| I totally agree with the author re Thatcher’s “right to buy” initiative enriching private sector and depriving generations of decent, secure housing. This initiative was copied in Ireland. Many of the former Council homes were bought for a pittance (the taxpayers in general were forced to make up the shortfall between the price paid and the true market value) – and were sold on for massive profits .The second buyers were typically mortgaged to penury levels, making them wage-slaves for the rest of their working lives, making the bankers and mortgage brokers rich. When these people died, their children were penalises by inheritance tax because of course the “property” (as vultures call family homes) had massively increases in monetary value. So the heirs either paid the tax or, if they divided it among themselves, were left with just enough for a down-payment on a new mortgage (or a few months’ rent if they were by now too old to get a mortgage). Of course live-in sons or daughters would not have to pay inheritance tax but they’d have to move out if the house was to be sold and shared. Many of the older homeless people are the single, childless sons and daughters of people who bought a former Council house from the original tenants. These poor people are the grown-up, disenfranchised children of the Squeezed Middle. They may have spent their youth following an uncertain career path, in love with life and not materialistic. They almost certainly went home in their middleage to care for their parents because their siblings were too busy with children and grandchildren.On their remaining parent’s death, they were evicted, cast out with their share of the house price – which is just enough to pay for a few month’s living expenses but not enough to buy a forever home. They have to “spend it down” before they can pass the Means Test to get social welfare.These heirs of the upwardly mobile class will never get a Council house because they are competing with young families from Ukraine, Nigeria, Brazil and other countries where people were possibly even poorer than the Irish…at least they were until they discovered Ireland of the Cead Mile Failte. |
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Who Watches the Watchers? 