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@jimg wrote:
So to summarise: the government ends up paying the banks interest on the 90 billion (say 1.5 billion a year currently but this could rise if the ECB rates rise) plus at some date in the future will be obliged to pay them 90 billion cash. In exchange they get to own a bunch of loans to insolvent builders and developers many of whom are close to bankruptcy; the collateral for which (if the claims about O’Carroll are any guideline) is likely to be worth 30% of the value of the loan.
You are seriously wrong on this figure of 30% or an assumed 70% destruction of value; one third of the total loan book is development land or half completed developments. 65% – 70% is mostly tenanted commercial property of which half is outside Ireland. Wait until the valuation exercise is completed before swallowing the suicide capsule that is in you hand! I have not read such a defeatist ill informed statement previously
@markpb wrote:
It integrates the way people in every other city expect it to – you can get from A to B without leaving the rail system. The Dart Interconnector plan also integrates this way by splitting the Dart line in two. Is that unacceptable to you too?.
But it does not link anything up that already exists; for €2bn it needs to create significant capacity; when you add up what it connects the alternative methods of providing connections to Ballymun, The Airport and Swords come in at half the price. It is effectively one line and to spend an extra billion building a link between Ballymun and Swords is a complete waste of money that is unjustifiable.
@markpb wrote:
More importantly, it integrates in a way that allows connections but keeps the operation simple. Most modern metros have dedicated tracks and fleet per line to reduce the impact of a single line failure on other paths. .
Can you run Dart or Luas down it? It in no way allows for diverting other existing routes; it doesn’t even reconnect with the Northern Line or connect with any existing Dart Line.
@markpb wrote:
Why exactly is it far superior?.
Because if you are going from any point West of the City to the Airport the alternative involves no change; from any point South on Dart the change would take place at Pearse vs Drumcoundra (no benefit either way. From Luas South going to Ballymun, there be no change at all. Getting on in the City Centre going to Ballymun it would all be street level.
Give anyone a choice of being able to avoid going underground on a route from Stephens Green to Droumcoundra, very few would elect to go underground.@markpb wrote:
I can easily. The other rail tracks (Dart, Suburban and Luas) that it connects with allow plenty of onward travel choices that cover a large part of the city. Yes, it’s a pity that places like Terenure aren’t covered but they will be in time. You can’t expect them to build a single metro line that covers the entire city. It would be unacceptably expensive. This is a good start..
Places like Terenure will be covered by Luas; like Metro North the population density along the route is too low to justify underground.
@markpb wrote:
The RPA are currently tendering several contracts for a new integrated travel card that will, on lauch, work on Dublin Bus, Irish Rail and Luas. Metro will be covered when it opens.
We discussed intergrated ticket systems in 2004; if it takes 5 years and counting to deliver technology as simple as Octopus / Oyster you really have to wonder how these people were allowed near a multi-billion euro project.
@marmajam wrote:
you miss the point.
We are getting MN at a very cheap price right now.
But you want to go back into a controversial uncertain planning process to buy something less- if it gets through planning – at premium prices in many years time.
PVC wrote:
“Irish Rail in their 2004 Rail Plan made the proposal to do this as part of the Dublin Rail Plan. They are railway professionals with the technical expertese in house to kniow what does and doesn’t work.”
In this case no – IE were offering their solution with an eye on extending their operations.As usual you are spoofing.
.The price of a Dart ticket is €2 – €3 all in; the interest cover cost on metro north is €4.35 per passenger; i.e. plus all operational costs. It is far from cheap and begs the question what in gods name were the rpa doing bandying about figures of €3bn only 12 months ago; or €6./50 per passenger journey. Simply ludicrous.
Irish Rail are a rail company with over 50 years experience; their word is good enough; there are 33m annual commuter passenger journeys they currently deliver. This is as you rightly say a petty turf war and the RPA have delivered a project that forfeits their right to the turf on the basis of this being far to expensive for the number of journeys it has the potential to deliver.
Please remove personality from your polemical rants
So I cost something that will be bought in 7 years on the basis of what it costs today?
