October 21, 2024 • 50 mins
Kate Rhatigan, with her brother and sister, runs Winterbrook, a home builder based in Dublin.
In our chat, Kate describes the contribution small builders like Winterbrook make to the supply of housing, describes what it is like working in a male dominated industry and tells a quite incredible story about why her face was on posters around south Dublin (hint: it was to do with planning).
More than anything, the discussion highlights the importance of small, family run construction businesses. They make up more than 60% of the housing market and are therefore a vital part of the solution to the housing supply problem.
Some items from the episode:
- Winterbrook Homes https://www.winterbrook.ie/
- Poor by Dr. Katriona O'Sullivan: https://www.easons.com/poor-katriona-osullivan-9780241996768
- Report of Housing Commission https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/f3551-report-of-the-housing-commission/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kate (00:32):
My name is Kate Rattigan and I work with Winterbrook.
We are a family, secondgeneration family house building
business.
I'm particular about sayinghouse builder versus property
developer because of theconnotations, and so we have a
huge history of deliveringhousing.
(00:53):
We have our own constructionteam, which means that we can
control the construction processand the delivery and the
timelines of that process.
I work with my brother and mysister, who are I think we
present an incredible team, eachwith their own skills.
My brother, conor Rattigan, isthe MD of the company and he is
(01:16):
a wizard with finance andstrategic planning.
My sister, anne-marie Drohan,also works in the business and
she is a wizard with people,with the management of the
developments and also anexpertise in sales, which aren't
my bag.
I think house builders arereally important in the small
(01:39):
house builders like our company,winterbrook, because we
actually deliver about 60% ofthe houses to the people of
Ireland.
That, I think, is interestingbecause there's about 480
different home builders like usand the top 10 home builders,
which would be your listedcompanies like Cairn and
(01:59):
Glenveig.
But I think the small, granular, smaller, medium sized builders
like ourselves are a hugecritical importance to delivery.
Rick (02:11):
They certainly are.
So you're essentially in afamily business where you all
get along.
It's a very, very unusual setupand you were very complimentary
there to your siblings, whichis lovely to hear.
I work in a family business, asyou know as well, and it can
sometimes be described as a warzone, but thankfully I just have
one sibling, so it's perhaps alittle bit easier to manage.
(02:33):
Yeah, how do you find it Like?
I mean because, like I say, youdescribed them very glowingly
there.
But how is it working in afamily business?
Do you find that it's?
You know, you'll say things tofamily members that you wouldn't
say to the general, the generalpublic.
How do you guys get along likeon the day to day?
Kate (02:59):
Well, I think we, we, we do get along really well on the
on a day to day, and I thinkthat is because, like, why did I
give such a glowing description?
It's because I respect what,what each person brings to the
table, and I think that's reallyimportant.
And I, having talked to anotherfew family home builders, if,
if, if, if, the if, the rolesand responsibilities are not
clear, that's when the argumentsstart happening.
So I'm doing Anne-Marie's andConnor's job, and that's where
(03:23):
things get really, reallyconfused and at times, so say,
we're working on a project andall hands are on deck.
That's when the argumentshappen, when we are
micromanaging each other andsaying, did you see that email?
And you have to say, at thatpoint, just get lost.
I know, give me space, I'mdoing it, I've got this.
(03:47):
That's where I think, in atraditional sense, you wouldn't
have such micromanagement,because and it's because it's so
important to everyone, uh, thatthis is why that happens.
But that's the danger zone andthat's where the arguments
happen.
Rick (03:59):
And, yeah, you need to call, call them out for it and
it's it's, it's for sure,important to have very clear
lines of responsibility, becausea lot of these businesses
because I know your dad startedthe business right- that's right
.
Probably similar time to my dad,or maybe a little bit before,
and all of those guys were oneman bands, right, they were the
(04:22):
CEO and and director of hr, andit was all the one, exactly.
Yeah, so it would have been avery different environment for
for them then.
You know there's three of younow and you will have to divide
up the responsibilities and nottry and cross over in each other
.
Kate (04:37):
So well it is.
It is an interesting, um, uh,an interesting trajectory
because a lot of the let's callthem the OGs so your father and
my father has a huge history andexpertise in building.
But yes, they did start themfrom scratch, from absolutely
nothing, and a lot of thesefellas came from the country.
(04:59):
They are very sharp and theydid everything.
Rick (05:03):
A quick aside here.
Kate mentioned the OG builders.
She's referring to companiesthat were, in most cases,
started within the last 50 years.
Generally, these companies werestarted by tradesmen going out
on their own and they reallywere on their own no real
capital to speak of, nogovernment support.
Many of them failed, but theones who survived produced
thousands of homes in Irelandand employed thousands of people
(05:24):
and generated billions inrevenue for the state.
It is worth repeating thataround two-thirds of all housing
being developed currently isproduced by these small family
businesses.
So the next time you hearsomeone complaining about
property developers, remind themof that.
Now back to Kate.
Kate (05:38):
I'm part of a group of female property developers that
are also second generation, andthat's an interesting twist
because from females taking overthe businesses and being
involved in the businesses, Well, it certainly is.
Rick (05:51):
I actually wanted to ask you about that as well, because
it's even I mean, I'm at this 22years and it was always very
notable for me that there wereno.
There were no women involved,right.
But now it's changing and youdo see girls with the hard hat
on and the boots, which is great.
How do you find it working?
In construction?
It is still male dominated, Ithink.
Kate (06:14):
I think you have to have.
You have to be able to have ahard shell, and I have learned
this through conversation with alot of women in the
construction industry.
You have to brush things off,you have to stand your ground.
