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DO YOU MISS the commuting?
Around three quarters of a million journeys were made on public transport every day in Ireland in 2019. According to the last Census, almost 175,000 of us used public transport to get to work each day. And then over one million people drove to work each day.
For many workers, that was just how things were. Commuting to work was a part of life, and influenced things like where they lived, how they got around, and how they spent some of their hard-earned money.
The pandemic has changed the equation.
Covid has allowed some people who were still working to boost their savings pile and, coupled with the lack of supply of housing in Ireland, it’s not surprising that prices have gone up since the arrival of the pandemic.
The latest Daft.ie House Price Report found that house prices jumped by an average of €20,000 in the last 12 months as supply fell significantly, while the number of mortgages approved in the first three months of this year is the highest since 2007.
The Journal also reported recently that home-buyers have raised concerns about property prices being inflated by bidding wars as people struggled to view houses during the Level 5 restrictions.
In a number of cases, houses sold for tens of thousands of euro above the asking price and, in one case, €120,000 above the asking price.
In the new world of work where a person can potentially do some or all of their job from their home, will it still be necessary to live in and around Dublin and other cities in the future?
As we’ve pointed out so far in the Good Information Project, not everyone has a traditional office job that was upended by Covid-19. But, for those that do, they may have the option to retain remote working into the future.
While there are no definitive statistics available yet about where houses are being bought, anecdotally people in the property industry say homebuyers are looking outside the capital more than usual in recent months with remote working very much in mind as they do.
The availability of broadband is the key consideration for these prospective homeowners as any move to elsewhere in the country will need to be underpinned by reliable internet if they are going to be home working. Another trend being seen in potential buyers are people wanting to move back to the place where they grew up or where they have familial ties.
Ed Carey, an estate agent in Enfield, Meath, says that Covid has changed the way that people make their decisions about buying homes.
“I remember after one of the big snow events, I couldn’t sell a house in the country for ages after that,” he said, “because people were isolated for a couple of days during the snow [so] they wouldn’t have wanted to live out there.
And then Covid happened. People can make very long-term, fundamental decisions based on events. They’re making these decisions based on Covid. For them, it’ll eliminate the commuting hell. While Covid may be the shock, employers are also realising they don’t need people there in the office anymore. It’s a big shift that’s happening here.
Jonathan Quinn is chair of the Society of Chartered Surveyors in Ireland’s residential group and is based in Longford.
He has seen an increase in both the number of people looking to buy in the area, and the speed at which they’ll move to buy.
“It’s a little bit far to commute regularly [to Dublin],” he said. “People in Longford had been doing a bit of commuting with that hybrid of remote working too [before Covid], but that trend has just exploded.”
We had one property up for sale just before Christmas. We immediately had 11 sets of people book viewings and 10 of these said they would be remote working.
Quinn described the experience of one couple who, just before March 2020, had arranged a deposit and went sale-agreed on a house in Dublin city centre.
“But what you can get for the money in Longford is dramatically different,” he said. “In the end, they opted against the small townhouse in Dublin. They bought in Longford instead. A 2,500 sq ft job.”
For this couple, Quinn stressed, they were moving back to Longford as they had links to the area. And this was a theme found by others in the field.
Ed Carey, the Enfield estate agent, says the same thing: while his customers previously were primarily from Dublin, he has seen a trend of people moving out of the capital back to where they’re originally from elsewhere in the country in recent months.
“The urban 3-4 bed semis are the best sellers,” he said. “Houses that were more difficult to sell were the rural bungalows.”
Carey said he’d usually ask sellers in rural areas about their well or septic tank.
“Now my question to them is ‘what’s the story with the broadband?’,” he said. “If they have broadband, then you’ll have remote workers interested [in buying the property]. If you don’t you’re in trouble.”
Karol Jackson runs the Wexford Town-based Menapia Properties. She said there’s been “huge demand” in recent months from first-time buyers in the area.
“It’s primarily people moving from urban areas, specifically Dublin,” she said. “It’s really accessible by road. With the quality of broadband here too, people are saying we don’t have to live in the city. We’ve a good quality of life in Wexford Town. We’ve loads going on.”
On the supply side, Jackson said the number of available properties at the moment is “a bit short” due to the high demand but second-hand townhouses will still change hands for around €165,000-€170,000.
“Oh, and absolutely broadband is essential,” she added. “You have to have that.”
