Monthly Archives: December 2007

Sallins station car park finally opens

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After months of waiting, grating and anticipating the new parking at Naas & Sallins rail station finally opened this week. The facility is part of the overall complex in the Waterways which includes a supermarket and apartments but the underground piece is exclusively for rail users. The old car parks on both sides of the station still exist but will also become pay parking and have been altered somewhat to allow link up with the new facility. Cars now enter the old Naas side and the underground facility via the entrance to the Waterways at the traffic lights. The Sallins entrance and parking remains unchanged although that will also now become chargeable. A net total of 202 extra spaces will be created by the development.

Park and Ride opens at Sallins

The charge will be 2 EURO a day or better value 5 EURO for a 7-day ticket. Whilst there were some quibbles over this my personal view is that it is not unreasonable. There is a brand new facility provided so it is not just charging for what used be free. Also whilst it is not an option for everyone, the charge may incentivise some to now walk, cycle or feeder bus to station rather than driving.

NASRUG have lobbied on this issue since the start and with the opening of this car park we negotiated an initial waiver of the pay-parking period until the new year to at least get people accustomed to the facility. So until the 31st Dec no charge applies.

With my Fianna Fáil hat on I also sought a form of tax relief on commuter parking. Whilst it was not granted in this budget I understand it will be considered over the next year and may well form part of the taxsaver scheme in future. (Some coverage here although typo on my name)

Many will breathe a sigh of relief that the new facility is finally in operation. Obviously the many motorists who had struggled day in, day out for the past year or two as the old car park creaked at the seams. Similarly the village had begun to suffer the effects of the overspill and parking all around the main street, community centre, canal view, nearby estates was becoming a nightmare for local residents and businesses. Not all due to rail users but it must be acknowledged the station shortage was a major factor. The extra spaces will hopefully encourage more people to use the service which again can only be a good thing. Less cars on the roads to Dublin and more people on the trains.

There is more to be done but this is definitely the right direction. With increased usage comes the need for greater capacity in car parking and greater capacity on trains. Continued investment in public transport is required to bring our service up to speed but I am heartened by the capital spending pledges of the budget. And the promise of Transport21 with all that will bring…

As my home broadband is switching providers this may be my last post of 2007. Seasons greetings and happy new year to all!

NASRUG negotiate extra train in evening gap

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NASRUG (Naas and Sallins Rail Users Group) is a commuter lobby group serving the users of Naas and Sallins railway station. A strong advocate of public transport, and a daily commuter to Dublin myself, I have been involved with the group since its inception.

We lobby on a number of matters but primarily on timetable changes, station facilities (parking, shelters, buildings), service levels (punctuality, reliability, announcements), ticketing and fare structures and longer term projects such as Transport 21 and route upgrades.

Looking back over the last few years I would say we have consistently punched above our weight and no less this week.

Platforms at Heuston Station
Platforms at Heuston Station

As in previous years, we received an advance copy of the timetable and whilst it was reasonable overall and included a few sweeteners (such as a later last train at 11pm which we’d always listed as a ‘nice-to-have’), there was one outstanding issue.

This was a gap in the evening service between 18.35 and 20.05 returning from Heuston to Sallins. For many people working a little later than the traditional 9-5 this posed significant problems in getting home. Allowing for the fact that Heuston itself is a bit away from most workplaces, many folk were stranded between these trains until the 20.05 and were stuck getting home at 9pm daily as a result.

Previous years negotiations had seen repeated improvements (we made a lot of breakthroughs in the 07 timetable including an improved evening service and a Sunday service) but this gap was the one remaining ‘black spot’ in the Sallins timetable.

Armed with a flood of protest from the online group I approached our contact in Irish Rail and made him fully aware of the difficulties posed. There were challenges around rolling stock and conflicts with mainline trains, but we kept on the pressure and IR kept with it, and I finally got the good news on Wednesday that we would indeed get an additional train.

From Monday, 10th December, the 18.50 service ex-Heuston will stop in Sallins. It will not be printed in official timetables, being an 11th hour concession, but it will operate.

Credit where credit’s due and Irish Rail took our points on board here. They showed flexibility and a willingness to meet us halfway and I am certainly appreciative.

NASRUG have always had a policy of positive engagement and whilst we can and do get tough when the occasion calls for it, equally we listen to the other side at all times and usually we meet in the middle.