(06:34):
I have attended so many sitemeetings where not only am I a
woman, but I'm the client, andthese women that I'm speaking
about are also in that positionthe second generation, or gosh,
if anyone is a new femaledeveloper you you not only do
you have to manage the room, youhave to manage the people and,
(06:54):
yeah, you are the only woman inthe room.
But I have learned to.
I have to speak up, I have tomake my body bigger, take up
more space in the room.
There's these things that I amaware of, that I have to make
sure I do and also things cantend to get quite aggressive.
(07:14):
So picture this I'm in a andI'm referring to a real life
situation I was in aport-a-cabin with 25 men around
and a massive argument broke outand hugely disrespectful things
were said by the headcontractor and I had to
(07:34):
immediately call a halt to themeeting, pull the person outside
and say how dare you neverspeak to me like that again.
So yeah, and as a woman, it'shard to do, but it's also
empowering, and I think thatwomen are beginning to become
part of the constructionindustry.
Rick (07:54):
I think it's probably.
I mean, look historically, weall know the issues with getting
women involved into seniorlevels of business, but
construction is a particulardifficulty because a lot of
people that come into it on themanagement side are come from a
trades or engineering background, and those jobs are in still
today.
There's very few women becomingan apprentice carpenter or an
(08:17):
apprentice electrician, but itmeans then that the funnel up is
kind of a bit more difficult.
They tend to come fromarchitecture, finance rather
than from the other side.
Kate (08:26):
Yeah, it does tend to come from the sort of the STEM
subjects.
Actually, while we're on thatpoint, I spoke at conferences
lately in the last year whichI've been enjoying, and a
keynote speaker was Dr KatrinaO'Sullivan, who wrote the world
renowned book Poor, and she hasinspired a program in
(08:48):
collaboration with MaynoothUniversity to encourage young
females in their school goingyears into STEM subjects.
So I have just completed 10hours of mentor training to be a
mentor to transition yearstudents yeah.
To encourage girls fromdisadvantaged levels of society
(09:09):
into science, technology,engineering and maths, and I
think it's inspiring for them tosee women working in the
construction industry,engineering industry, et cetera,
to show that these roles arepossible.
Rick (09:22):
Yeah, it's great.
I mean, it is a little bit of achicken and an egg scenario.
You need more of them toencourage more of them, but it
will happen, I think, over time.
So that's real interesting.
There's a lot of things Iwanted to talk to you about,
Kate, but one of them is theNational Development Plan.
I am aware that you are workingon a committee with CIF, IHBA,
(09:45):
I should say, about the NationalDevelopment Plan.
I'm completely uneducated aboutthis.
I can have lots of excuses forthat, but I'm just being a bit
overloaded of late with all ofthese different plans and
reports and stuff that have beencoming out from central
government that have not beenaccompanied with action
alongside them.
So I salute you for trying toget involved.
Can you give us a breakdown?
(10:07):
What is the NationalDevelopment Plan?
Kate (10:09):
The National Development Plan is probably the most
important strategic documentthat will inform the future of
Ireland for the next 25 yearsthrough till 2040.
So the National DevelopmentPlan it's the kind of the
cornerstone of an arch.
So it's the cornerstone piecethat sits as a policy level at
(10:32):
the top of every other singlelevel of report and piece of
policy and legislation.
So it's the medium to long-termvision about how many units are
built, how many homes are built, where they are built, and it
goes through region by regionwhat that looks like.
Rick (10:50):
And it doesn't cover all infrastructure like housing,
roads, hospitals, schools, or isit focused?
Kate (10:58):
It does.
Rick (10:58):
I mean obviously our end of it is going to be the housing
end of it, but is it anoverarching document that covers
everything.
Kate (11:06):
Yes, it does.
It covers all areas ofinfrastructure, so housing is
one of them.
Roads, utilities, wind farmsall of that is captured within
this overall nationaldevelopment plan.
It's pretty important.
It's important and the unusualthing is that there's only two
(11:26):
more times to review it.
So it started in 2018.
It runs through to 2014.
Every six years there is anopportunity to adjust for
anything that has changed in thelast six years.
So this is the first revisionof this framework in the last
(11:46):
six years.
So this is the first revisionof this framework and the
previous framework lists.
It's quite complicated, but Iwill just list out three main
points.
It projects what the populationwill be number one.
It also projects how peoplewill move around Ireland.
So, on a region per regionbasis, what the growth of the
(12:06):
regions will be.
So in the previous plan sorry,in the first revision they said
that there will be 50-50regional growth.
So 50% of the growth will be inthe middle and eastern area of
Ireland and the other 50% willbe in the southern and western
regions.
Rick (12:25):
And was that a prediction or was that a policy objective?
Kate (12:29):
It was a prediction and a policy objective.
Right.
Rick (12:33):
How has that been borne out?
Kate (12:34):
Well, I'm sorry, just the third thing that it projected,
that it established throughpolicy, was that 40% of all new
housing development shall be inurban areas.
So brownfield, urban areas.
What has changed and what?
So it didn't go to plan, so wehave had an extraordinary
(12:56):
complete explosion, as we know,in our population.
The population projectionsweren't big enough and the
population didn't move into thedirect regions as they projected
.
So Dublin has grownexponentially and the government
(13:17):
are trying to encourage peopleto move into the other five
cities.
So Dublin is one of the fivecities.
You've got Limerick, galway,cork and Waterford.
They want to increase the sizeof those cities, but it seems to
be Dublin centric and so thathas been a shocking development
that nobody could have predictedright?
Rick (13:36):
People want to live in the big city where all the jobs are
.
Kate (13:40):
Yeah, the population is a major one.
Why are these things important?
