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Yes, I too initially found the Platform 11 position on the WRC perplexing but after seeing their reasoning, their position is the correct one. In the nineteenth century, winding, slow, infrequent rural rail services could still be justified given that mechanised road vehicles had yet to be invented and that freight was carried on canals. Modern rail is a different animal. Unless rail can compete (in terms of frequency, speed, comfort and price) with roads (whether using public or private transport), it’s going to lose money hand over fist. The bus service between Sligo to Galway would be faster, cheaper and many times more frequent than the train service the WOT are campaigning for. Modern rail is about carrying passengers to where they want to go not spending half a billion on a disneyesque fun ride through the wilds of Galway and Mayo.
Given the real pent up demand for rail in many other parts of the country and the condition of some of the heavily used existing lines, stock and stations, it would be ridiculous to spend half a billion on the WRC.
By the way, to disclose my interest in this discussion, I eventually joined platform 11.
plenty of jurisdictions are happy to invest money without disclosing details to your home tax authorities – so long as they believe that you are not a criminal. Try Switzerland.
Sure, if you’re prepared to ignore the laws of the land and risk the repercussions, there are lots of ways of increasing your wealth (including robbing post offices). What’s your point here? Because it might be possible for people to break the law and evade paying tax we should give them tax relief as a pre-emptive measure?
You are correct about that it would be only 44% of the 72 million foregone in tax revenue.
Any number of conditions may be attached to tax relief – I don’t understand your point here.
That’s not the case. Section 23 is a very blunt instrument; the authorities cannot apply stipulations on a site by site basis, for example.
TP, the anti-cyclical argument is an interesting one but I’m not fully convinced by it. The EU/ECB has belatedly recongnised that the government borrowing cap is a bad idea and that governments (currently Germany and France) should be allowed to borrow in a downturn in order to increase the money in the economy according to classic Keynesian economic theory. A significant factor for the government using inefficient tax incentive schemes and PPPs to boost capital investment in the country was in order to keep debt off the books to meet the ECB’s criteria. That pressure is now gone. Anyway, It is always better to have the option available to to cut spending on areas that don’t need it. In a recession, for example, the government could quickly respond to the fact that no more holiday homes are needed and cut that budget, diverting the spending into activities which would boost economic activity.
Private cash was invested in the area that otherwise might have gone abroad.
This is an often repeated claim but I’ve never heard an argument towards why this might happen. If anything, you’re more likely to get doubly screwed by tax if you derive some of your income from foreign investments.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that there are 200 units in the new development in Smithfield with an average value of 400K. Assume a 90% qualifying cost yielding a total of 72 million worth of section 23 allowance which will be drawn down over the next few years by the landlords.
If you had designated that 72 million of grant aid was available for apartment construction in Smithfield then at the very worst you could achieve the same result (lining the pockets of the builders/landowners) without biasing the market in favour of rental use for the property. If you had any imagination you could apply a host of conditions on that particular development in order to qualify for the grant aid.
Every aspect of section 23 you are defending TP could be achieved far more efficiently and more transparently by having an urban renewal grant fund set aside every year.
People seem to think that tax breaks don’t cost anything. The reality is that whether you forego 100m of income or get the 100m and hand it out again, the net result is the exact same. At least if you collect it and hand it out you can be selective when you’re handing it out and you tune the criteria as you go along. Tax relief is an extremely crude, inefficient and market-distorting way of subsidising marginal development. Invariably the money ends up supporting inappropriate schemes or encouraging economic activity which wasn’t envisaged or having bad side effects. The latter include, in this case for example, pricing owner-occupiers out of the market and effectively allowing landlords join that select group (including artists and lifestock breaders) who are exempt from income tax.
Tax breaks are also Enron-like from a budgeting point of view. Basically you are incurring costs (the loss of future tax revenue) without having to account for it at all.
My biggest concern with this type of development is the Section 23 status.
Absolutely. These development tax breaks have far outlived their usefulness and are now actually damaging the country. The reason a one bed can fetch 370k is simply because an investor (who already owns a number of investment properties) can probably recoup about 150k of the purchase price against tax. This is perverse; the general exchequer loses out to the tune of 150k while owner occupiers are priced out of the market. Another property based tax relief – section 48 – is causing traditional costal villages and holiday areas to be engulfed in barely utilised holiday home housing estates. Tax breaks are an extremely crude instrument compared to grant aid. At least with the latter each proposal can be vetted. No matter how shite or nasty the development is, the exchequer ends up subsidising it (through foregoing tax) as long as some very basic conditions are met. At least with a grant scheme, the criteria can be tuned from year to year. The sooner these tax breaks are dispensed with the better.