No you establish a discount rate and devalue the known cost on that rate. Keep the personaility out of this. 😡
PVC King, your idea that integrated public transport means that different lines are connected by a track is a complete misunderstanding. Interchange stations for connecting to different lines is good integration. Also, would you refrain from trying to justify the DART airport spur idea. People have already outlined to you the problems with that proposal
Irish Rail in their 2004 Rail Plan made the proposal to do this as part of the Dublin Rail Plan. They are railway professionals with the technical expertese in house to kniow what does and doesn’t work.
Integrated means many things; however interconnected means that routes can be combined; Metro is not a runner as it adds no new routing options and will never be the spine of anything. It is simply too expensive at an annual subvention of at least €4.35 per passenger carried and that is interest cover alone.
@Iayo wrote:
Metro north is the best option at this stage.
I don’t think anyone can defend the fact that metro north will terminate in the city centre.
@KerryBog2 wrote:
Prof. Barrett covers several of the points I’ve already made here, so it is hard to disagree with most of his article. However, much of what he writes is predicated on a supposition that NAMA will take on loans at an uneconomic value. At this stage we do not know the price/discount. Goes back to my point about a lack of communication from our Government, about which I have been rattling on for quite some time. Until we know what the discount is almost all comment is BS. In the 1630’s days of the tulip bubble, bulbs that were exchanged for houses went back to being a regular, albeit slightly expensive garden flower. Many speculative properties/sites in Ireland will never regain the prices paid. We as a nation can only hope that NAMA does not overpay, and that it will be properly constituted and managed. The longer NAMA’s launch is delayed the worse it will get.
PVC King, your comments are based on your perception of the glass being half full. From what I see in the current market, I view the glass as half empty, badly cracked and leaking.
http://www.rte.ie/business/2009/0902/jobless.html
The workforce only leaked 4,000 jobs last month; the worst is over. You are right the Government needs to communicate this.
EADS the parent of Airbus made their first headline investment in Ireland today
http://www.rte.ie/business/2009/0902/jobs.html
If Ireland wasn’t a place to invest they would have gone elsewhere; the UK paid £340m to get 1,200 Airbus jobs or £283k per job. I’m sure this was done on much more favourable terms.
@KerryBog2 wrote:
These apply to many other EU States, all of whom, unlike us, have said YES to Lisbon. The cost of our “excellence” is also considerably higher, leading to the closure of pharma and IT companies. Ask anyone at Dell. Our much-vaunted financial skills have long been undermined, as has our total absence of financial regulation for decades, e.g. Irish Trust Bank, Merchant Banking, PMPA, InsCorp, Ruznak, Ansbacher, offshore deposits, overcharging, Parmalat, etc.
The worst is far from over. See my concluding comment below..
Dell made a decision on this before the downturn; once they outsourced production to Singapore based holding company last September this was always on the cards; to have retained the back office and sales support in Cherrywood speaks volumes of the quality of the workforce. Lets not forget the fact that we harbour finance frauds I mean Nick Leeson manages Galway United, Barings still have their entire art collection and most of their clients;it is simply owned by someone else; compare any of the above excluding Parmalat which was an Italian scam on Venezeulan assets and the rest is nickle and dime stuff which happens everywhere. Disaster Myopia is alive and well once you haven’t suffered personally.
@KerryBog2 wrote:
That strengthens my argument. With a total employment force of about 2 million, we have 20% employed in one domestic sector? Eggs, basket comes to mind.
No. There was unwarranted building of houses in the belief that someone living in a housing estate in a city would buy a holiday home in a housing estate in a rural village, with no amenities, few services and no transport. When those houses did not sell, they were used to house the foreign workers and the rent deducted from their wages, to help the builders’ cashflow. This disguised the early signs of the collapse..
Can’t disagree with any of the analyses on the collapse but I would say that no banker will rush into those types of lending decisions in the name of securing market share for a very long time. It is however essential that funds are available to complete North Wall, Heuston Station and other central areas. If Nama fails and the banks default on senior debt there will be one of two outcomes; either the taxpayer will have to inject tens of billions into the banks in some other form be it equity or debt or in the absence of this no Irish bank will raise finanace on reasonable terms for a decade. The Nama formula is best as the level of discount is the only variable and once the valuation methods are transparent the market will rise in anticipation of the sceptre of the perceived fire sale disappearing.
