New Campaign against Landlordism needed
I was just talking to a friend of mine who lives in a tiny two bed house in Dublin with three other people. They pay 1800 euro a month. My friend tells me that this Landlord bought this house for about 5000 free state pounds in the 1980s. The Landlord now has over one hundred houses and apartments in Dublin. It seems to me that we have well and truly returned to the days of Michael Davitt and the Land League. Where huge numbers of people are being bled dry by a small group of Landlords. And what do these latterday Landlords do with their ill gotten gains? Like the Landlords of old, they take the money out of the country. The Landlord class in Ireland have bought overseas land and buildings to the sum of 1.2 trillion euro - that right 1200 billion euro. Imagine what this money could have done if it were used to build up Irish Industry. Instead we remain totally dependent on foreign multi-nationals who are already starting to move to Eastern Europe. How much longer can we endure this abuse, I wonder?

Interesting post a chara, well done for bringing this up. Did anyone see Prime Time on RTE 1 last night? Very interesting stuff on the conditions in some of the worst council houses and blocks of flats and even schools. Mostly in Dublin and Limerick. I was very suprised at how bad it is in some areas.. and even more suprised at how little responsibilty the landlords take for the bad conditions in the flats and that. Every time one of them was confronted about the state of the houses/flats that they were renting, they either ran away, told RTE to feck off their property, or pretended that they didnt own the houses/flats at all! Its unbelievable stuff.

The trouble is that according to English common law, which is the law in the free state, private property is sacred. These Landlords can charge what they like for rubbish and nobody has a right to challenge them on it. In my opinion its well past time for the Irish people to shake these parasites off their backs. All the Leinster House politicians do is help push up prices to make the Landlords rich. They do this by encouraging unfettered immigration and by allowing/encouraging the hoarding of zoned building land. Now that house prices have started to drop the Landlord class intend to cut off the supply of zoned land until prices rise again.

The really big problem is that fact that this country will never build up a native industrial base while a tiny group of Landlords can drain off the wealth of the country and ship it abroad. This is exactly what was happening in the nineteenth century. Even the British government during the 19C considered the Irish Landlords a particularly useless lot, and one of the arguments they used in favour of allowing the "famine" to take its course, was that it would put a lot of these Landlords out of business. It is no different today. The dead hand of the Landlord Class acts like a vampire sucking all the vitality out of the Irish people. Badinage mentioned above about 10% unemployment if the housing market was disrupted. Well, if things go on as they are we are certainly facing that and more. Thanks to the price of land and housing people must seek higher and higher wages just to stand still. This is making Ireland unattractive for the multi-nationals. When was the last time a major multi-national set up in Ireland? So the Landlords are killing us both ways: they kill our attempts to build up a native industrial base and they kill our chances of attracting the multi-nationals. This is not a socialist perspective. Any rational capitalist would say the same.

The manopoly of the Landlord class on Ireland's capital has had a detrimental effect on Ireland's development. The spectacle of a native industry languishing in a totally retarded state, starved of capital has been mentioned above. The human cost is that those lucky enough to have good jobs are paying three times too much in mortgages and rents (remember this is a country 4% urbanised - there is no shortage of land), many years of their lives are poured down the drain of an artificial property bubble. For those not so lucky, 20% of households in the 26 counties have incomes below the standard poverty level, i.e. €11,400 for a single person or €24,400 for a household of four. 750,000 Irish citizens in the 26 are living below the poverty line, including 20% of all children. Figures released by CORI show that in the ten years of unprecedented global boom which have just come to an end, only 120,000 Irish people managed to escape from this poverty trap. The Gombeens managed this by bypassing the marginalised Irish completely - by importing cheap, non-unionised, labour from overseas. Now the Gombeens are shipping their ill gotten gains abroad at a phenominal rate. 1200 billion euro on foreign land and buildings so far. If you are paying a mortgage or rent, then bear in mind that your are paying for all this foreign spending spree - but you wont be reaping any of the rewards. CORI also reports that 30% of those households living in poverty are headed by a person with a job.... Another little tit bit that is reported by the 26 county revenue comissioners is that 400 of Ireland's richest men are big landowners on EU social welfare via the common agricultural policy. Unlike those counting their dole in twenty euro notes, these individuals count their dole in the hundreds of thousands of euro.

Dead girl's rent 'must be paid' BBC News A County Armagh couple whose daughter died while at university in Liverpool have been told they must pay for her accommodation for the rest of the year. The letting agent involved is claiming that because the girl's parents acted as guarantors on the lease, they are liable for the debt. The Bessbrook family had received demands for rent owed since her death and threats of legal action.

incredible story. The renter is DEAD. clearly the apartment is not occupied. sad.

