Dublin Opinion

It’s 5pm and I’m walking down James Street, heading towards DCTV’s warehouse studio where there’s a launch reception for a series of programmes on cycling and the city. I’m hoping to catch the station manager to ask him about the next round of programme funding from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, and to take part in an audience discussion on transport. As always, I get there early - the idea of being late for anything stresses me out, which, along with the fact that I don’t drink, I swear makes me Irish in passport only - and I hang around drinking coffee and picking at the Mannings sandwiches laid on for the event. It is cold and I’m a little tired, but I get to talk to the manager for a couple of minutes before he’s subsumed into preparations for the evening’s shoot. I sit down and finish my sandwich, and while I’m there looking around the tiredness moves up towards me and places its hand on my shoulder. It has been a long day, even though it’s only 6pm, and I don’t think I’m up for hanging on. So, reluctantly, I make my excuses, head over to the exit, and shuffle off out the door.

It has been a busy couple of months. There’s a new season of Looking Left on the way. Two filmed so far, one on 1970s Feminist magazine Banshee, the other on Peoples’ Democracy and Free/Unfree Citizen. Two weeks back I was in Belfast and Derry to interview former members of the Socialist Labour League, while the Sam Nolan tapes - currently standing at eight hours - are taking on an epic structure all of their own. A couple of days ago I was over on Amiens Street with a friend of mine and he says “here I’ve a load of papers for yea” and he hands me an Arnotts bag of copies of United Irishman from the 1950s, along with flyers and posters going back to the 1930s. I haven’t used an archive repository for research in months. There’s all this primary source material floating around, in attics and sheds - and people’s memories as well - it’s almost as if it’s been waiting for someone to walk up and say ‘is it ok if I talk to you?’ To which it replies, ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

And it’s not just political material either. There’s fanzines, cassettes, ephemera; stories of going out; memories of work, and family, and school, and life. All the pieces matter. What it tell us depends on what questions we ask of that evidence, but the material has to be preserved in order to serve as a foundation for future historical analysis. There’s no way around that. You can have all the opinion and analysis you want, but unless it’s standing on a bedrock of evidence it’s nothing more than fantasy, mere ideological whim. It’s why I spend twelve hours on buses in order to capture two hours of conversation. And although my special interest is in working class studies, that doesn’t mean that the interviews will only throw up material of relevance to that particular field. Within each interview there is a richness of raw data pertaining to aspects of 20th century life of which I am not even aware. That’s the nature of research. I bring what I can to the table, and hopefully someone else will pick up on other aspects. But, whatever the difference in approach, it’s still grounded on evidence. All the pieces matter, but the pieces have to exist in the first place. We can’t just start making shit up, pretending that material reality can be understood without any recourse to, well, material reality. The bedrock of evidence has to be there.

This does not mean that every analysis of reality has to be subject purely to material evidence. But, in terms of work, unemployment, wages, housing, societal structures around health and education, there is material evidence to allow us to analyse these aspects of everyday living. We’re using abstract reasoning to comprehend material reality, but we’re still dealing with things that exist. They are not mystical. There may be more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies, but human society is not one of them. We made it, We can understand it.

Last week I was visiting my sister in East Wall when my other sister arrived. She lives in Drogheda and was talking to our other sister, who also lives in Drogheda, that our sister’s neighbour (another sister , I have four) in Drogheda (of which three live in Drogheda) was selling up.

- How much did he pay for the house, I asked

- Well he paid 275 but he’s done a lot with it. There’s a new extension and he did a couple of things inside as well.

- And how much is he asking?

- He said if he gets 270 he’ll take it.

I just thought to myself, the poor fucker. But, it’s to be expected. The media analysis is that the housing bubble burst in 2008, causing the banks to collapse and the economy to go haywire, all fuelled by public sector inefficiency. However, after a series of ‘tough’ decisions by Brian Lenihan and Brian Cowen, which involved sucking billions out of the real economy during a recession in order to hand the money over to property developers and bank shareholders, the economy will soon turn for the better. So, although we may all be feeling like this:

once the unions have been taught a lesson in manners, and the minimum wage has been scrapped, we’ll all be feeling like this:

Thing is, the national average price for a house at the end of 2009 was €213,183; with an average price in Dublin of €278,767, and outside Dublin of €189,643.

The problem is not so much that my (other, other) sister’s neighbour is asking too much for his house, but that the Irish housing bubble is still imploding. It hasn’t even come close to hitting bottom.

Typically, house prices are measured in terms of ratios of wages. The long-term ratio is around 3.5 - that is, the national average price of a house should be somewhere around 3.5 times the national average income. Once a house price breaks upwards with this ratio, you’re looking at a potential bubble.

Ireland is a relatively low-income economy, with a median gross income of around €25,000. Two-thirds of all gross incomes are lower than €30,000 a year. This is based on 2008 figures (see Revenue, Statistical Report 2008, Income Distribution Statistics, p.6). However, the average gross income is around €36,000.

Of course, since 2008 income levels have dropped. But, let’s be a little bit flexible here, and let’s look at house prices with 2008 income figures as a guideline.

With the median income of €25,000, house prices shouldn’t be much above €87,500.

For two-thirds of the working population, house prices shouldn’t be much above €100,500

For the ‘average’ income of €36,000, house prices shouldn’t be much above €126,000

In 2008, the national average house price was €261,573.

Even if incomes had stalled at 2008 rates, which of course they haven’t (public sector pay, for example, has fallen in real terms by as much as 15%), national average house prices at the end of December 2009 paint a picture of an economy with house prices 8.5 times the median income of €25,000, and 6 times the best-case average of €36,000.

These figures are all ball-park, but they indicate a housing market that remains vastly overpriced in terms of the purchasing power of the population. The injection of €56 billion of taxpayers’ money into the Irish property bubble can only serve to prolong the inevitable, and at a huge social cost. The wider economic and social consequences of this government-initiated Ponzi scheme, with the taxpayer as last man in, has yet to filter through to the business community, who seem to think the economy begins and ends at their shop door, and that citizens are either consumers or workers, never both and at the same time. The facts are there, we know enough to see the wider effects, but the self-delusion stands.

Moments of beauty notwithstanding, this is indeed a sad world.