@KerryBog2 wrote:
There is a dim glimmer in the UK property market but that is all it is. In a recent report by accountants BDO, UK manufacturing output – a key figure – remains significantly below pre-recession levels. They also estimate that there will be about 2,500 business failures in 2009, compared to the 1,600 recorded in 2008, and they estimate a figure of 2,000 for 2010. Personal bankruptcy levels are at an all-time high, and probably will exceed 120k this year. (Question – is it a matter of time before Ireland adopts a similar form of personal bankruptcy to the IVA in the UK?).
25% in 3 months is not a glimmer it is a relief rally; there is no quality stock to be bought at the moment as no one is selling. Bankrauptcy is a lagging indicator and every country in the OECD has hit records recently on personal failure. The hangover for Ireland is that interest rates were out of step with pricing pressures for a sustained period; with deflation particularly in assets such as second hand property and cars I’m sure lenders are taking a view on whether they want the collateral back.
@KerryBog2 wrote:
In Ireland, the rate of business failure is equally high. In the construction sector the increase in failures has been spectacular, with first-half construction failure figures for 2007,2008,2009 being 60, 130 and 250 respectively. Total insolvency figures more than doubled between H1 2008 and H1 2009, from about 300 to about 750..
With so many companies having failed presumably one of two scenarios will play out; either directors of insolvant companies will start up new entities and compete with those still standing or the sector will not be funded and there will be mass emmigration.
@KerryBog2 wrote:
When NAMA gets going we will see the start of the shake-out. Most of the contractors I have seen recently could not be classed as viable. The big guys will be defunct and will bring many more with them. The efficacy of personal guarantees will prove almost worthless, key assets will be unreachable and expensive homes will be in wives’ names. Then the subbies and suppliers will discover that they never will be paid for their debts. Their accountants will not sign off on y/e figures, or balance sheet valuations, so a lot more will fail. A contributory factor will be lack of finance due to the opaqueness of the financials, where lenders will mistrust the stated values of fixed assets and the real or true worth of the applicant’s debtors. (The same reasoning can be applied to why FG’s “Good Bank” idea is a dead duck. There currently is money available, but who would lend on an asset that cannot be properly valued and when the repayment ability is totally suspect?).
I can see International pension funds filling the gap left by the developers who are now out of the market; once yields hit 7% with international tenants such as Vodafone, H & M, Pfiezer etc this ticks all the boxes of investment grade property; it is important to remember that the NAMA portfolio would be made up of loans that are split almost equally between, UK/European/US Commercial, Irish Commercial and Development land / half developed schemes. These are three very distinct asset classes; the former probably has a yield floor close to 6% or 16.67 times net rent; the Irish Commercial if International investors were targetted probably has a yield profile of about 8% although that does factor in local independents and over-rented out of town retail parks which no international investor would touch as they don’t understand the people who pay the rent or don’t as the case may be. The development category is where a third of the loans are and where you can’t accuratley assess value until a market returns for new space.
@KerryBog2 wrote:
For those reasons Joe Public will be slow to buy, unsure of his investment, and the market will stagnate just as it did when the Rotweiler made his comments on Stamp Duty changes. That’s why I remain negative and cannot change until we see what NAMA brings. K.
That it is why it is totally vital that NAMA is completed as quickly as is possible so that a market can regroup in whatever form is deemed sustainable by the participants.
@markpb wrote:
I’ll state openly that I believe Metro North is a good idea because it opens lots of new areas of Dublin to rail. I think that’s fundamentally more important that improving existing services because a network isn’t a network if it covers a tiny part of the city. The MN route also integrates lots of the Dart, Suburban and Luas lines helping to improve the network. Upgrades of Dart and lines to the airport achieve neither of this.
Metro North does not intergrate anything; it intersects with Dart Interconnector (once Interconnector isn’t shelved because of the opportunity cost of Metro) the Maynooth line and two currently seperate Luas lines. It is to all intents and purposes a stand alone network as no routing combinations are delivered unlike Interconnector which like Cross Rail in London joins two seperate rail systems (3 in the case of Cross Rail)
Luas to Ballymun at a cost of c€54m a mile (Luas BX) would produce exacxtly the same level of intersectability but would unlike Metro North actually intergrate the new line with two existing systems; a far superior outcome for the City Section. For the Airport a new Express Dart could be done for €400m and for Swords c€200m would removing Darts reversing in Malahide and extend their route to Swords giving the Pavillions their extension and the town their commuter service; the only losers being the people in Malahide who will no longer have first oportunity on the seats.