Graham, the reason this has been overlooked is simply because this talk from the DDDA about tall “landmarks” is a relatively recent change of tune probably in response to the rising criticism of their model of development. In the fifteen or so years they’ve been in charge, they’ve managed to cover the most of the prime development locations in the docklands with suburban office park style blocks and boring monolithic appartment blocks none of which rise above six stories. It’s bit of a cop out to now claim that this horrible pattern of development was part of a grand plan. Their earlier documents made it explicit that they would not tolerate tall buildings. It’s an dreadful wasted opportunity. Their neanderthal planning model has created the economic conditions which encourages sprawling development (City West, Park West, et. al were all started after the DDDA were handed responsibility for the docks) and is also now putting pressure on the rest of Dublin to accomodate high buildings in inappropriate areas. They have singularly failed to create an URBAN area when a cursory look at other cities that have developed new self sustaining urban areas whould have shown them how to do this. They deserve all the criticism they get. No-one will ever again have the opportunity to implement a grand plan in Dublin unless they reclaim huge chunks of Dublin bay and even then it will be like some American city where the new “downtown” is five miles away from the traditional centre. They’ve blown it big time.
The problem is using appropriate locations for tall buildings. Would you be in favour of building a 15 story office building in the grounds of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Limerick?
The unfortunate situation regarding tall buildings in Dublin is that the people who control development in the part of the city which is perfectly suited to tall buildings, the DDDA, are venemently opposed to anything taller that suburban office park style six story buildings. This means Dublin will probably end up with tall buildings in other areas which are less suitable and will end up with the most boring and inappropriate dockland redevelopment in Ireland (or Britain for that matter).
Beautiful picture of Cannocks, Tuborg. Where did you get it? I have a vague memory of Cannocks. It must have been knocked 20 or 25 years ago. It was a department store, I think, but my memory of it is very hazy. I think it was less “up-market” than the other nearby dempartment store, Todd’s (now BT), across the road. I don’t ever remember seeing the building to the right of Cannocks. I think that was a derelict/empty site for years. It’s also a great shame to be reminded of what was there before the Author’s Quay development. I remember that building too; I think it was occupied by a big jeweler. That whole stretch of Limerick has been destroyed in the last 30 years. Cannock’s is gone, most of the Georgians where Author’s Quay is were knocked as was Cruises Hotel.
There’s no doubt that higher densities are desirable and I’m strongly in favour of tall buildings in Dublin. High density development is required to make public transport viable and creates a counterbalance the strong economic forces which support sprawl and the destruction of the countryside and structure of traditional villages and towns in the vicinity of Dublin and to a lesser extent the other cities. These forces are caused by the fact that most of the costs associated with sprawling development are not externalised (i.e. borne by those who benefit – the developers, residents and to some extent the local councils).
Unfortunately, I feel that the popular sentiment against taller buildings in Dublin has been replaced by what people imagine to be a more sophisticated attitude which is that we should dot very tall buildings randomly around the city. This is a failed model which has damaged many UK cities but is one which our city planners seem intent on replicating in Dublin. Instead, I believe a Parisian (La Defense) model for high-rise development would be far superior. It would mean that all high-rise buildings are concentrated in a particular area or maybe in two areas. These areas would be identifiably modern in the same way that parts of the current city are identifiably Georgian, Victorian or even medieval (at least in terms of street patterns). The docklands would have been absolutely perfect for this. It was a huge central brownfield area containing little of architectural merit within walking distance of the traditional centre of the city and it’s near public transport hubs. Unfortunately the DDDA insisted on using City West as it’s “inspiration” for what a low-rise docklands should look like instead of trying to create a living urban centre with proper street scapes and incorporating high rise buildings to increase density.
I think Paul has muddied the waters a bit by suggesting that the revenue helps fund heritage restoration projects. Maybe he thought this would make the idea more appealing to the architects on this site. I think it’s completely irrelevent. Maybe the revenue has been used for this purpose in some particular cases but it could just as easily be used to fund a coke and champagne fueled party at a brothel for the developers. It’s a red herring.
It’s just that I’ve seen these shrouds used in cities in other countries and the effect is far more pleasing that the ugly way building sites are cordoned off in Dublin. I also think that it should be possible to clearly distinguish this type of temporary advertising from the “burger king banner” type. The former has a different primary function in that it hides potentially ugly building activity and protects passers by and vehicles from stuff falling off scaffolding. The council could vet the ads so that they aren’t too garish and are relatively inoffensive.
I don’t see what’s necessarily intrinsically aesthetically offensive about advertising. Some ads can be beautiful. Imagine a large poster of some appealing scene of Irish natural beauty and add the word “ballygowan” in a small font to the bottom right hand corner; put your hand over the word “ballygowan” and contemplate the picture again. Maybe it’s just me, but I can appreciate the image without noticing the product name or being offended by the fact that the image is being used to promote a product.
