The quantity of these uninhabited ghost estates (I had noted them in rural Ireland gouging into the land and tacking themselves onto villages) and the matter that the bulldozer may now visit them … Jeeeesus. Squint left, squint right — how’d we end up here again? Really wish they’d uploaded the RTE documentary on this last night. Hearing about it, and grabbing bits of it here and there. Just plain batty. And yet we saw it. It was happening everywhere you looked. And yet? And yet if NAMA owns them, then they belong to the tax payer and should be streamlined into social housing projects. The strange thing about them was you’d look at them twice and wonder who’d want to live in them, but you’d never contemplate there wouldn’t be anyone to live in them.
I remember the original stab at affordable housing during the boom years produced only completely unaffordable housing.
RTE Player are hosting Ghost Land now. I missed it on Sunday myself, but thankfully they sorted out whatever ‘rights issues’, there was with placing it online.
Unfortunately now you only have to face the frustrations of the Player itself. It looped back to the beginning on me twice yesterday evening.
All the same, horrific documentary. I hope it is seen as a testament that the look-the-other way Irish mentality when things go wrong can no longer work. This effects everyone, a disappointed shrug isn’t a sufficient response to a disaster on this scale.
May 14th, 2010 at 9:09 amThanks so much for the tip. Alas I had a divil of a time and could not for the life of me get it to work and have yet to see the whole of it. Damn and blast it! I hope someone has the sense to put it up someplace.
I hear you. Justine McCarthy’s piece on the other Aftershock program was poignant. The one thing I will say is at least there is discourse, and people are vocal, if only this could be channeled at the ballot box to produce an alternative.
When I contemplate the lunacy of NAMA tho’ I wonder how much worse this will play out.
May 17th, 2010 at 6:06 amLeave a Reply