@markpb wrote:
However, my main problem with your suggestion is that you keep comparing an (already overcrowded) airport branch serving nothing else with the metro line serving the Green luas line, the south city centre, the Red luas line, the north city centre, the Rotunda, Mater Misericordiae, Drumcondra, the Maynooth and PPT lines, Whitehall, Glasnevin, DCU, Ballymun, (potentially) Metro West, the airport and Swords. Oranges and apples doesn’t even come close!
All of the destinations you have quoted excluding Metro North are claimed by the promoter to have a total annual passenger demand of 23m per annum; given that the financing alone will run to €100m a year the base subsidy per passenger assuming fares cover day to day costs would be €4.35 for every passenger journey. That assumes that the recession doesn’t undermine those predictions.
Metro West will not happen for at least 25 years and to be honest using those alignment for Dart extensions to Tallaght and Porterstown makes a lot more sense.
@markpb wrote:
Have you got anywhere to back up those figures or are they your own estimates?
The basis on all estimates is the Pace extension at a cost of €160m for 7.5kms and €54m per mile on Luas based on the BX extension; both of these are totally up to date comparisons; I used question marks because they are uncosted as Dart.
http://www.meathchronicle.ie/articles/1/33012
DjangoD – love it! http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0902/economy.html
@Frank Taylor wrote:
Footage of Gene Wilder & Margot Kidder in College Green 10yrs earlier than the King Haughey video.
No trees at least. Jesus the accent on Gene !
@GrahamH wrote:
Yep, what a mess. They must unquestionably go for the chop.
Here’s College Green and the House of Lords in Charlie’s notorious Charles Haughey’s Ireland made in 1986. Scroll to 0.53 (or just observe the St. Patrick’s presbytery in all its mellowed glory).
Thanks for that Graham, God Haughey though a lot of himself :rolleyes:
The cars add significantly to the clutter, and while they may have been removed, the city council has been busy adding an array of metal poles and random signage in their wake.
Any notions I have of a fully pedestrianised college green are in reality fanciful. However there is no reason why the city council should not immediately establish an international competition to produce a coherent landscape design for college green through to westmoreland/college street & lower grafton street.*
I see no reason why the space cannot be closed to all traffic, including buses, on weekends at least, allowing what would hopefully be a fine plaza fulfil its potential as a buzzing public space where people would naturally gather & not simply pass through.
There is no other space like it in Dublin, as close as we have to an urban square, but in many ways more interesting. It is the place where the tangible north & south sides actually converge, the plateau at the end of various descending approaches, in many ways the real heart of the city.
I’d suggest that an IAP is required, but apparently they aren’t worth a fuck.
*I know people are going to come back at me about the luas BX line nonsense, but as far as i’m concerned, luas shouldn’t be let next nor near college green, and thats before we analyse the folly that BX is.
spoil_sport wrote:Ah! well that proves it]well in the case of College Green, they are a major factor. I noticed last time i was down there that some of the trees have had their crowns raised. No point tinkering around the edges, they have to go.
Four figures
€2bn construction cost challenge it with a referenced source or accept it as being kind
€115m annual interest bill – cite subordinate debt raised by any Semi-State body this year on a 10 year term at a rate of interest of less than that number 5.75%
23m annual passengers – or less given the predicted construction on the line that now won’t happen
€400m to build a dart spur that serves Dublin AirportMake an argument and stay away from personality or just don’t post; this line is not worth the money and therefore should just go the way of the Bertie Bowl a great boom era project that had its plug pulled
@marmajam wrote:
You forgot to factor in that these are todays prices. By the time your new bits get through appraisal/route selection/design/CPOs/EIS – maybe 7 years process – we will be back in seller’s market.The cost will be double.
After ignoring the fact that it costs money to run a metro; you know the stuff they print in Frankfurt, where they have a joined up underground system based on spine and branch. You display further financial illiteracy in not knowing that in costing any project you need to find a price that is based at Net Present Value. All of the projects I listed were submitted as optional extra’s; if the costs rose beyond viablility they would be removed from the agenda.