It is indeed an incredible story, Kat, but typical of the kind of unrestrained greed that is at the heart of the Landlord mentality. I see that a tax loophole that allows property developers to avoid paying stamp duty is costing the 26 county exchequer more than a quarter of a billion euro a year, and is being used in 40 per cent of all 26 county land deals. The Irish economy desperately needs the price of land to drop but Brian Cowen has reversed a decision to close the loophole, saying that it would negatively affect the property market. Here we see Fianna Fáil acting nakedly as a mere front organisation for the Landlord class. To keep up the staggering profits of the Gombeens, FF is willing to sacrifice any chance Ireland has of ever developing a sustainable economy. Cowen made his decision after commissioning Goodbody Economic Consultants to review a proposed new law, which would end certain tax planning techniques, including a practice known as ‘‘resting on contract’’. Goodbody reported that the loophole cost the taxpayer €251 million in 2006 alone. The report says that more than 40% of all land deals exploit the loophole, which allows developers to avoid paying stamp duty on land purchases. The report also says that up to 16 public private partnership (PPPs) agreements between local authorities and private companies used the loophole. PPPs involving the NRA also exploit this tax avoidance loophole.

Finfacts.ie reports that only €4.2 million euro was invested as VC in new Irish ventures in Q1 2007. To put this figure in perspective, nine billion euro was spent on foreign commercial property by our Landlord class in 2006 alone (this money being supplied by the Irish rent-slaves and mortgage-slaves). The good news is that in the European VC league we are just ahead of Romania:

Has anyone been watching the Channell 4 Dispaches program tonight. It made for very informative viewing. The English working class were being told by the presenter not to worry about the millions of foreign workers coming in taking their jobs and lowering their conditions, because they could go abroad as well if they wanted a decent job. Viewers were presented with the spectacle of this vast nomadic workforce traveling all over Europe, working cheap, living four to a room or, as was shown, sleeping in tea huts on building sites, with no job security, no pensions and many with no social security at all. Nobody was allowed, on this program, to say, just a minute, this is not "just the way things are" but its the way the wealthy Landlord elite want them to be. It seems the English working class are so subjugated and so dejected that they simply cant defend themselves any more. Of course, the Irish working class are not far behind. Its like the Highland clearances all over again - but instead of Scottish people being cleared out of Scotland to make way for sheep, this program showed us the English working class being cleared out of England to make way for cheap, non unionised, foreign labour, willing to rent houses and flats are rack rents because they live two and three families to a flat. What is it in the human race that makes us so sheep-like?

Maybe someone has got the ball rolling. I see four laptops have been lifted from the Bank Of Ireland with some very sensitive information....

I see that Fianna Fáil's Conor Lenihan has said that Ireland is going to have to fight are for "her immigrants" against competition from other countries. Here is a clear admission of how the ruling elite see immigrants - as a way to keep their rent and land prices sky high and to keep wages down. As most immigrants are non unionised, they also serve to subvert the power of Irish workers to negotiate better pay and conditions. Im not criticising the immigrants, but the scurrilous use the Irish Landlord class are making of them. As I mentioned above, Channel 4's dispaches program felt confident enough to tell the English working class to get on an easyjet and leave England if they wanted a reasonable job - how long till the Irish elite are telling us the same?

I've just been reading an essay from Raymond Crotty, posted in the Economics section of this site by MacLiam, from the early eighties, which says that 1% of the population own 50% of the land. Im sure that figure has got more chronic since as thousands of small farmers have been driven off the land and millionaire farmers have used massive EU subsidies to buy up their land. Zoned building land is concentrated in the hands of a few very large developers. The follwing paragraph is worth quoting. The policy refered to reached psychotic levels during the reign of Bertie Ahern: The character of a state is to be judged not by any founding declaration; nor by its constitution; nor by the statements of its politicians. The character of a state, like that of a person, is to be judged by what it does. The achievements of the Irish state in its sixty years' existence make perfectly clear its bourgeois character. The value of the property that Irish law and order protect has increased, since the state's foundation, by 150 times at current prices. More realistically in an age of inflation, the value of property in Ireland, which in 1922 was worth less than twice current Gross National Product, is now worth five times current GNP.<15> The value of property in relation to GNP is more than twice as great in Ireland as in any other country.<16> Full article may be read at: http://admin2.7.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=8913

