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GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news you need to know as you start your day.
Refugees
1. There have been no applications accepted under Ireland’s special Afghan admissions programme since it was launched, despite the government saying it would make 500 places available last September, writes Tadgh McNally.
The delay in processing the applications has been due to “insufficient information” being provided, according to the Department of Justice which is administering the scheme.
Winter bills
2. Hardhsip funds to help customers in difficulty have been set up by some energy companies, but not all.
With winter approaching and with customers urged to engage with their energy supplier if they had difficulty paying their bills, questions have been raised about whether energy companies have set aside money in hardship funds.
Stormont
3. MLAs will return to Stormont in a last-gasp bid to restore the Northern Ireland executive before fresh Assembly elections are called.
The sitting will see an attempt to elect a new speaker – a prerequisite before an executive can be appointed – but that bid is set to fail as the DUP will use its veto to block it.
The special sitting comes just hours ahead of a deadline for calling another election.
Going up
4. Fines for 16 road safety offences have doubled since midnight.
The change sees fines for speeding and learner drivers travelling unaccompanied double to €160, while the penalty for drivers caught using a mobile phone doubles to €120.
Controversy
5. Rapper Kanye West was “escorted” out of the Skechers corporate offices after the rapper showed up uninvited.
West, who recently changed his name to Ye – has made headlines in recent weeks for racist and anti-Semitic statements that have cost him several lucrative fashion collaborations.
Iran
6. Iranian security forces opened fire on protesters who massed in their thousands yesterday in Mahsa Amini’s hometown to mark 40 days since her death, according to a rights group and verified videos.
World Cup
7. Australia’s football team has condemned human rights abuses in Qatar ahead of the World Cup, becoming the first participant to collectively criticise the host.
Sixteen members of the men’s team — the Socceroos — appeared in a short video explaining their
Hiked
8. The European Central Bank is set to follow the lead of the US Federal Reserve in making its second big interest rate increase in a row on Thursday, underlining its determination to stamp out the record inflation that threatens to sink the 19-country euro area into recession.
An increase of three-quarters of a percentage point is the likely outcome of the meeting based on public comments from bank officials.
Football stars
9. Champions Kerry lead the way with seven winners on the 2022 PwC GAA-GPA All-Star football team.
Beaten finalists Galway have five players included, there are two from Ulster champions Derry and just one from Leinster kingpins Dublin.
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Creating these kinds of situations where higher education is becoming more out of reach for those in the squeezed middle and at even lower socio economic levels is no accident. What we are seeing is a purposeful perpetuation of the haves and the have nots in order to consolidate power and money for the select few. The rest can just go to hell and give up their hopes of doing better in life than a basic wage job where more and more are fighting for fewer and fewer jobs; where the pay will be a race to the bottom, and working conditions will become worse so that those at the top can continue to line their ever expanding pockets off the misery of the majority.
@Patty Cullinane: Absolutely, social engineering at its most subtle. Unfortunately a lot of the affected have lost, or have had their capacity for critical thinking and analysis numbed, by the constant inane noise that is ‘social media’; this facilitated by the ‘smart’ phone – and its immense capabilities to distract from reality.
@Patty Cullinane: welcome to east america
@Patty Cullinane: Why can’t those people living in city Centre accommodation for 27 a week avail of education.
The carefree attitude allowing these huge percentage increases in prevalent throughout the rental sector. It is obviously a situation out of hand and despite Varadkar proclaiming it an emergency absolutely nothing is being done. Inaction bordering on criminal negligence.
@gowfc@yahoo.com W:
There is only one thing a politician is afraid of, being voted out of the Dail. FG and by extension FF because of their support for the government, have made a complete mess of the rental sector but they are going up in the polls.
Nothing is going to change.
@gowfc@yahoo.com W: The classic Irish attitude of “If I can charge more I will” is the main cause of the problem for higher rental costs.
@Andy K: I think the 52% tax has more to do with high rents than anything else along with very poor protection for landlords when it comes to not paying rent.
@Kal Ipers: Company’s wouldn’t pay 52% Kal.
Would love to know who is financing this project. One of our beloved state banks?
@prop joe: Perhaps not ‘our beloved state banks’ (the latter day government), by a little fluffy REIT from Canada – insofar as Canada remains a country rather than an estate.
It is sickening to think that students and there parents have to pay through there nose to try educate themselves and get a good start in life and the Gov. sits by, yet if all these students never went to college/applied themselves and just turned up at the social office they’d get dole a medical card , rent allowance and eventually a council house.. than the same gov would hand them back to education allowances etc. High time a higher percentage of the gov budget is directed towards people who want to better themselves and not just those with the hand out doing nothing.
Where does the money go if these are purpose built accommodation for students.What a government looking after the future of this country what with fees, incurance, and accommodation price hikes.
Surely this is well over the rent cap they brought in, which has basically not been enforced at all.