Critically the spine and branch has the flexibility to select and de-select bolt on’s; unlike the metro which you admit is not viable to Ballymun even as a Luas where a QBC is deemed adequate. Suvention of €6.74 a passenger per year to build a line that passes through areas that can’t justify a Luas in the majority of its existing population catchment.
I await Chairman Boyle’s stance on Nama before declaring unity within the Green Zone
@KerryBog2 wrote:
…a real danger of talking ourselves into a recession? Er, em, did I miss something? I agree with that article. It hits the nail on the head on almost everything, and is a far cry from the BS that the Economist used to write about Oirland. Granted the comments about Quinlan and Carroll were a bit gratuitous, but they grabbed attention.
KB, I sat at my desk late one evening in November of last year watching Citigroup come close to collapse; you got a real sense that the financial set up as I knew it had come to an end; a $500bn titan reduced to a negative value at that time probably exceeding $100bn. Those types of evenings were spent up to March 2009 and there was a real feeling that the Anglo-Saxon model that I grew up with had reached its end and that we would all surely be on the street by the end of 2009. Everytime I turned on the TV there was Robert Peston convincing me again and again that we were all screwed.
However things in the US and UK have since that time turned around; much of it to do with confidence. I agree that Ireland has got deeper problems than any other Eurozone country coming out of the last cycle. I couldn’t dispute that even if I wanted to. However the country also has a lot of positives.
1. Eurozone membership
2. Educated workforce
3. Low Corporation taxes
4. Ability to service the MNC sector
5. Sector specific excellence in high value areas such as IT, Pharma, Organic chemicals; fund custody and managementIf a clear plan existed there is certainly a way out of the current impasse; it is not going to be easy and there will be pain but you are not all screwed. My issue is not saying that it was a problem to say that in 2007 talking the economy down was a problem there was and Mervyn King as Governor of BoE is the only leader I saw that was completely honest that we were in for a very tough time into 2010; My problem is the continued negativity long after the worst is over and whilst the rest of the World is gearing up for the next growth cycle; no-one in Ireland seems to be excited about that opportunities that this new growth phase in key markets presents.
@KerryBog2 wrote:
Not a hope in hell. We will not need 50k homes a year for at least a decade. Nor do we need 100k employed in the industry.
Over the six years up to 2004 employment in the construction sector had increased by 80,000 or 63.5%. By 2007, more than 206,000 were employed in the sector, accounting for 11% of total employment in the economy or 16% of total private-sector non-agricultural employment. Furthermore, in 2004, omitting the financial institutions in the Top 1000 list, building companies accounted for 147 (or 16%) of the remaining 920 companies.
By the time you add in architects, engineers, surveyors, mortgage brokers, conveyancing solicitors, concrete producers, PVC Window makers!! and interior desigers the figure was according to the CIF a lot higher at close to 400,000.
I also fundamentally disagree that it will take a decade to get production up to just over 50% of 2006 levels. I’m not saying that property is the driver of the economy; I would further say I wouldn’t invest in an Irish bulky goods retail park for at least another 10 years. However property is an aspirational product that most Irish people wish to buy into. Where a lot of the bubble I think came from was the building of endless properties for the workforce that were building the units; as soon as production collapsed these guys lost their jobs and lost their homes or the intended purchasers couldn’t afford the deposits or in some cases just repatriated.
If the sectors where World Class Excellence such as IT, Pharma, Chemicals and Financial Services can be put onto a sustainable growth pattern it is the employees and directors of those enterprises that will consume the property. What I can’t see as having changed is that in 2003 when the population was lower than now; there was pent up demand in Dublin for 400,000 units (Dr. Brian Hughes DIT). To me is inconceivable is that in the intervening time when household formation patterns have led to even smaller family units that all of that demand has been satisfied and that with current demographic trends factoring in a recovery that those types of numbers can’t be hit.
@KerryBog2 wrote:
Sadly too many people in the construction sector have not yet realized that it is totally screwed. I was talking to a builder at the weekend and he is confident that he will get paid by a company that, in my opinion, will be a core constituent of NAMA. The money he is owed is now more than 12 months past due. Sad, but true. I didn’t spoil his few pints.
Care to comment on the merits of “pay when paid” contracts anyone?Rs
K.I work away from contracting so I have no idea what the phrase means but I would estimate that a lot of stage payments contractually due have not been made on time. What is clearly required is that the shakeout of the property investment, development and construction sectors happens and that once the viable are seperated from the failed that the sector is funded and not starved of cash to produce homes and employment.