Anyway, it’s not like I’m going to start writing letters to politicians in support of this enterpise. But I think it would be an improvement over the current way of doing things.
I don’t fully understand the largely negative reaction to Paul O’Mahony’s enterprise here. It seems to me that he is presenting a choice between high quality shrouding which looks good or the current way of doing things with that green gauze flapping around scaffolding poles reinforced with sheets of untreated or graffittied plyboard. Little or none of the negative reaction seems to be based on aesthetics but on the fact that it “commercial”, as if commerce is a dirty, grubby enterprise which steals from the commonwealth.
There was a shell of a 1930s house on the Foxrock dual cariage way until quite recently.
Was it on your left on the way out of town? If yes, then that’s probably the one I’m thinking of. I used to catch a glimpse of from the upstairs of the 46A when I used to commute to Dun Laoghaire a few years back. Obviously, it wasn’t as interesting as Micheal Scott’s one in Sandycove but it still looked as if it had the potential to be very beautiful if shown a bit of attention. It’s a pity it’s gone but, even at the time, I knew it was destined for the wrecking ball; when you see a property in that condition in such an expensive area, you know what’s going to happen.
It’s a great shame how so many modernist houses, albethey not overly remarkable by international standards are left to crumble away, while older ‘heritage’ buildings are the only ones considerd worthy of restoration, or even just basic care and attention.
It would be an interesting excercise to analyse the distribution of listed buildings in Ireland in terms of period. I’d imagine that modern buildings are hardly represented at all. I remember even being surprised to learn that Archer’s Garage was listed a few years ago before it was illegally knocked. At the time, I assumed, without thinking about it much, that the listing system was there to protect Georgian or slightly later building stock.
Don’t all academic disciplines naturally suffer somewhat from being territorial, in the sense described? This might be more pronounced in areas where critical analysis is a major component; e.g. it will be more pronounced in areas like literature or philosophy than in subjects like science or engineering. I don’t see anything particularly unique about architecture in this regard. It’s up to students to develop a sense of perspective and resist being led like sheep.
I like that house in Sandycove. I can’t seem to get pictures of the others on the web (google) ‘though. I also remember seeing some interesting mass concrete houses a while back somewhere on the Stillorgan dual carraigeway (I think – maybe it was the Blackrock/Dun Laoghaire Road) but they were almost derelict or at least hadn’t been painted in years.
I support 2 lanes in each direction on all major routes, bypassing the towns and cities.
Personally, I’d have a problem with blanket policies like this. I support motorway construction when the case has been proven with regard to benefits to justify the massive capital spending required and the accrued environmental costs. From my personal experience, I’d say that motorways were definitely required to replace large sections of the N7, N4 and N1. These routes had terrible bottlenecks and the motorway upgrades have improved journey times considerably. I’m sure there were other similar routes in the country which justified upgrading to motorway. On the other hand, the Shannon bypass (on the Limerick to Galway Route) or whatever it’s called seems to me to be a monumental waste of money. At best it has reduced journey times by 5 or 10 minutes on a route that was never that congested to begin with. Sure it looks nice on a map, but I don’t think any cost/benefit analysis could have justified such expenditure and this is my worry; motorways are being built for ideological or perversely aesthetic reasons (nice lines on maps) rather than for sound economic reasons.
Hi patty. The M50 is due to be upgraded to three lanes in each direction. The N7/M7 is three or four lanes near Dublin. There could be others; I dunno.
Motorways are great for travelling between cities and towns and I view it as a positive thing for the country to have motorways linking the major cities/towns: Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway. Motorways are terrible for commuting; the experience in other countries has proven this but we seem intent on copying their mistakes. The M3 is an example of a commuter motorway which is a big mistake in my opinion whatever your views on heritage. The M50 has become a commuter route.
Sceptical would be a more appropriate adjective than negative. We’ve being hearing about proposals for a national conference centre for years now. In the meantime “Mansfield’s giant heap of crap” has gone up without planning permission.
I would be interested in learning more about the other (Alexander Dock??) proposal though.
Most of the online maps have it; here it is on a google’s map feature, for example. This map doesn’t make it clear that the line goes under the park but I like google’s interface; the map scrolls quickly (just drag or double click on the map). You’ll notice that the line doesn’t actually go from Heuston – it branches off further out from the station. Apparently there will be suburban trains using the line whenever Spensor Dock station is finished (in a year or so?) but they wont terminate in Connolly because of the capacity constraints. Instead they’ll go to Spensor Dock station.