Turn to remote working
Quinn said that he’s getting the sense from prospective buyers that they believe remote working is here to stay.
“There’s one lady who’s making the move,” he said. “Wouldn’t have considered remote working and had a really good house in Dublin. Her company had brought in consultants to look at their policies and they raised worries about staff retention in the future.
She was told ‘we’re not going to need you every day’, so she decided to look at remote working.
The sustained lockdown has meant that many people are now reassessing their options, even if most haven’t taken that plunge yet.
“People are much more house-conscious now,” Quinn said. “Saying ‘I wish I had this, I wish I had that’. People have been looking at how they want to live in the future a lot more. They’re selling up and moving elsewhere because they want to move into something different.”
In a poll for The Good Information Project, Ireland Thinks researched the appetite for people moving as a result of greater work flexibility. The vast majority seem unlikely to up sticks in the future but 21% of people offered a score of 6 out of 10 or higher when asked about an intention to move from where they currently live.
Managing director at the polling company Kevin Cunningham said, “There are variations here where some demographics are clearer indicators of a likelihood to move: younger people, those living in Dublin, living in rented accommodation, and those without children are all most likely to move.”
Regardless, the sharp rise in house prices is something that Carey believes won’t continue at the same rate once we begin to move out of the pandemic.
“The no viewings is causing a real spike in prices,” he said, referring to the public health measure that restricts house viewings during Level 5 restrictions. “I’d a guy bidding on a place, and he turned around and said to me he was also bidding on two or three more. And that’s driving up the prices.”
The Meath-based agent said a steady market was preferable to one where prices shoot up and then down again in the future. He believes the re-opening of house viewings from next week will temper those recent rises, although demand will stay strong into the future.
“The people looking to move closer to their roots is feeding into supply a bit now,” he said. “I’d say it’s a trend we’ll see continuing.”
This work is co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work is the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.
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What is going on in this country behind the curtains… Unbelievable, shameful, .
@LITTLEONE: I actually agree with you on this. This was pure nasty and has the potential to be one of the biggest scandals to hit this country. It is despicable that those who crave power would be happy to destroy an honest mans reputation just because they find the truth uncomfortable..
give McCabe the commissioners job.
The words Iceberg and Tip spring to mind….
@windbag: could be that official Ireland does not like the great unwashed having a say.
is this comment clean enough for you journal?
This has all the hallmarks of something extremely unsavoury has gone on behind the scenes involving certain individuals.. if the truth of this does not emerge and people criminally held responsible. Then what can you say.. if this type of stuff is going on. What else has seriously been covered up and what else lies behind the curtain…
@ciaran: typical garda, Templemore needs a new cirriculum
I wonder if that “error” is like the “errors of judgment” that the top brass make , when the normal bloke makes an almighty F,C-UKP
@Bill Madden: no is the answer, normal people do not cause other normal people to go to jail, and all that that decision entails due to a bad day, its a deliberate action.
@windbag: Quite right. This is only the tip of the iceberg as regards the cover-up of false allegations of child sex abuse against innocent men by the HSE and now Tusla. They have been doing it for years.
Mistake my a$$.
More like dirty tactics, wink wink, nudge nudge, let’s see him get out of this one.
Dirty rotten scoundrels.
@Bill Madden: Seriously what are the chances of this happening on top of the government, Gardai and RTE trying to damage his good name, no way was this an accident in my view?
An internal review? Surely we should have a 10 year tribunal and at least a couple of quangos. Justice. Irish style.
It must be the coincidence of the millennium that a “clerical error” marking a person as a pedophile ended up in a Tusla file on the whistleblower that the Gardai top brass had been deliberately undermining over several years.
Let’s not forget of course that O’Sullivan remains in her position because FG want her there and are supported in that but their coalition partners FF.
Given that the “error” occurred” a number of years ago one would think that a review would have commenced upon discovery of this “error”. And I’m also in a bit of confusion as to how long it takes to formulate an apology to the victim of this “error” . Typical response from another incompetent state agency. No one to blame for this folks I’m surprised they didn’t come up with the old chestnuts “systems error” or “computer software error” that way all human error could be avoided!
Are u gone yet Noirin a stoir and when ur leaving shut the door and don’t get caught for penalty points because u won’t b able to wipe them off the “pulse” system this time.