Indications from published research indicate that Prime London Commercial stock has risen 25% in value since March. All about confidence in the rest of the economy to underpin long run average demand; 2006 levels won’t be seen in this cycle, assuming a new cycle commenced in March 2009. If Ireland had the Punt you would all be screwed luckily you still have a currency, a low corporation tax and growing markets. Cleaning up property lending excesses of the past decade is the key to the indigenous sector; doing it in a way that preserves employment is crucial.
@marmajam wrote:
Where did you get your 2bn for MN?
It is incorrect.
The contract will be signed for approx 1.75bn..€2bn is being generous in terms of ability to hit a figure. The idea that almost 50% could be shaved off in a year is laughable; as we all know the RPA won’t release even an estimate based on a 20% variance range; even though construction margins on projects of this scale are less than 10%.
@marmajam wrote:
Luas to Ballymun makes no sense. There’s no need for it. The buses do a very good job.
The Luas through Ballymun was really for the airport and Swords..I disagree the route would serve DCU, Whitehall and Ballymun which is about equivelent to the Luas line to Tallaght; albeit without the huge industrial area in the middle. If it isn’t fit for Luas it surely isn’t fit for Metro.
@marmajam wrote:
It is not feasible to funnell all the airport/Swords and Nth Fingal rail traffic through the DART/Nth Line corridor to Connolly/Docklands.
It stymies develpment already underway in the airport/Swords locale..It is entirely feasible; otherwise Irish Rail would not have proposed it in their 2004 Dublin Rail Plan; extending the Malahide dart to Swords if done with grade seperation would increase capacity on the Northern line.
@marmajam wrote:
The idea that every 5 years into the planning process we should cancel everything and make a new back of an envelope plan based on the latest Daily Mail economic take of events is not real world stuff..
The events of the past 2 years economically are not 5 year cycle territory they are once in lifetime scale events. Dublin is a fundamentally different equation than it was in 2006.
@marmajam wrote:
PVC started off with the argument that MN would cost 5bn with 10% interest repayments.
In fact it will be 1.75bn at approx 5%.
87m a year. More than covered by revenue projected at 100m+ in 2016.
Let me get this; 23m passengers will pay an average fare of €4.35 per passenger; then the route will run itself with no labour, energy or maintenance costs. At €4.35 per passenger per journey most people will take the bus further denting demand below the stated 23m passengers claimed in a much stronger economic environment. Revenue at €2.80 per fare would total €63m; I’ve also never seen the stated running costs. The project would probably lose €40m a year operationally if the figure of €100m plus bandied out is realised; add that to the costs of subordinate debt at 5.75%p.a. and you get an annualised loss of €155m p.a. or €6.74 per passenger carried.
@marmajam wrote:
Inflation after that will render the repayments small beer very quickly. MN will drive economic development in the Nth/NW Fingal area for 150-200 years. There will be more recessions and booms..
Beyond 20 reversions can’t be valued; if a project was to be analysed over 200 years and operational costs ignored the Western Rail Corridor could be proved viable; oh that is the programme for Government that did that.
@marmajam wrote:
The idea that MN is some sort of low capacity tram is also incorrect. It will have 4 times the capacity of Luas – there are many grades of Metro/light-heavy rail syste4ms in operation around the globe. MN is appropriate for Dublin..
So Luas to Ballymum doesn’t stack up; buit a metro to the airport and Swords does; an annual hole of €155m in the transport budget is wholly inappropriate for Dublin.
@marmajam wrote:
Any costs during construction will be more than covered by SS savings, VAT and income tax.
The project is ready to go and will give an important stimulus to the economy.All the guff about DART lines here there and everywhere – given the Irish planning process…………pure fantasy.
Get real. As the actress said to the property developer.
The list is unlike this project a list of bolt-ons that can be added as the funds are available and the development plans written and implemented to plan in a co-ordinated way. Look at the way the Germans build their systems it is spine and branch not large scale unviable and stand alone.
As usual Garret is right.
There is a real danger of talking ourselves into a recession that we convince ourselves is so deep that there is no way out of. The article below really p****d me off, this type of piece is far from objective and has no place in a paper of record such as the FT; it is a very cheap shot.