Because the data containedwithin the national planning
framework so say, there isprojected to be 6 million people
or 7 million people and theselittle nuances are extremely
important because whatever thenumbers are decided on, then
(14:00):
they get filtered through allthe national policies.
So it goes then through theregional plans, the regional
plans, the county developmentplans, to the local plans and
then it tells the, at the verysmallest level of the system,
how many units, how much land iszoned and how many units they
(14:22):
can plan for.
And so, without the populationbeing correct and when we keep
undercooking the projections inthe housing you under project,
under plan, we don't have enoughzoned land for the developers
like us to build, and the localauthorities say, well, we've hit
(14:44):
our plans.
And in some instances you'llfind that county development
plans are downzoning, they'redownzoning the land.
Rick (14:54):
It's not unusual for that.
I mean, it's very common thatthat's been going on in a lot of
places.
Kate (15:00):
Yeah, and so there are problems.
If you think about the massiveincrease in population, we have
underbuilt and undersupplied.
The Housing Commission reporthave come out with a figure of,
on average, an undersupply tothe market of 235,000 homes.
So we need to play catch up.
So the national planningframework is a medium to
(15:21):
long-term plan.
What we need to see is theshort-term plan.
We need action, we need to zonethe land that is needed to
catch up and build thatundersupply units.
And then we haven't even begunto talk about, year on year,
what is required for ourincreasing, growing population.
Rick (15:39):
And in a previous episode with Kate English from Deloitte,
we discussed that and sheexplained to me the difference
between structural demand andthe, the unmet, the previous
unmet demand.
Um, you know, and we we got to,we got to big numbers pretty
quickly.
You know that there there'shundreds of thousands of units
that were not built, that neededto be built, and there's
ongoing demand, um, which theesri are saying is, on a base
(16:03):
case, 40 something thousandunits a year.
But when you add that to theunmet demand you quickly get to
80, 90 thousand units a year.
Kate (16:09):
I'm so glad you pointed that out, because that was a key
flaw maybe and it did point itout in the ESRI report that the
housing deficit to date wasn'tadded in.
Rick (16:23):
Yeah, we need immediate action, and I said to her as
well that I look at this verypessimistically.
I know you're not a pessimist,right?
You're not like me, or I'm moreof a nihilist.
Actually, I was told recently,the idea that we will ever get
to the point where we'reconstructing 80 to 90,000 units
a year in Ireland is, to me, isa fantasy.
(16:45):
Right?
We did it once, 2007, I thinkthere was 80 something thousand
units constructed.
That was in the height of themadness.
We're struggling to get to40,000 now.
To get to 80,000, we need todouble the size of the industry,
right?
So we need to double the amountof labor, we need to double the
amount of capital We'll getonto that in a minute.
(17:05):
We need to free up all of thelog jams that are associated
with it right Aroundinfrastructure, irish water, or
Ishka Aaron, as they insist uponbeing called now.
And planning, and planning tome.
I am sure people listening tothis are just sick of hearing
about it.
But if we don't change that,this NDP is pointless, right?
(17:26):
We're never going to hit any ofthose targets unless you.
You know, it's like trying tobail out the Titanic with the
glass.
Kate (17:33):
Well, here's my take on it , so I changed my mind yeah.
Okay, well, I'd like to justtalk about capacity, which is
the first point you brought upin your question.
And how do we double the housebuilding market?
I think it's really simple.
I've produced a series ofdiagrams where and it goes back
(17:55):
to my original point of how thehome building market is made up
If the top 10% builders that Imentioned deliver 35 to 40% of
the units, which is what theycurrently do if they grow by, if
they double in capacity, whichI think they can, so say,
glenveig and Cairn aredelivering 1,500 units around a
(18:21):
year.
If they double to 3,000 units ayear, which they have the land
bank to do and they have thecapacity to do, let's say that
happens.
The rest of the market beingthe other 60% of the home
builders, on average deliver areally small amount of units a
year.
It's only about 34 units.
That's what the data says.
(18:43):
If the small home buildersincrease their capacity 10% year
on year for the next six years,we will be able to make it to
80,000 units, for sure.
So it's that small growth.
Rick (18:58):
But that small growth can't happen without all of the
other barriers being taken away.
Kate (19:02):
No, they can't.
Small builders need funding.
We need access to equity to buysites.
So, because the planning systemis so risky, you need to
actually have about three orfour projects on the go so that
one of them comes through Intimes gone by.
(19:23):
It didn't work like that.
Rick (19:24):
I'm sorry to interrupt you .
It's worth just exploring thata little bit, because we have a
lot of people that listen tothis that are not in the
development industry.
What you said there makesperfect sense to me, but it
might not to other people.
So I think what you mean andcorrect me if I'm wrong.
If you have three or four sitesthat, um, that don't have
planning, and you start goingthrough the planning process on
(19:45):
all let's call it four and let'ssay they all start at the same
time.
To make it simple, you're goingto have maybe one that gets a
planning refusal.
You're going to have one whereIrish water say that they can't,
uh, they need upgrades toservice a site.
You can have one where, uh, youget planning but then it gets,
(20:06):
uh, appealed to board plan alland board plan all.
It's delayed and then theygrant the planning and then it
gets judicially reviewed.
So you're kind of hoping thatyou get one through that system
that you can actually build.
And while you're building thatone, the other three, you try to
work out all of the problems.
The problems.
Kate (20:21):
It's like it's like a pinball machine.
You have a ball and you'reflicking five balls hoping one
of them will land.
Rick (20:29):
Yeah, so that's how risky planning is yeah, and that is
what leads into all the otherthings that we as an industry
get criticized for, like delayand cost.
If the planning say we didn'thave to apply for planning, it
was just set out like it is indenmark, on this piece of land
you can build that.