Heads have to role in Tulsa as well. Do they think we are thick that this “accidentally” happened to Garda McCabe who has endured the most unbelievable bullying. The commissioner should be picking up her P45 after begging McCabe for forgiveness and even that’s not enough.
Noreen you are forever tainted by this, please resign for the good of the organisation.
@Gus Sheridan:
The previous Commissioner resigned and it’s done little good for the organization. There’s a lot more rotten than just the head.
Dusty Mooney This commissioner was part of the old network so it was more of the same….we need a Commissioner from OUTSIDE the Gardai, someone with no connections with the old guard at the Park. Someone who is not afraid to step on a few overfed toes…. then, and only then will you see change ,we do not need a government yes man/woman which we presently seem to have.
We’ll see Gus. The police are a political tool of the state and reflect the agenda of the ruling class. I don’t think an external Commissioner appointment will change that.
#amazeballs
It is a disgrace the way this Garda has been treated and it’s going on to long,the rumours and allegations against this man have been doing the rounds year’s and it’s still been ignored to a certain extent by his superiors.
Thomas, His “superiors” are the source of the rumours. It was an orchestrated campaign from the top to utterly destroy McCabe’s reputation and life for daring to blow the whistle on Garda corruption and incompetence.
@john Appleseed: Never knew this government had a Ministry of Bullying and Harassment?
Not good enough. Heads must roll starting from the top
But they won’t John. This is Ireland. Watch and see how Noirin’s mobile phone records will have disappeared and there will be no backups made of deleted hard drives. A proper investigation with appropriate consequences can only take place when our political leaders stop protecting their appointees. And that will never happen. It’s disgusting.
Well they should start by prosecuting the female who made the allegation. It wasn’t a clerical error. A female made an allegation that was false. She should be prosecuted.
Hold on…so if there was an allegation made..then there wasnt a ‘copy and paste’ error!?!?
@cholly appleseed: I think there were 2 different incidents. A child of a colleague McCabe reported for behaving in an unprofessional manner submitted an allegation that he had sexually abused her. this was later withdrawn – no evidence to warrant it. The copy and paste episode was when a counsellor accidently copied and pasted a line from another case file alleging very serious physical acts of digital rape of a child into McCabe’s file. sounds very credible! What was a counsellor doing altering files?!
And who was it that copied and paste the files ?
Epitome of GUBU.
Knives are rightly out after this.
Speechless after PrimeTime last night.
Any Garda who spread this unfounded rumour should be sanctioned. We need the Comm of Invest fast-tracked so we can see if criminal charges need to follow.
@Brinster: sancitioned? in the real world they would be picking their teeth of out their shite
@Brinster: Information is coming out that it was the daughter of a Garda who McCabe had disciplined that made the allegation.
How accurate this information is, i don’t know. But in all probability more will be revealed.
Where Tusla is involved in this is not clear. But it’s starting to smell like a government agency is being for cover.
@Ciarán Masterson: its strange how the gardai never thought to investigate…ask a question or two?
@ciaran: The force has lost it’s direction, it’s ethos, and sight of what it was and is constituted for. It’s now more of a force used by the government in furtherance of it’s political policy. The reason the government fights so hard to keep the present management structure in place.
@Dave Doyle: sad thing is its members have an untouchable arrogance about them. give gsoc proper legal powers.
It’s amazing how big state organisations try turn the victim into the villain. A lot of the time they get away with it too!!!
@Cheryl Mellett:.
@Cheryl Mellett: Bully nation?
‘In the process of apologising’ since June last year, but can apologise in the media the day after the deplorable debacle goes public?
@For Connolly: What’s very fishy about this is that senior gardai were aware of the accusation yet didn’t address it with him. Was it that they were afraid of questioning him about it for some reason? Or was is that they were waiting for the information to become public? What was going on? Why the Gardai inaction if they were aware of the case?
@Mr Snuffleupagus: It really goes to show as another Irish example of people in high places can do and say just as they like and get away with it. When the #shite hits the fan they will pass the blame on to those who can’t afford to hit back.
@For Connolly: what like admitting their wrong ? admitting they did something wrong? I think they would prefer to go to court spending taxpayers money not admitting.
They need to do more than apologise. The commissioner and the previous commissioner should be in jail yet ff and fg continue to defend her. Disgraceful
Clerical error me hole.
Even if it was and I don’t believe for a second it was a clerical error… There’s tens of thousands of families in danger of being randomly broken up as a result of “clerical errors”….