The reality is closer to a situation where the productive sector always competed with the best globally but that if it is taxed out of existance it will cease to exist having removed their valuable plant for Eastern Europe.
The real drag on the Irish economy is the cost of having much lower property taxes such as stamp duty, Capital Gains Tax etc flowing than our peers at present and 200,000 unemployed construction workers or almost 10% of the population. Given how heavily taxed people are elsewhere in the economy the last thing that is required is another stealth tax e.g. water or council tax which would be particularly unfair given the wedge people have forked out on stamp duty when times were better.
Put simply the over-reliance placed on property over the past decade will take a long time to work through; however at 22,500 homes per year it is clear that from a postion of over-production at 90,000 homes in 2006 the correction has been an over-reaction. What is required is a clear plan to get production of homes back to c50,000 units a year and regardless of what NAMA does with the subordinate bondholders; getting roughly half the 200,000 unployed property industry workers back to work and the other half retrained to new industires must take precedence.
It must however not be at a cost of damaging the reputation of the financial services industry which is where it is hoped a lot of the graduate jobs will be from 2011 onwards. I don’t envy the Government’s position on this but the result must ensure that the Irish Bank’s Senior Debt is protected, the construction industry funded to recover and that confidence in Dublin as a financial services centre of excellence is retained.
@ac1976 wrote:
It’s hard to believe that Metro ever got the go-ahead the cost benefit analysis seems to have been disregarded for some (political) reason.
Anyway, the whole transport 21 plan is based on the DTO “A Platform for Change” strategy and a heavy ammount of political influence.
The good news is that the DTO are reviewing this strategy and its progress and will publish a new strategy in about 6 months time. http://www.dto.ie/web2006/strategy2030.htm
In the meantime the Misister for Transport seems to be desperate to get the Metro North project up-and-running, (I believe they are currently working on the funding for this)The Metro and Interconnector and the transport21 strategy are all part of the current Program for Government, this is were the transport Minister draws his powers to force it through form.
The programme for Goverment was written in mid 2007 roughly 1 month before the sub-prime issue started to dent confidence in all forms of leverage. Also included in the programme for Government was one Western Rail Corridor. At that time it seemed that Ireland was on a never ending rising tide; anything was possible and International financiers were not only lauding Ireland as the model to be aspired to but NTMA could have raised any sum they wanted.
In the intervening period Ireland Inc. has had a torrid time going from hero to zero probably quite unfairly as the same workforce excluding real estate are pretty much still standing and in many sectors inovation continues unabated.
Unfortunately the tide going out has exposed a lot of issues that require restoration of the country’s reputation when it comes to delivering value for money. The public Sector earns almost 50% more than their private sector counterparts whilst enjoying better benefits and much better job security. The ability to buy industrial peace in the good times as fiscal surpluses grew non-stop was a poor choice in retrospect albeit very expedient politically at the time.
The ability to buy a €2bn link to the airport when a €400m option exists would equally be possible; however the fiscal position now cannot sustain such a decision as it is clear if this Metro is built it will be a stand alone Metro line for a couple of decades. It would be much better to redeploy the €1,600m saving with a little additional funding to deliver a number of bolt ons to the existing network such as:
1. A Dart spur for Swords c€200m
2. Luas for Ballymun c€350m
3. Dart spur for Tallaght c€200m
4. Dart upgrade to Maynooth c€200m??
5. Dart upgrade to Pace c€100m??
6. Dart spur to Portstown c€300m??
7. Dart upgrade to Balbriggan c€200??
8. Dart upgrade to Sallins and spur to Naas c€400m??At the very least Metro North needs to be parked up until the DTO can establish not a generalised needs study as we all know enough of those have been carried out over the past 20 years. What the DTO need to do is conduct a ranking table of what projects can deliver the most passenger numbers per euro spent and clearly demonstrate how various options to Dublin Airport, Ballymun, Swords, Tallaght etc stack up in financial and user freindliness terms from a number of City origin points.
With the stupidity gods themselves battles in vain
A God complex; you’ve done everything else!