You just file the forms, youget to build it.
There's no asking can we buildthe thing that you've already
(20:51):
zoned the land for?
If it was like that, we wouldhave a lot less problems, right,
because we would be able toscale up and down supply of
housing very quickly.
Kate (20:58):
Absolutely Like if it was more prescription about how many
floors can be built, what areas, and so what density, what
scale, what height.
If things were, if the planningsystem were more prescriptive,
(21:20):
then everybody, including all ofthe neighbours, would be clear
about what can be built andwhere.
Rick (21:26):
And it's not prescriptive.
And you know I don't want toturn this into a planning chat,
but you know the new PlanningAct is I don't think the
president has quite signed ityet, but it's been sent to the
president for signature.
Even that, I mean, to me is amassive missed opportunity,
because it only happens every 20or 25 years that we reform the
planning laws.
It's not going to make plansprescriptive as well.
(21:48):
It's still going to delegate anawful lot of power to local
authorities to just willy-nillydecide that, oh, we don't want
tall buildings, we don't wanthigh density, we don't want this
, we don't want that.
So you still go in to what isessentially a game of roulette
in the planning system.
Yeah, hoping that the outcomeis economic for you to be able
(22:08):
to build.
Kate (22:09):
Yeah, I think, I think a lot of it.
I think the county developmentplans have a lot to answer for.
The county development plansset out all of these
recommendations and criteria andwhen you go to apply for a
planning permission you can bejudicially reviewed for MC.
I'm so sick of seeing.
Do you know what MC means?
Do you know materialcontravention?
Rick (22:32):
MC, MC, MC.
Material contravention isalright.
Kate (22:34):
Material contravention of the county development plan.
So when a county developmentplan, if you do anything that is
not in alignment with thecounty development plan, you can
be judicially reviewed and Ithink that so I was actually
reading on the currency lastnight there was a wind farm that
(22:55):
was that has just been refusedby onboard Planola in County
Donegal.
That could have, if it werebuilt, could have powered 80,000
homes, but it was refused bythe board because of a
discrepancy in the countydevelopment plan.
The county development plan,when the wind farm went through
(23:17):
planning and had started theirplanning application, it was
zoned as open to considerationfor wind farms and the county
development plan had has lapsedand now it's not open for um,
the zoning has been taken away,but I mean that's not even
contravening the developmentplan.
Rick (23:34):
The fact that it was allowed lapse is is a disgrace
there's so many inconsistenciesin in we'd be here.
Kate (23:40):
We'd be here all day talking about them.
Rick (23:41):
I don't want to use up the whole I don't use up the whole
thing, but like it's a, it's ahuge issue.
Judicial reviews everybody inthe development industry has
been dealing with this and we'reall sick, I know we all.
It's like group therapy we allsit around and we talk about, we
tell our terrible stories ofour judicial review trauma.
You have a particular uh siteI'm not going to say where it is
(24:03):
big, big site accommodating alot of people.
You got planning and there wasa judicial review lodged.
That's really not theinteresting point, right?
The interesting point to me waswhat happened during that
process.
Are you able to talk a littlebit about that and tell us how
all that unfolded?
Kate (24:21):
Sure, just before I get into that point, which I know
you're alluding to, what theimportance of that project was
for us as a family business.
The project that you'redescribing is in South County,
dublin.
It is 200 units, 200 apartmentunits that our entire team
(24:43):
should have moved on to.
So that has screwed up ourpipeline.
That was the next project, soit is difficult to have a
sustainable business model whereyou have staff that are
incredibly talented and you needto provide job security for
these people when your projectand your pipeline is suddenly
(25:05):
stopped.
So JORD, the project was JORDand we received planning
permission in 2021.
We bought the site in 2020.
So we have had that projecthanging around on our balance
sheet, paying interest on thatland and that site since 2020.
So you can imagine the cost ofthat project.
(25:28):
To us now it's shocking.
And the project was judiciallyreviewed.
We received planning permissionin 2021.
Three years later.
So the case was heard by thecourts in 2023, in February of
2023.
So it took three years to getthrough the courts.
(25:49):
The other problem with that,before I get on to the granular
part, is that the planningpermission only lasts for five
years.
So we don't have time to buildit.
Rick (25:58):
It doesn't pause, and that's something that people
maybe don't also appreciate thatyou get a five-year planning
permission, you get judiciallyreviewed.
The planning permission startswhen you get granted it, and if
it takes three or four years toget through the courts, tough
luck.
Kate (26:12):
It's withering.
Rick (26:12):
It's withering and the vagaries of the rules around
planning timelines.
If you don't have the buildingsubstantially complete before
the expiry of the planningpermission, your planning
permission has lapsed.
Now there is no definition ofsubstantially complete anywhere,
and that is down to individualcouncils, and in fact,
(26:34):
individuals within the councilsform an opinion as to what
substantially complete is.
Ergo, that situation neverarises.
Nobody ever goes and buildssomething right up to the end of
a planning permission, assumingthat the council will be happy
with it so if something doesn'tstart within the first two and a
half years of the planning,it's not happening at all and
(26:55):
you won't get funding for iteither.
Kate (26:57):
Well, that's so yeah, you won't get funding, you can only
apply for the extension to theum, to the duration of the
planning permission until thelast year, and no bank will fund
it with that risk.
Rick (27:10):
And there's a predisposition to refuse
extensions unless you're underconstruction, right?
Because we had this recentlywith Dunleary where we tried we
had a site that had planning andwe were trying to get a
different planning.
We got that it was J-Ord.
We tried to extend the previousplanning because we were just
going to go build that as ourfallback, dunleary, refused it.