80% of the Irish population are owner occupiers of their own homes. Now to me that seems a bit low. With the amount of people going on Radio shows and writing about how it is a disgrace that so few people can afford a house anymore and most people would agree. I am sure that many of a leftist precession say this is an indictment of how 20% of the population are being left behind. But read that sentence again. It seems to be saying that 80% is not only high and unusual but kind of crazy. So I decided to a bit of research. I found this one survey about owner occupier housing in Industrialised nations. In Canada the figure is 65.8%; in the US it is 67.9%; in the UK it is 70%; in everyone’s beloved Sweden it is 55%; in Germany the figure is 40.5%. The country in our vicinity is Slovenia at 82%. Now add into the fact that our demography makes us the youngest populations in Europe. When for instance only 21% of young childless couples in France> own a house. The fact that we have 80% is absolutely astounding and I am assuming by population the OECD means over 18. So why do we have such high house ownership. Tenancy in Ireland has always more then the typical European class struggle yoke. The French revolution was the ruling first and second estate been taken down by the rest. It was about breaking free of the control of the upper class. It was a class struggle. The Irish battle against tenancy wars has always been intertwined with nationalism. The British aristocracy owned most of the land and the Irish were the tenants. The leader of the Land League, the organisation that fought for Irish tenants rights was Michael Davitt a leading Fenian (pre-cursor to the IRB which was pre-cursor to the IRA). The winning of the land war with the Wyndham Land Act 1903. Land reform in Ireland was part of the “Killing Home Rule with Kindness” policy of successive British governments. But it didn’t work in fact the opposite happened it increased nationalism and support for Home Rule. Later it probably also led to the rise of republicanism. As when the normal Irish came to own the land they questioned even more why a foreign power controlled them. Thus perhaps in the Irish psyche, tenancy is a kin to being dominated and while ownership is a kin to freedom. Added to the fact that most people see rent as “Dead Money” as money lost that can not be passed on to their children which of course does have some merit. But perhaps that has something to do with that previous mentality. That lack of the ability to own. Maybe this is the reason so few people in Ireland let, once they find a partner or start a family. In much of Europe there is a strong rental sector with many people rent for their lives . This is built on a strong foundation of tenancy rights but equally on a strong demand. Tenancy rights have never ever been a major political issue because it does not really effect that many people, there is not a large ground swell of opinion in favour of it. Where as with planning permission we all now how much that is a political issue. Why are we different to the rest of Europe? Yet when someone has enough money for a deposit they go out and get a 40 year mortgage. They will immediately dive into the property market. Houses prices are ridiculously out of the reach of many yet they sacrifice everything to reach. They are willing to spend 4 hours a day in traffic losing out family time. They are willing to sacrifice staying at home to raise their children to own a house. They sacrifice entertainment, fun practically everything to get ownership of an over valued piece of property. Much of the last election was fought (but not won) on quality of life issues. About people commuting great distances and suffering because of it. Yet the major cause of all these quality of life problems come from the fact that we in Ireland are intent on not renting but owning. A kind of Bull McCabism (I could so be David McDreamy) that drives people to the heights of insanity sacrificing everything in life for a 3-bed semi-d in Carlow. Yet little is ever talked about it. We talk about the need to change the drinking culture, and all manner of other cultures. Yet we never ever talk about this culture. The culture that is causing so many of the problems in modern Ireland. The culture of saying no to rental. And why? Is it because is is even more in our physic then drink? I'm sorry Cael but this report dispels your argument re landlords, we are the lowest renters of property in Europe it seems. Of course we have ghettos in inner city areas were landlords exploit working class people through greed, and yes there is always going to be big money men who will bleed one country dry and invest in another, but to say our economic downturn and the loss of jobs is down to one profession or another just does not stack up. We as a nation are the creators of our economical status, the Irish people did not know how to deal with prosperity as it was alien to them, and the boom admittedly caused a majority of the nation to become materialistic and greedy. But the simple fact of it is we are the lowest renters in Europe and the highest home owners with 80% of the nation owning there own homes. Thus one of the biggest losers in our recent prosperity has been the landlord class. I do agree with what you are saying in relation to the prime time program it was shocking and i believe the government should be ashamed for not inspecting peoples living conditions and acting accordingly, but i just cant buy the line that landlords are bringing about our destruction. There is more houses out there than the population knows what to do with the problem is the governments handling of the boom and inflation in house prices has left them unaffordable for the ordinary citizens, which means if there was no rental property they would be on the streets. I can understand your frustration on seeing fellow Irish men and women in these conditions but i think you are pointing the finger in the wrong direction.

Thanks for the reply, a chara. In the first place Id like to know how you calculate that 80% of the population are home owners? 10% of the population are foreign workers, and there are very few of them who do not rent. A huge persentage of young Irish people are living at home, so they may be distorting your figures. There is also the fact that a great many homes are still on very big mortgages, so its really the banks who own these homes. You might say that mortgage payers are not paying rent to a Landlord, but in fact they are. In the last ten years homes have been selling at up to twice their real value (this is a country 4% urbanised, there is no sortage of land), in reality the up to 50% extra young people have been forced to borrow represents a rent to the Landlord who sold or developed the land. Put on top of that the massive Stamp Duties that house buyers have been subject to, and you find that these Stamp Duties have been used to pay off the "national debt" and subsidies tax cuts for high earners (many of them Landlords), and more importantly, pay for tax insentives to builders and developers - most of them Landlords. So, all in all, the Landlord class are sucking the blood out of Ireland's youth - via their front Leinster House.