Communications build trust, trust builds communications. It’s certainly worked out this time.

Some thoughts on stamp duty reform

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The biggest headline in today’s budget was probably the reform of stamp duty and it seems to have drawn generally favourable reviews. Certainly the estate agents were happy as they expect the market to recover in the new year as a result and stimulate activity in what had been a dead calm for some months.

As always there were critics but one analysis I strongly disagree with – it was suggested the changes will in reality apply to very few.

To assess the veracity of this claim this one has to consider the whole gamut of groupings who are stakeholders in the construction and property industries. To some extent we all are.

House Building

A commentator recently had described the tax, under the old regime, as “a tax on hope” and with some justification. All of us in Ireland aspire to home ownership and when we have one we aspire to a bigger one. It is the Irish dream perhaps and there are historical reasons why.

There is nothing wrong with this and it is an ethos fostered strongly from our first pay packet – “rent is dead money” etc.

It is also desirable that the many immigrants to this country in recent years should be in a position to purchase their own homes. Greater levels of home ownership would help to foster integration, stability and confidence in our new composite communities. Again affordability and stability are key to enabling this.

Unfortunately in recent years property prices had spiralled, development quality in many places had fallen below par, stamp duty bands and rate tables had become hopelessly outdated in a meteoric market place with the result that many were paying over the odds for a toy-box townhouse or in many cases not even managing affordability for that..

But like the Tulips, the rise was not sustainable and when it crashed it did so with alacrity.

In every corner of Ireland the pinch was felt, not only by the reluctant would-be purchasers watching the market with confusion and foreboding, but also by the hundreds of thousands of ordinary workers employed in the construction industry. I was down home last weekend and down the pub on Saturday night it seemed a recession was upon us as one by one everyone I met appeared was being laid off, were doing the laying off or were looking around for alternate work before they heard the worst.

So it is not just multi-millionaire property tycoons that have an interest in a buoyant property market – our economy and most importantly many of our people have thrived on it over the last several years and it was the sustenance of many households through the last decade.

All of that appeared in danger of collapse recently. The reform promises to refloat the becalmed boat and in a way that is modest and equitable. Whereas tweaking around the edges may have affected the few, a step change in operation and resuscitation of an industry benefits the many.

Arguments that the reform gives more to the €4M house buyer than the 400K one are simplistic and facetious – the tax is a proportional one and scales up, but like any linear equation the effects of change are higher the bigger the stake in question.

From a revenue point of view the duty has been a huge earner the last couple of years and a stalled market yields no income there. Whether we like it or not that tax goes into the greater pool to pay for health, education, transport and all the other vital services and if it doesn’t come that way it has to come from somewhere else. Whilst prices had veered into the silly money end of the spectrum leading to some particularly bumper revenue windfalls, a more steady but revived market will still provide an income for the exchequer. And on the question of whether the tax should exist in the first place, most economists will tell us if it was abolished in the morning it would soon be absorbed into prices leaving no net change for the buyer and a large loss for the state and subsequently the rest of us.

In conclusion I think we all benefit from an overhaul of the building tax, which leads to a more affordable climate for buyers, stimulated but value-driven growth for the industry, continued employment for that very significant workforce, revival of a vital revenue stream for the state and a return to sanity and equity in every sense of the word.

Something for everyone

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Looks like the Minister has managed another crowd pleaser under challenging economic circumstances in his hot off the press 2008 budget..

Something for everyone and enough to go around – generous social welfare increases, increased income tax reliefs, ploughing ahead with capital spending, a review of stamp duty that simplifies and makes the market more equitable, lower earners taken out of tax net, middle earners pitched at standard rate, environmental reforms to VRT and motor taxes and a raft of spending on everything from farm distribution to public transport to fisheries and decomissioning schemes.

Value for money in public services was mentioned more than once in the introduction although little hints emerged later on the detail. Transport gets an extra €2.7BN including the commencement of the Navan rail line and LUAS extensions, numerous bypass and motorway enhancements including M50 upgrade also detailed. Stamp duty reform will amount to a de facto reduction in the tax whilst increased mortgage reliefs will ease the houes buyers burden and presumably help steady the market which will be welcome to all. Liked his comment about arriving at a “better balance between buyer and seller” in other words punters were being treated to daylight robbery not so long ago.