We took a judicial reviewagainst Dunleary's refusal and
(27:34):
Dunleary fought us all the wayin the High Court to make sure
that this planning expired.
So if any of the guys therefrom Dunleary that are listening
to this, congratulations.
You did successfully preventthe construction of a couple of
hundred units again.
So hopefully you're proud ofyourselves.
But that's the scenario that weall find ourselves in with this
(27:57):
stuff.
It's absolutely insane.
Kate (27:58):
The really insane thing about it is the personal
vilification that can happen.
So throughout this JOR period,at the very beginning of the JOR
, when the JOR was lodged therewas actually we discovered that
there were posters going aroundthe local area with my face on
it, my sister's face, my brother, the mezzanine finance company
(28:23):
who funded the development aswell, and it was saying Kate
Rattigan, building for theCuckoo funds and the Vulture
funds.
Here's the price of these units.
They're going to be 600,000each, and and it was.
It was plastered all over thelocal area.
(28:44):
We don't know who did it, or Ibet you have a fair idea.
Rick (28:48):
who did it?
Kate (28:49):
Yeah, I mean you can make assumptions, I'm not going to
say that but it's thatvilification and that idea that
the property developers are evil.
I mean that's why I referred toWinterbrook.
As home builders, like we'redelivery focused, all we want to
do is build houses and hand thekeys over to a customer.
I mean, why is it so hard?
Rick (29:10):
And you're goddamn needed and we're all needed and this,
you know.
This really gets my goat,because that's where this has
come to right, that theenablement is on the political
class.
They have permitted people tofeel so entitled that they can
go around preventing anythingfrom being built in an area
(29:30):
where they happen to livebecause they feel it is their
area.
So they're a feudal lords tothe point where they go and put
posters of people up like tryingto intimidate you.
In any other circumstancethere'd be calls for a police
investigation for that, yeah.
And the fact that this, thisgoes on and it is a South Dublin
thing I live in South Dublin.
(29:51):
I get things through themailbox all the time.
You know.
This vitriolic hate of the ideathat something, something would
be built anywhere near me in myarea is insane.
It's insane that this has beenpermitted to get, to get this
far.
Kate (30:08):
It is insane.
I think, when you have thesesystemic problems happening,
that we need to take a pause andgo.
Whoa, I mean, this is haltingdelivery of housing units for
Ireland.
It's stopping our economicgrowth, our FDI investment.
It affects the economics ofIreland and people shouldn't
(30:30):
have that power.
And when they do have thatpower, something's broken,
really broken, so it needs to befixed Like.
My view on it is that we havetoo many points where third
parties can have their say inwhat a housing development looks
like and whether or not itshould receive permission.
I think people should beinvolved at the plan making
(30:53):
stage and then only the odd caseshould people have something to
say about it.
I think there's too many timeswhere people can, where people
can make submissions and stopdevelopment happening.
Rick (31:07):
Yeah Well, people don't want their say, they want their
way, and I think that's the realissue with this.
If it was just about people say, they would have their say and
then they would walk off quietlywhen they got what they wanted.
They didn't get what they want,but that's nothing.
It's not what it is.
They want to prevent everything.
It's not just housing, it'severything.
It's wind farms, it's solarfarms.
I mean, the amount ofobjections to solar farms would
(31:29):
blow your mind.
They are down on the ground.
You cannot see them, you cannothear them, and people are
mobilizing against them becausethey don't.
You know, one of the things isusing up good farmland that
could be farmed by a farmer,right, batshit, crazy stuff.
And the fact that we permittedis insane.
If we did that with any otheraspect of public policy, imagine
(31:49):
if the government wanted toraise taxes and they said oh,
we're going to let everyone havea view on it.
They just announcedmulti-annual funding for RTE 725
million euros.
Imagine if they said okay, well, this is what we're going to do
.
We're going to fund RTE, but ifanybody wants to stop it, by
all means pay your 20 euros,hire Fred Logue and you can have
(32:09):
a judicial review and we'lldelay it for three years and
we'll just turn off thetelevision in the meantime.
Kate (32:13):
I mean, you can't make everyone happy and you have to
go with the greater good andwhat's the benefit to society
and the greater good?
And these things shouldn't beallowed to happen.
Rick (32:25):
Yeah, Well, there we go.
We've solved it all in thatcase, so we don't need to worry
about that.
Kate (32:30):
I mean, we're not going to solve the planning system, and
I think I'm sick of talkingabout the planning system, so
let's assume the governmentplease fix the planning system
for us and make it work.
Okay, so let's just park thatfor a second and talk about the
funding.
Winterbrook has a building team.
We have the capacity to deliverhundreds of units a year and we
(32:54):
should be doing that.
And what's one of the keydrivers stopping that growth?
Well, first of all, we've beenbidding on so many sites that
have planning permission and,honestly, it is a race to the
bottom.
It's a race to the bottombecause we're all bidding over
the same land and the otherthing is you're dealing with
someone else's design thatdoesn't make sense for you, and
(33:17):
the thing that someone likeourselves would bring is we
bring value in our own flair onwhat kind of homes we build and
the design and the quantity.
It's all unique to us and theviability and what we apply for
makes sense to Winterbook.
But when we're building outsomeone else's design and number
(33:40):
of units, it probably doesn'tsuit us and it really is a race
to the bottom.
So what we need to have is ourraw material, which is the raw
material in our case is land,because we need four or five
planning plays on the go.
The cost of that land is reallyexpensive.
Our business is a hugely cashand equity hungry business.
(34:01):
So say we spot a portion ofland and we need to put in about
35% equity into that deal,which say that's about three or
four million.
So every 40 unit scheme abuilder like us needs to put in
about 3 or 4 million.
