years, 76-77 we had just the fireplace in the living room.
Then a back-boiler was installed. Then there was a coal strike…
I remember helping me da insulate the attic and lag the cylinder. I remember shared baths. I remember being cold…
About 1981 maybe we had an anthracite burner installed (with the same back-boiler system).
This was considered high-tech…
Both my parents worked in high-tech industries during pretty-much all this time (from 1977 onwards anyway).
The sound insulation between us and the other semi-d was so bad, we could hear the Angelus in stereo at a time when all TVs were mono…
High density is only way