@James: Exactly James…as john crown said today if it was clerical error then the level of incompetence is frightening
I hope he Sue’s the state for this .It’s disgusting what’s going on with this man and sums up how rotten the public sector is in this country .
@john He was always 2 Sue anyway this is Ireland
@john: Wouldn’t it be great if the culprits had to pay the compensation, instead of everyone who is working today?
The commissioner, the previous commisioner, the garda who used his daughter for revenge, the second complainant who withdrew her allegation, the “copy&paste” artist, the head of Tusla, and any number of other officers of the state involved in blackening the man’s name.
@john:
“sums up how rotten the public sector is in this country”
Are you blaming the nurses and teachers etc for this despicable conspiracy?
There are hundreds of legal cases each year of bullying and harassment in these two sector’s you’ve mentioned I have witnessed it personally and it’s disgusting as the bully knows in the public sector he’ll get away with it if he’s part of management’s puppets .
@john:
So your’e not blaming the “public sector” then?
And are differentiating between the management and ordinary workers.
And of course bullying and harassment is not confined to the public sector.
TUSLA needs to apologise to the true,real victims of sexual crimes also as this undermines their plight significantly also in the sense that such an awful scenario could be used almost in a political tactical play…disgusting and the only way for justice to be served now is a root and branch clear out of all the heads of each state body involved and indeed prosecutions if further wrongdoing is proven
@Nigel O’Neill: Tusla needs to apologise to the hundreds, possibly thousands, of other innocent victims of false allegations which they have come across but filed away rather than referring them to the DPP for prosecution.
An internal review? Poppycock!
It helps to speed up shredding and update old IT memory devices.
Isn’t this the whole point of garda whistleblowers in the first place to show up the ridiculous Tusla and misreporting of incidents. This shows that Maurice McCabe was right all along and now I hope he sues the state for defamation of his good character.
Wow.
RTE, Tusla anyone else ?
The Gardai, Zappones department, Fitzgeralds department, Endas Department , INM etc etc…
I don’t believe a word of it.
They can’t comment on individual cases in the negative but nothing is preventing them commenting on individual to issue an outright unequivocal apology for the most serious of false accusations.
“High standards” from a public office… fock me, too funny!
Clerical error? Cut and paste? ridiculous would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic
Ff/fg 100 per cent behind both mc cabe and o sullivan, should make their mind up.you cant back both horses in a two horse race
O Sullivan should step down, you can be dam sure if it was her husband who the accused this situation would be dealt with in a whole other manor
I still the whole thing is Bizarre!?
This is outrageous! Let’s get McCabe was the order that went out to all organs of the State…..
FGUBU
This is madness! This man should be the commissioner!
Does nobody else ask the question ‘why this was leaked and by whom’ if someone was working for a government office and leaked this to the press or a mate in the press then this person should feel the full force of the law. But wait we live in Ireland they’ll probably be given a better job more pay and even more chance to f#$k over the honest people of Ireland.
@John Naghten: don’t forget noirin promoted her husband to investigate who leaked what to the reporters despite being told to (another case as yet uncovered) yet here we are none the wiser and a senior garda gets a promotion?
Full blown crisis, police, political, public body. (several years in the making, the writing has been on the wall for at least two years) All principals left in situ. Welcome to ireland.
9 month inquiry, unlikely to report on time, even more unlikely to apportion blame.
How are the public to have confidence in these institutions. How can a police force function when it is under investigation and in control of the records and material necessary for an inquiry ?
No coincidence, another state agency that cannot be trusted.All involved must go for trust to return from the public.
Tusla should be closed down for good….
Tulsa are not fit for purpose.
Ff/fg 100per cent behind mc cabe and o sullivan.make your mind up .you cant back both horses in a two horse race
It’s just absolutely unforgivable to make such an allegation of this nature and say “sorry,we made a mistake”. Sorry is just not good enough. Heads should roll for this. Imagine how his wife and him and their family are feeling over this “mistake”! I can’t.
Yes, and every case should be investigated, not only the high-priced one that gets leaked. Toxic load of rumours can’t help anyone.
Something seriously rotten in the Garda Siochana…..
Not just the Garda …
Heads should roll over this, political ones, even criminal charges.
I would say systemic…..
Good luck Maurice, sue them for everything you can get! How foul they are to smear a good man.
The question is why did tusla join the garda management in destroying mccabe
Sue big time.