Multiply that out by about five, those five schemes I talked
about.
I mean I find it hard tobelieve how many small and
(34:24):
medium businesses are that havethat amount of money on their
balance sheet.
So a fix would be having thestate come in as an equity
partner to um assist thepurchase of um of zoned land.
But not but you don't have thepermission.
Rick (34:42):
Yet um banks don't lend on zoned land anymore and that's a
problem well, you canunderstand why they don't, given
what we just discussed, right,because the difficulty for them
they take a view on say, well,we're going to come in and buy
and lend on his own land.
What's your plan?
We say, oh yeah, we're going tohave planning in two years.
And they say, okay.
And then five years later,right, you're taking down the
(35:04):
posters of your face all over,say county dublin, and the bank
are saying has that planningworking out for you?
Kate (35:09):
well, it's frustrating because if you have a solid
business plan where you'vespotted a site like we're
looking at, a site in Wicklowand it has a capacity for, say,
100 houses, it is perfect.
We know how to apply forpermission where we stick within
(35:29):
all the rules.
But it is that question.
But the state or an entity, abanking entity, has to take that
risk with us and come on thejourney.
That's the problem.
Rick (35:40):
It's a big issue.
I mean, one way that thegovernment has of solving that
without contributing equity isjust by fixing the frigging
planning system, because thenthe banks will lend against
their own land again.
If it was relatively sure, asit was before I mean, it didn't
used to be like this no, no, weused to be able to buy zone land
and get funding on it.
Yeah, because we would getplanning.
Kate (35:58):
It's a fundamental problem .
Rick (35:59):
It might take a year, but you would get planning.
Now you've no idea if you'regetting planning right.
Could be, could get it, couldbe.
Five years later.
You're still.
You know that uncertainty is anissue.
The funding is stemming fromthat right.
It's not like that the banksuddenly lost their appetite.
They are looking at it andgoing this is bananas.
Because it is bananas, the riskprofile is too high.
(36:21):
It's crazy, yeah, but it's agood idea.
I mean the government maybewould argue that they are doing
that right, Like that they arevia the LDA.
I have my own views on the LDA.
I via the LDA, I have my ownviews on the LDA.
Kate (36:34):
I don't want to hear them.
Rick (36:40):
Yeah, I mean, I've said it .
I don't think it's a very goodidea for the state to be being a
house builder, because thestate has proved over the last
100 years and every state hasthat it cannot get value for
money out of anything.
But the LDA are going aroundbuying land, right, they're
taking state lands that havebeen perhaps underused and are
attempting to get planningpermission.
I guess they're about to findout what we've all been dealing
with for the last decade.
Kate (37:01):
But I think the state have been incredibly important in
the supply of housing andaffordable social housing.
I mean, that's all I hearbuilders like us are doing.
Well, it's the only show intown now.
I mean, if's all I hearbuilders like us are doing.
Rick (37:16):
Well, it's the only show in town now.
I mean, if the state weren'tdoing what they were doing, we
would be back to 2009,.
2010 in terms of theconstruction industry would stop
Because and again the statehave chased all the private
capital out of the market withlit pitchforks.
As I said to Kate English, ifyou chase the private money away
, then what do you?
Got left with right, you'releft with public money.
Kate (37:37):
Yeah, Well, I think, I think the public money is really
important and they have been.
They have been shouldering thesupply and without them and
forward fund deals, I don't Ithink a lot of businesses like
ours would be out of businessand I think they're really
important, but the we shouldn'tforget about.
So say, for example, in 2050,the population is meant to grow.
(37:58):
It can grow.
The projections are between sixand seven million.
Like that's a lot of people.
And how much funding is neededfor seven million people in 2050
?
It's been projected to bepredicted to be 20 million and
the state only provides threebillion of that.
It's been projected to bepredicted to be 20 million and
the state only provides 3billion of that.
We need that institutionalcapital to come back into the
(38:19):
market to lend us the other 17million.
We'll never get there without17 billion.
Sorry, what did I say?
Rick (38:26):
Yeah, you said million.
Kate (38:28):
No, it's billions.
Rick (38:28):
17 billion euro per annum per year For the next 25 years.
Kate (38:32):
Is needed.
Yeah, annum per year for thenext 25 years is needed.
Yeah, so we, we, we cannot um,we cannot, uh, scare away we
need the institutional moneyback in the market.
Rick (38:41):
We need we need half a trillion euros of institutional
money over the next 30 years andwe have not been doing a whole
pile to incentivize that moneyto come in here well, it's a
fundamental flaw, then we needto be incentivizing
institutional capital back intothe market.
Yeah, because we just, you knowand this, this is one of the
other things that goes on isthat the magic bean salesman, as
I call them, talk about thestate doing everything in the
(39:01):
state should be and there shouldbe no private development, like
it's absolutely fanciful.
It's, it's a third of theannual tax.
Take that the state has.
Uh, just on housing, right,that's what it would be.
So that means we're not havinga healthcare system or we're not
having an education system.
We're certainly not havingcapital spending on any single
other thing.
So it's nonsense.
(39:24):
It's a nonsense argument.
You need the private money.
It's the same as the sky beingblue.
It's just a fact, and the factthat it's not happening.
Well, anyway, that tells youwhat you need to know the fact
that it's not happening.
Kate (39:37):
Well, anyway, that tells you what you need to know.
Yeah, I, I think the privatemarket and the um having homes
for sale to the private uhmarket is is is being
undersupplied and it's a miss.
So, say for, for winterbrook,it would be a a key ambition to
provide houses to the privatemarket.
You know, I I find theinstitutional investments so
(39:58):
selling apartment blocks to theinstitutions it does come with
their problems though, too.