Education, Health and Welfare all receiving increases and together comprising over 80% of current spending, and capital spending there too with almost €100M extra for the schools building program and €700M extra for health capital expenditure.

Another highlight and very welcome is the move to promote electronic finance over the paper variety by reducing duty on laser/credit cards and redressing it by increasing duty on cheques which makes perfect sense and begins the phasing out of what was a inadvisable charge in the first place.

Overall whatever largesse was available the Minister chose to distribute to the most vulnerable through generous welfare increases, pensions, child benefits, childcare supplements, carers allowances, whilst income tax measures are targeted again at low earners and those in the middle bands although all will benefit.

“Modest borrowing and ambitious investment” will ensure no let up in capital spending whilst maintaining a sensible debt ratio.

Once again Fianna Fáil has demonstrated that social justice is a core value whilst displaying economic prudence and ensuring future prosperity.

All eyes on the big man

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Budget 2008 will be presented on Wednesday and for political anoraks there’s something terribly satisfying about the fact that Minister Cowen has restored the hallowed nature of the occasion and the air of revelation and expectation that surrounds it. In recent years the ceremony of budget day had begun to diminish as the month long drip feed of information that was the estimates process meant that surprises were fewer and farther between. But the spectacle has been restored this year and all information will again be released upon the same day.

The Big Man

As always there is much speculation about what exactly he will do. Will he reform stamp duty, will he cut the top rate, will he revise the PRSI ceiling, will he cut spending, current or capital, how much will go on the pint etc…

We’ve been hearing for months how his hands are tied due to tighter than expected economic contraints. It’s not all that unexpected though – McWilliams has been warning us for years! And I’m sure it won’t be all that big a surprise to Tánaiste Cowen either. He’s a clever man and he didn’t come down in the last shower so I’m sure he will make a good fist of it, making perhaps some necessary tightening measures whilst keeping the broader economy intact and ensuring social justice is met.

After the huge increases in child benefit in recent years and the €1,000 a year under-sixes payment (due next week, thankyou Minister) he will hardly revisit childcare again this time. He will keep the focus on pensions though moving towards the government’s stated target of €300 a week old age pension by the end of the current term. The PRSI ceiling revision was a component of the election manifesto and I think it is a just and sensible measure, removing an artificial protection for high earners which meant the lower end paid disproportionately more. Alarm bells seem to be ringing that he will leave the top rate unchanged at 41%, rather than reducing again and quite frankly I think he’s right – one small concesssion for the individual, one giant cost for the state.

I do fervently and confidently believe he must, at minimum, maintain capital spending at the current level, or better again, increase if he has any scope to do so. Whatever about an economic blip now, it is essential for the long term economic outlook that we put serious infrastructure in place in this country that will stand us into the future. In the recent International competitiveness report this was cited as one of our weak points, it is being addressed through huge spending programmes, particularly Transport21, but that must continue. No slippage there is acceptable. I’ve often made the argument that we are a young nation, that we were levied by a foreign land for centuries, it’s only a generation since we gained real economic freedom, and all of that is true, but now at last we do have some money so lets get the house in order.

On stamp duty I think it is inequitable, the reform was over hasty and I would have preferred us continue preaching the fiscal rectitude gospel which ironically the Minister will be practising by now anyway. The biggest flaw with the reform that was introduced is that there is no upper limit on first time buyers duty free purchases – which allows for obvious abuses of the system. I don’t think we’ll see changes there this time though.

It is expected we will see a curtailing of the many high end loopholes which currently enable accountants siphon millions for their wealthy clients – however I am sure new and more innovative ways will be uncovered instead by the collective creative acumen of the financial consulting industry – a constant game of cat and mouse there in every country me thinks..

Lastly on a personal interest area, my own pet request in this budget is a relief on commuter parking. A month or so back I made a pre-budget submission to the Tánaiste, through Deputy Áine Brady’s office, for an extension of the taxsaver scheme to park and ride fees, giving every possible encouragement for use of public transport, ultimately getting people out of their cars and onto the train or LUAS. It shouldn’t cost a whole lot and it would be a nice sweetener now that pay parking is being rolled out across the commuter network. Any minor reduction in revenue should be offset by economic and social benefits as people free up time to spend at homes or in their communities rather than being stuck in traffic jams.

Anyway on Wednesday, all will be revealed.. I look forward to the grand unveiling!