Somebody is responsible for this attempt at destroying a witnesses credibility and reputation because he exposed corruption, its not a ‘clerical error’. That is a very serious criminal offence and the individual/individuals must be charged. It has lost a lot of people’s confidence in the justice system
Wont hold my breath though, it will be another whitewash.
This is rotten from the top down. Rumour is FG want Zappone thrown under a bus in the hope it will appeal the electorate. Anything to defend the dear leader Enda.
@John Henry: Zappone should be held accountable along with Kenny and Fitzgerald and the senior officials in Tusla and the HSE not just for this case but the hundreds of other cases of false allegations of child abuse against innocent men which they have filed away rather than referring to the DPP for prosecution,
It completely stretches credulity that this was an “administrative error” given that the victim Sgt Gerry McCabe was in the eye of the storm regarding his whistle blower allegations. Something stinks to high heavens here and should be thoroughly investigated by an outside body.
As O’Hamlet says there’s something rotten in the state of Ireland.
Tusla ‘in the process of apologising’ to McCabe
How f*king long does it take to write and press release and an email?
I’m no alex Jones but the chances of someone copying and pasting a paedo accusation to a whistle blowers file in error are zero
“It does not reflect the high standards that we hold ourselves to ” Oh yes it does .
Waiting for something about sf by the journal and Denis
@David Clarke: Are can be assured FG will be praying for a terrorist attack or some sort of major international incident to take the attention away.
Housing crisis
Rental crisis
Debt crisis
Policing crisis
Health crisis
Transport crisis
Tusla crisis
Whistleblower crisis
Drugs crisis
Homelessness crisis
Immigrant crisis
Insurance crisis
Environmental crisis
Flooding crisis
Rural emptying crisis
Brexit crisis
Rural broadband crisis
Please feel free to add the ones that I missed……..
@Cram Wood: I can’t possible Thrump that!
Ireland is a small country but the few people at the top are too powerful and its not surprising that this can happen. My family and I suffered for more than thirty years at the hands of the Gardai but because of the powerful few we were left to rot. My wife died recently and she had been with me for all those years. She mentioned a short while before she passed away if the gardai would ever apologise for the hurt they had caused our family. The gardai have apologised recently but they left it too late. I would have been pleased if the apology had been tendered when my wife was sitting beside me. If the gardai can give a hard time to their own colleagues what would they do to someone else?
A certain minister was too busy criticising Trump, to look after her own department.
You couldn’t dream this shit up, honest to god a circus full of clowns, can only imagine what this family had to go through after reporting what was obviously wrong.
This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as HSE/Tusla cover up of false allegations of child abuse against innocent men are concerned. Tusla/HSE have records of hundreds, possibly thousands, of false allegations of child abuse made against innocent men by women but it is their policy to treat these allegations as acceptable tactics in child custody disputes. The files on these cases are just filed away when they should be referred to the DPP for prosecution under the 1998 Act which deems such allegations to be an offence punishable by imprisonment. Sadly nobody in the media or political establishments have the courage to investigate the fact that since 1998 nobody has been imprisoned for making such false allegations. Hopefully this case will make both the media and our politicians rigorously investigate the policies and the practices of both Tusla and its predecessor in dealing (not) with the many false allegations they would have encountered over the years.
I sincerely hope all of the shredding machines be on lock down for the next while.
People should Google BRANDON MUIR to learn a bit about Fred MC Bride of Tusla
Yeah ! what a pack of liars …
I don’t find it remotely extraordinary that Tusla should make a “mistake” like that, it’s pretty much what I would expect from them.
When Tusla began with one of the most corrupt and despicable people it has ever my misfortune to catch out (over and over) in the hierarchy (<NB that is the type of person the then Minister for children knew well and felt the most vulnerable children in the state deserved to be at the mercy of, isn't that nice? ) with a nice juicy salary I had a feeling it wasn't going to end well.
Behind closed doors Tusla have already become a watchword for abuse, corruption and incompetence and the fact that challenging civil society in any way, at any level, means you are risking the kind of abuse to which Maurice McCabe has been subject keeps the truth behind closed doors.
A child protection agency should be 100% dedicated to the welfare of children – some hope!
Michelle Hennessy, My name is John Scully, where did the comment go that was on this thread? It had a good few green thumbs but somehow it seems to have been taken down. Why?
Give the man 250,000 now and nothing to the legal sh–he–s.
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