I think yield plays aredifficult.
So, if we can get back to housebuilding and that's why we need
to zone the land, the green,the green sites for home
builders to build the homes Ithink yield plays we would like
(40:19):
to be zero to 20% of ourbusiness, really, because you um
like we, we built a project outin Dockie, um we've, we just uh
handed it over in September oflast year and um we we entered
into a forward fund deal with wesold it to Irish Life and we
(40:42):
agreed the price back in 2020with them and so many things.
You sell it on a yield.
Rick (40:49):
So many things change.
Kate (40:50):
So many things change, the interest rate changes.
For both sides it mightn't besuch a good deal.
So it's tricky.
They're tricky projects andapartment projects.
As we all know, you can't phasean apartment scheme.
They're extremely expensive tobuild.
(41:11):
You need a lot of capital upfront.
Rick (41:14):
um, there's a lot of regulation yeah, I agree with
you and the.
The regulation aroundapartments has been has just
driven the cost up and it's kindof can't do it now, right yeah,
it's very difficult to makemoney at building apartments I
mean the last block ofapartments we built.
We lost money and they were indog actually, as you know,
around the corner from you.
We you know beautiful thing,it's winning awards but we lost
(41:37):
money.
So I won't be doing that again.
Okay, magic wand time.
I want to hear you.
I know that you have listenedto the podcast and you know that
I give people a magic wand, soI'm expecting you to have a good
one.
What I'm giving you?
A magic wand here are the rules, because everyone likes to
break the rules a lot.
It's one thing and it can beanything, but it can't be like
(41:57):
you can't change, like humannature.
So you can't magically make theresidents of South Dublin be
pro-development, because that'snot going to happen.
Right, it's not that magic.
You can change a policy thingor something like that, but it
can't be completely fancifulwhat you got, yeah.
Kate (42:12):
I think my magic wand moment would be to point out
that there's too muchbureaucracy in the system.
We need to simplify everything.
The policy, legislation,everything has got too
complicated and we need moreaction and simplification.
I know that sounds very kind ofaspirational, but there's too
(42:33):
many inquiries on inquiries onthe inquiries, and everything is
taking too long.
We need key decision makers tomake the key decisions.
Why are there so many differentnumbers out there, like we need
33,000 homes, we need 50,000homes, we need 80,000 homes,
coming from disparate parts oforganisations.
(42:55):
We just we need to be reallyclear, have clear data.
None of the state agencies arecollaborating.
Everyone is in these littlesilos.
I think we need to join up ourthinking between infrastructure,
between land zoning, betweenpopulation projections.
This is a major kind of bugbearfor me.
(43:17):
I'm 40 years old and since I'vebeen born, there hasn't been
one major piece ofinfrastructure built or created.
You may have an overgroundLewis, that's about the extent
of it and like the DART is inoperation for 40 years this year
, but that went on a train linethat already existed.
It wasn't that revolution.
(43:39):
I don't think we've come upwith revolutionary ideas to
achieve our growth and I thinkbureaucracy has stopped that we
come up with the ideas and thenwe don't do them.
Yeah and we don't like we havehave major infrastructural
problems.
We have the Dublin city iscreaking, Even if we did meet
(44:02):
supply, the infrastructure isnot there to support the growth.
Rick (44:07):
And then when we tried to deliver it, I mean the Metro,
right there was the farce thatthey're like unveiled the plan
for the metro, and then therewas a GAA club in North Dublin.
It's like nope, we're notmoving, so reroute the train
line, you know.
Kate (44:21):
And this is the kind of stuff that we go on with, right
and like the Dublin is about torun out of water, not about to,
I mean, it's creaking at theseams.
So if you go and you do getthat lucky permission Irish
Water Iskair might turn aroundand say we don't have the
capacity to, and they're tryingto get it by taking it from down
west and there's opposition tothat.
Rick (44:40):
Yeah well, I mean that's what is incredibly.
Kate (44:44):
It's a scheme.
It's a plan that we need tobuild to bring more water to the
Dublin region, and they have to.
It's called the Water SupplyProject for the eastern and mid
and eastern regions of Irelandand they need to build a 170
(45:06):
kilometre pipeline from theParteen Basin in Tipperary
through to Pemount in Dublin.
But without it the 85% of ourcurrent water relies on the
Liffey, so it has to be builtand it can't be ejected to.
Rick (45:28):
But it will be.
Yeah it probably will be.
Kate (45:31):
And then we also have an issue with wastewater, so we
need more wastewater reservoirs.
Another insane thing is I sawanother notification of E coli
in the water there a day or twoago.
So every time there's a stormin Ireland there is a sanction
whereby you can't swim in DublinBay because, basically, the
(45:54):
rings and water treatment plantis overflowed Like that just
shouldn't be happening.
So my magic wand is to reducethe layers of bureaucracy in the
entire system, from thenational planning framework down
.
Someone needs to say here arethe national roads that need to
be developed.
We use the existing lines thatare already there, be it roads
(46:14):
or whatever.
Put on more highways to eitherside of it.
Build more train lines aroundalong the existing train line
pattern.
We need to use what's there,but we need to give it more
oomph.
Rick (46:25):
Well, you heard it here first.
Kate Radigan calls fordictatorship.
I will take the first shiftBenevolent dictatorship, right
yeah, an infrastructure czar, weshould.
I mean, jokes aside, we shouldhave an infrastructure czar.
Right, housing isinfrastructure.
This idea that we have aDepartment of Housing, your
Department of Rural Development,we've got a Department of
(46:45):
Transport this is nonsense.
There should be a Department ofInfrastructure.
Housing is one of those things.