Whilst you are on Germany lets look at how the Germans connect their main hub-airport FFM or Frankfurt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Schienennetzplan_Frankfurt_am_Main.png
If the model were followed in Dublin it would equate to an express train from Connolly stopping only at Howth Junction and Portmarnock
If Munich were the model it would involve an interconnector solution being used with a normal commuter train using a common route and diverting to the airport after serving a number of existing stations.
As for Berlin the prioritised airport of Berlin Schonefeld is a mix between a DB line RE7 and an extension of S9 which is again an interconnector type of service doing the central spine before serving the airport as a destination
http://selectparks.net/~julian/share/Map_Berlin_S_UBahnNetz.jpg
I can’t see anything that vaguely resembles Metro North here
So you keep saying with various degrees of rudeness, evasiveness and more laterly images that would have more relevance in a peadophiles toolkit than anything else.
Invented figures you say
23m passengers?
€2bn construction cost?
€10bn annual fiscal deficitWhatever way you break that down you wouldn’t need to invent any figures to make a rationale argument pointing out the clear flaws in the project that should have stopped it before it began; putting just those three numbers together and anyone removed from the project can clearly see that it is sheer financial lunacy that has the potential for an unacceptable opportunity cost for the rest of the regional and national transport budget
Marmajam if you have nothing to say then don’t post. You no doubt are attempting justify the overpriced and poorly routed metro north project. If you could have built a credible argument it would have been accepted; you have however failed to do so.
It is likely that the Interconnector will be built; there is no harm in discussing potential combinations of new spurs from existing rail lines when the capacity arrives to ramp up services on what will in terms of rerouting options create a new dawn for Irish rail commuting.
As many contributers have stated before; we all want to see a viable network that serves all the key desinations; the key word being viable. The Metro North stated demand of 23m annual passengers at a cost of €2bn does not acheive viability; the costs work out at €87 per annual passenger journey in the crude or occiaional measure or €39,130 per commuter assuming 45 weeks with 5 return journeys in each week.
Contrast this to the Interconnector which trebles capacity and if alternative routes are added demand from the existing 33m p.a.x. to 100m p.a.x. add another €1bn for ancillary extensions to Tallaght, Porterstown. Airport and Swords to create that demand and the figures come back at €45 per occaisional journey and €20,149 per commuter; a figure of €10,000 – €15,000 per residential unit in residential development levies or 5% of gross value are not overly punative once a functional housing market returns. In contrast to hit a 50 – 75% recovery rate Metro North would need €20,000 – €30,000 per residential unit which given the demographic much of the lines passess through i.e. areas close to the Airport, M50, Ikea etc is simply unrealistic.
In terms of running costs the wider network would be a lot cheaper as most of it utilises existing assets and it provides a better pricing model in terms of the airport where a premium service could be spun off in the way that Ferrovial hold the Heathrow Express franchise.
If you could be mature enough to stop posting childrens photo’s I suspect you might have something decent to contribute; the question is do you have the maturity?
The roof may have been removed because unlike the Irish treatment of business rates which takes account of the cyclical nature of property; any vacant building at that time in the UK may have been liable to pay business rates on vacancy after 3 months; business rates generally equating to about 40% of the annual rent; the UK system doesn’t allow for cyclical movements and full business rates kick in after 3 months.
We had this discussion on the forum 4 or 5 years back in respect of a similar tax regime in North American cites leading to developers or more often than not land speculators vs developers pulling down large former industrial complexes and leaving vacant lots. Brixton PLC pulled down twice as much as they built in 2008 as a result of this frankly ludicrous tax provision which encourages urban blight.
Treasury in my opinion bought into this site in 2006 when the market was fully functional with a view to using their expertese in delivering large scale renewal projects. Their timing was unlucky and until development finance materialises it will be very difficult for them to deliver on their vision for the site. I have no doubt that the challenge of being the first developer to actually acheive completion on this site was a massive motiviating factor in their decision to invest. Simple choice for government accelerate this project with grant aid or wait for the market to return which will be a lot sooner than most other parts of the UK given its location.
For the avoidance of doubt the roof wouldn’t have been removed to avoid rates today; listed buildings now receive automatic full business rates relief if unoccupied. One must consider the roof was removed due to grounds of health and safety if the specific covering was not in a safe condition at a particular time or a tax provision that no longer exists.
If for regeneration if no other reason this site should be brought into play at the earliest possible time as it is in too strategic a location to not be delivering for the City.
