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Housing and energy were the main headlines this week as Robert Troy resigned from his Minister of State position after the controversy over his failure to fully declare the extent of his property holdings in the Dáil register of interests. On Friday, rising household bills came sharply back in to focus when SSE Airtricity announced that it would increase gas and electricity prices by 39 per cent and 35.4 per cent respectively from October 1st, a move which will impact about 250,000 electricity customers and 85,000 gas customers.
This weekend, Jack Horgan-Jones looks in to how crisis planners have been devising a strategy for keeping the lights on in a doomsday scenario. “The plans were shrouded in secrecy, with members of the group confiding that there is a concern that too much information about worst-case scenarios being in the public domain could be a risk in itself,” he writes.
As the cost-of-living crisis continues to escalate, Conor Pope looks at just how much more Irish households will be paying this year. His piece follows an article in February which suggested that Irish people would be worse off by about €2,000 over the course of 2022 once the higher costs of energy, fuel, food and more were totted up. That now looks wildly optimistic. “When all the price hikes people have faced and are likely to face as we head into winter are totted up, many households will be worse off by about €4,000 by the time the bells ring in 2023,” he writes. “And that is a net figure so there will be a considerable number of Irish households that will need to earn an extra €8,000 just to stay in the same financial position they were in last winter.”
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With housing top of the agenda early in the week after Troy’s interview on RTÉ in which he revealed that he owns 11 properties, with nine of those rented out, Diarmaid Ferriter asked the question: if our TDs want to be landlords, then why doesn’t the State? Troy’s resignation has prompted discussion around land ownership, a topic of heightened attention considering the ongoing housing crisis. Cost and shortage of supply are at the core of the issue, which has meant far too many cannot own a single house – yet, Ferriter writes, many of our parliamentarians own several: “Is it not the case that our politicians’ combined property portfolio reflects a deep inequality in the distribution of house ownership?”
Also focusing on housing in his column this week, Senator Michael McDowell writes that by clearly stating their intentions if leading the next government, Sinn Féin have in effect served notice to quit on private landlords as far as the private rental market is concerned.
But how long will sky-high house prices and rising mortgage interest rates last? Potentially not much longer, writes David McWilliams: “The collapsing Chinese property market has the potential to derail a global economy already reeling from widespread, energy-driven inflation. To the Irish reader, the Chinese property market is almost a carbon-copy of Ireland’s around 15 years ago. Sales in the 12 months up to June fell by 22 per cent compared with last year.”
In his Saturday column, Fintan O’Toole writes that southern hostility to northerners in Ireland was the hate that dared not speak its name. While the IRA’s campaign was designed to bring about a united Ireland, it in fact had the paradoxical effect of disuniting the island. “What happened in the early 1970s is that the majority in the South executed a mental and emotional evacuation from the North. They did so for the simple reason that they did not want the South to become like the North,” he writes.
Politicians come in all stripes – from the staid and serious Angela Merkel, to the wily Bertie Ahern. But politicians, Finn McRedmond writes, also strive to imitate a version of “normal” all the time. Then why the furore over videos of Finland’s 36-year-old prime minister socialising? “No one can truly be concerned at the apparently shocking news that a woman drinks and parties with her friends,” writes McRedmond.
Speaking of politicians, the parallels between Liz Truss and Republican senator Lindsey Graham are striking, Kathy Sheridan notes this week. The do-or-die defence of a mendacious, amoral leader, the lack of a moral case for any policy, the willingness to ride the disastrous far-right wave even as divisions engulf party, country, natural allies and international reputation. The only difference is that Graham failed to become US president while Truss will probably make it to 10 Downing Street, writes Sheridan.
This week Roe McDermott responds to a reader who asks whether she and her partner need to break up immediately because they disagree about having children. “While there can surely be compromise on the decision to get married and where to live, the decision to have children is pretty binary and would be life-altering,” the reader writes.
In our restaurant review this week, Corinna Hardgrave advises that you wait until you’re starving and your vegan pals have gone on holiday to visit this “all you can eat” Brazilian rodízio in Dublin 2.
In Tell Me About It, psychotherapist Trish Murphy responds to a woman who worries her long-term relationship is entirely driven by her and often has the feeling that if she left, her partner “would disappear back into his work and adapt very quickly to life without me”.
Hilary Fannin is this week pondering the true, vicious nature of her pet kitten. We might think of them as fur-babies, but that all goes out the window when they arrive indoors clutching some unfortunate creature between their fangs: “We buy them rabbit-flavoured gloop to eat and salmon-flavoured treats to crunch. We purchase scratching posts and velvety beds and hang pretend mice on strings from chair backs for their delectation. We think it’s fantastically cute and endearing when they steadfastly ignore us — but, you know, they’re killers,” writes Fannin.
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