Irish Examiner view: How will homeless fare after 'painful correction'?
Homeless From Number Number 2010 Now Was It At Approximately Three Media Is 5,000; Reports The Point Suggest That In Of Ireland That Times People
There was a grim sense of deja vu for many readers in Thurday’s headlines, as media outlets paid close attention to a sharp warning from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) about the Irish housing market.
In short, ESRI Professor Kieran McQuinn said Irish property prices are currently overvalued in the region of 8% to 10%, adding: “Overvaluation does bring dangers, and the larger the degree of overvaluation, the greater the risk of a significant correction in the housing market at some stage.”
The term ‘significant’ was replaced by something more sinister when the ESRI’s quarterly economic commentary specified “concerns in the domestic market about the sustainability of such increases and the prospect of a painful correction such as that witnessed between 2007 and 2012”.
For “painful correction”, of course, read “crash”.
Those with long memories may recall the vague promises of a “soft landing” ahead of that catastrophe, so these warnings have at least the virtue of undeniable though understated honesty.
Painful though memories of the crash may be, they should function as a necessary corrective to any unchecked boosterism we are subjected to in the immediate future.
House prices spiralling higher year on year may be reminiscent of the height of the Celtic Tiger, but the country has also changed significantly since then.
One obvious comparison is with the numbers of homeless people, which have also been spiralling higher and higher.
Media reports from 2010 suggest the number of homeless people in Ireland at that point was approximately 5,000; now it is three times that number.
The grim irony was that on the same day that the ESRI pointed out that house prices are now 13.4% higher than before the financial crash, the Capuchin Day Centre in Dublin gave away 3,000 food vouchers in a few hours.
People started queueing at 4am for the vouchers, but dozens still left empty-handed, such was the demand.
If there is a “painful correction” who will care for the homeless when we cannot care for all of them now?
One of the most understandable instances of “told you so” may be on hand, if a new survey is to be believed.
The survey, carried out by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), has found that a majority of Britons who voted to leave the EU in the Brexit vote would now accept a return to free movement in exchange for access to the single market.
It should be pointed out that the phraseology here is quite significant: It is not a majority of Britons, but a majority of those Britons who voted to leave the EU.
That wish for change is reciprocated by those in other countries — more than 9,000 people across Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Poland were surveyed, and the ECFR reports enthusiasm for renewed ties were in Britain.
The most enthusiastic advocates for closer ties were the British themselves — the very people who voted to leave the EU.
The disastrous results of Brexit have been well-ventilated since that 2016 referendum.
From businesses and livelihoods swept away entirely or smothered in bureaucracy, to unnecessary difficulties in travelling to and from European countries, Britain has been enduring one of the worst cases of buyer’s remorse in history.
And that is without even beginning to reckon with the impact of Brexit on the North.
Their constitutional complications got entangled with the cavalier attitude of a British government trying some performative decisiveness — all at the expense of hard-won peace.
Keir Starmer’s current administration now faces a tricky choice.
If it reflects these findings by restoring stronger ties to the EU then it risks empowering Reform UK, the Nigel Farage-led party gaining ground on the Tories’ right.
If Starmer does not act on these findings, he may find himself out of step with a volatile electorate.
Such is the legacy of Brexit, which continues to contaminate everything it touches.
It still seems odd that a World Cup was played in Qatar, with its appalling record on human rights and the treatment of migrant workers.
However, the strangeness of that decision looks to be overtaken by another bizarre choice for one of the biggest global events in sport.
This week, Saudi Arabia was confirmed as the host of the World Cup in 10 years’ time, and the decision is already raising eyebrows.
One of the criticisms of the tournament in Qatar was the rush to build stadia to accommodate games, with outlets reporting that thousands of migrant workers died on sites associated with the tournament.
Not only does Saudi Arabia have to build 11 separate venues for the World Cup, it must build at least one entire city for the tournament.
Fifa — often craven, always contemptible — has decided to reward what has been described by one human rights group as one of the world’s most brutal authoritarian regimes.
It is yet another proof of the ultimate efficacy of sportswashing in the medium- to long-term.
Saudi Arabia’s takeover of golf through the LIV Tour drew some early criticism before general acceptance, after all.
The rehabilitation of this World Cup’s reputation will no doubt follow the same trajectory after initial objections to events such as the murder of Jamal Khashoggi fade from the memory.