@Andy K: New tenants every year means they can hike it how they like. The 4% cap is for sitting tenants every two years.
@gowfc@yahoo.com W:
Yes the 4% doesn’t apply but it’s because it is temporary accommodation, ie not their permanent home.
The 4% is for people that live in their accommodation seven days 52 weeks and is 4% every year, not every two years.
For a country that sells itself as having a well educated local workforce, we aren’t helping ourselves by pricing students out of further education. We are going down the American route where third lvl education is now a business and not a benefit to the country.
A clear example of a publicly needed service being privatised.
Will not be a big issue with Leo and the hipsters, the media battery chickens of PK and Rourkey spout all day long The Private Sector will drive down costs,the wealth creators, creating ruthless efficiencies, give it to the private sector and they’ll show you how its done. I want kids in college who’s going prescribe my meds and mind us when we’re old, fix my car, cook etc. Lost 6K myself to a dingy digs provider for daughter with all the compassion of a knife.
Not to be confused with the private sector workers who are being equally as screwed by this setup. Compassion is the natural enemy to profit.
We need to do more for the small landlords. Somebody who has been left a house, who decides to rent it out will pay over 50% of the rent on taxes, regardless of other incomes, coupled with the fact that laws favour bad Tennant’s, a landlord could be 2 years without rent by the time the eviction of non payers is complete. Students who have mammy and daddy paying rent will not look after a house and may just party causing damage so hence higher risk with students so higher rents.
With all mentioned above you can’t blame people using short term rents.
@Philip Morgan: so many people want to buy and are stuck renting because landlords are hogging all the property. I don’t feel aorry for them at all. They can get jobs and work for their money like everyone else and not expect other people to pay for their assets for them through rent.
@Smelly Chemist: So you think all landlords should sell up??
In the past student accommodation had to be priced more keenly because many students rented houses from private landlords. Through a series of disastrous policy decisions the Government has made many small time landlords leave the sector with consequent impact on rental supply. The aim being to professionalize the sector -well this is what professional sectors do – they hike up rents to the maximum they can get away with because they answer only to their shareholders.
@Sean: DCU onsite accomadation was always higher than renting privately. It was never keenly priced. It was cheaper for a friend’s parents to buy a house and pay the mortgage than put 2 of them in student accomadation
Keep in Mind that the professional tenements that FG wants are also not going to be regarded as permanent accommodation. By setting 1k as average student rent for a single room a month they can charge the professionals more.
The only rooms more expensive than 1k a month are the hotel rooms that help with kickbacks to private enterprise for exploiting homelessness for profit.
Think of any other sector where a 27% hike is even conceivable- you cant; and that explains why FG will never, never, do anything about individuals like these students, and countless families of course, being in crisis. It’s just too damn profitable for their buddies. I’d like to think the lesson these youngsters are getting in the realities of rentier capitalism will inspire them to change our rotten little state in years to come but the fact that they come from relative comfort or they wouldn’t be at UCD implies they’ll go the traditional Irish route from exploited to exploiter; in a decade some will be landlords (on interest-only buy-to-let mortgages) and more will be employed by the banks and REITs who are the Blueshirsts’ masters. This is the worst of it; because people are ripped off themselves they feel entitled, impelled, to rip others off later and vote for the hard right parties- there’s nothing ‘center’ about FG or FF- that keep the exploitative merry-go-round going. It’s up to the permanently uncomfortable, the class who can’t dream of supporting kids at college, who can’t think of even having kids until they’ve sacrificed their best years on the alter of bankster, developer and landlord greed, to smash the circle of abuse. Vote socialist!
@Michael Bride: Expense increases on landlords would have gone up that amount and more. As taxes are 52% for every extra €1 expense requires €2 increase to get the same money as before. So the government added more expenses to landlords and took away the tax relief on interest. (did come back but for a lesser amount) LPT, PRTB charges added too while the government then cut rent allowance and forced many landlords to accept it breaking leases.
The public loved this and ignored the warnings that the costs would get passed on. Many landlords operated at a loss because of this and now are recouping these losses. The government then introduced the RPZs restricting landlords to increases a lot less than the government imposed on landlords.
@Kal Ipers: So the poor landlord is the real victim here? You could sing that if you had a tune Kal- I’m not buying it!
Absolutely disgraceful conduct
Foreign investors pension funds
@Jono: No Irish people have money in this too. The vast majority of rental property is Irish owned.
@Jono: If you have a pension, you’re probably a landlord.
I remember in the early 2000′s that students were paying €100/130 a week to share a pokey bedroom in Dublin. Tiny living area etc. all shared by 4-8 people.
Adjusted for inflation, those DCU prices don’t seem too bad.
@Ronan McKeon: It’s about €250 a week now, so two and a half times as much. I don’t remember a pint costing €2 in the early 2000s. But yes, it was always bad.
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