Declan Lynch: Liveline heard that one woman built a log cabin but was informed by the council she would have to tear it down | Irish Independent
Flor Lynch
Anton Savage discussed public loos. Photo: Shane O'Neill/Coalesce
Broadcaster Kieran Cuddihy photographed for 'People & Culture' in 2025. Photo: Steve Humphreys
Anton Savage discussed public loos. Photo: Shane O'Neill/Coalesce
Broadcaster Kieran Cuddihy photographed for 'People & Culture' in 2025. Photo: Steve Humphreys
The front page story in the Sunday Independent last week, about €14k tax breaks on “modular homes” in gardens, kicked off another round of intense radio hostilities on the housing issue.
Indeed on the Brendan O’Connor Sunday newspaper panel (11am), the great Professor Scott Lucas of UCD pointed out that virtually every time he had been on the show, this issue had been raised. Journalist Alison O’Connor struck a note that would be heard many times throughout the week, when she spoke of “the potential for huge disharmony”.
Ah yes, it’s our old friend, “the potential for huge disharmony”. And the only place to go with that, is Liveline (RTÉ1, weekdays, 1.45pm). Would the listeners be delighted by the news about the modular homes? Would they already be throwing one up in the back garden?
As it happened, one listener had already done just that. A couple of years ago, she built a log cabin without planning permission for one of her kids who couldn’t afford to save for a house. She was informed by the county council she would have to tear it down, because “under the development plan for the county it was illegal to sleep in a log cabin”.
So she tore it down. They told her that if she didn’t tear it down, they would, and charge her for the privilege. It was – and there was no reason to doubt the woman – “a beautiful cabin”. It cost about €35k. After dismantling it, she sold it for a huge loss.
I’ll let you sit with that for a few moments.
There is tremendous rage in all our hearts when we contemplate a perfectly good log cabin being knocked down because of some law.
Not that we don’t need laws in this country, it’s just that the way things are going on the housing issue, there’s a danger that there’ll be no country left at all if we keep enforcing these ones. It hardly matters whether it’s right or wrong at this stage, it just looks and feels too bad.
And if that didn’t enrage the Liveline community, another caller had identified “something that nobody’s talking about” – the way we allow people who are not Irish citizens to buy properties here. She spoke of the “40,000 Americans” now looking for Irish passports, who may buy houses here and further distort the property market.
“They’re buying up everything,” she said, advocating a minimum of five years paying tax in Ireland to qualify. Kieran Cuddihy argued that “we don’t have degrees of citizenship”. She mentioned hearing many stories from auctioneers in Dublin which supported her theory. The Cudmeister called it “anecdote masquerading as evidence”.
And it’s worth adding that the caller had now maintained both that “nobody’s talking about it” and that actually, quite a few people are talking about it.
Indeed, during this episode I sensed that an over-arching principle could be established on Liveline, which goes something like this: in relation to any controversy that arises in this country, as soon as anyone starts blaming people from some other country for it Cuddihy needs to pounce.
He needs to hit a buzzer, or maybe bring in some radio equivalent of Graham Norton’s ejector seat. I think we can trust him on this; the early signs are promising.
Because if we know nothing else about housing, or about life in general, we know that we are perfectly capable of screwing these things up all by ourselves. We don’t need any foreigners for that, thanks very much.
Anton Savage discussed public loos. Photo: Shane O'Neill/Coalesce
A case in point is the proposed construction of four new public toilets in Dublin city centre – a story that featured in Newstalk Breakfast (weekdays, 7am) with Anton Savage. It was proposed last June, which is quite a long time ago, at least in real life. In the life of an Irish public body, it is nothing.
Savage brought in Green Party councillor Donna Cooney to help him on this pressing matter – though in fairness to Savage, he presents that breakfast show all by himself, while at the rival Morning Ireland by comparison, it takes a village.
Cooney still made a useful contribution, unhappy that the toilets in question, which could cost €1.5m each, are still at “the concept stage”. I hear you saying: with toilets, we already know what the concept is. Yet even in such a basic matter, it seems there’s still “the potential for huge disharmony”.