There should be four regionalplans for the four provinces,
not local plans, regional plans,ireland would fit inside.
Kate (47:00):
Lake Ontario and not county plans.
No, there should be no countyplans.
Rick (47:02):
Ireland would fit inside Lake Ontario, right?
That's how small it is.
And we have, you know, 26regional authorities.
In fact we've more because someof them have two, right.
And then you've got Cork, thathave a city council and then a
county council, and Dublin hasfour.
Kate (47:20):
It's too many.
The whole system has just grown.
It didn't used to be like thateither.
Rick (47:23):
Right, when I started it was just Dublin city council.
I mean, that's not.
There was Dublin.
It's one county, it's thesmallest county.
There's no need to have themfour.
We have four sets of planners,we have four sets of everything
and yet can't do it right, likethe HSE.
It's the same thing.
We just keep adding all ofthese layers of bureaucracy as
(47:44):
you say, and then you have.
I'm wondering why things don'tget better.
Kate (47:47):
And I think the government are aware of it, because they
had to bring in the OPR in 2019,I think it was the Office of
the Planning Regulator toregulate that the policies that
have been mandated through thenational planning framework
actually trickle their way downto the local authority level.
Rick (48:11):
But even the OPR has been a disaster, because it comes in
and it just blindly says we'refollowing the NPF, even though
everyone knew it was wrong.
Kate (48:20):
The NPF doesn't have the rights.
It's moved on.
It has the wrong information init.
Rick (48:24):
Everybody knows, but it's just.
No, those are the rules.
It is akin to what was going onin the Soviet Union that you
just follow the rules from thetop and those are the rules, and
nobody.
There's no allowance forsomebody to say, hey, let's be
smart about this, we know thosethings are wrong, so let's have
a bit of flexibility.
Yeah, no, can't do that.
So if we're going to have thatkind of rigid system, we're not
(48:48):
going to get out of this.
Kate (48:50):
I know I agree with your point that we need one group
that sits and monitors, that hasindependent voices monitoring
the system and that comes upwith the key moments of
infrastructure that are neededand orchestrate the whole thing
as the orchestrator of anorchestra.
Rick (49:11):
Right, exactly, a lady sitting at the top of the
Department of Infrastructure.
I think we'll get a lot ofstuff done, yeah.
Right, exactly, a lady sittingat the top of the Department of
Infrastructure.
Kate (49:19):
I think we'll get a lot of stuff done, yeah, and I'm there
for it, right, well,application received.
Rick (49:23):
Kate, thanks a lot for coming in.
That was a good chat and we'vejust gone over the hour, which
is meant to be our hard limit,but we sometimes breach it.
I find it very interesting.
I think your points are are areall on the money.
You know, small developmentbusinesses need uh are part of
the solution here.
We actually produce most of thehousing output even though we
(49:44):
don't get any of the headlines.
And if, if we don't get the rawmaterial, you're, you know,
karen and glenn bay, in fairnessto them, double the travel
they're out.
But it's not enough, right, youneed the small guys, and I want
to thank you and your familyfor your contribution,
particularly to Francis.
(50:05):
Over the years it's beenamazing.
You've done some amazingprojects and if we had more
setups like that, we'd be inmuch better stead.
So thanks for that and thanksfor coming on and chatting to us
and giving us your views.
Kate (50:19):
Thanks a lot.
Rick (50:23):
The Build is produced by Carrie Fernandez and me, Rick
Larkin.
Music is by Cass.
My name is Kate Rattigan and I work with Winterbrook.
We are a family, secondgeneration family house building
business.
I'm particular about sayinghouse builder versus property
developer because of theconnotations, and so we have a
huge history of deliveringhousing.
(00:53):
We have our own constructionteam, which means that we can
control the construction processand the delivery and the
timelines of that process.
I work with my brother and mysister, who are I think we
present an incredible team, eachwith their own skills.
My brother, conor Rattigan, isthe MD of the company and he is
(01:16):
a wizard with finance andstrategic planning.
My sister, anne-marie Drohan,also works in the business and
she is a wizard with people,with the management of the
developments and also anexpertise in sales, which aren't
my bag.
I think house builders arereally important in the small
(01:39):
house builders like our company,winterbrook, because we
actually deliver about 60% ofthe houses to the people of
Ireland.
That, I think, is interestingbecause there's about 480
different home builders like usand the top 10 home builders,
which would be your listedcompanies like Cairn and
(01:59):
Glenveig.
But I think the small, granular, smaller, medium sized builders
like ourselves are a hugecritical importance to delivery.
Rick (02:11):
They certainly are.
So you're essentially in afamily business where you all
get along.
It's a very, very unusual setupand you were very complimentary
there to your siblings, whichis lovely to hear.
I work in a family business, asyou know as well, and it can
sometimes be described as a warzone, but thankfully I just have
one sibling, so it's perhaps alittle bit easier to manage.
(02:33):
Yeah, how do you find it Like?
I mean because, like I say, youdescribed them very glowingly
there.
But how is it working in afamily business?
Do you find that it's?
You know, you'll say things tofamily members that you wouldn't
say to the general, the generalpublic.
How do you guys get along likeon the day to day?
Kate (02:59):
Well, I think we, we, we do get along really well on the
on a day to day, and I thinkthat is because, like, why did I
give such a glowing description?
It's because I respect what,what each person brings to the
table, and I think that's reallyimportant.
And I, having talked to anotherfew family home builders, if,
if, if, if, the if, the rolesand responsibilities are not
clear, that's when the argumentsstart happening.
So I'm doing Anne-Marie's andConnor's job, and that's where
(03:23):
things get really, reallyconfused and at times, so say,
we're working on a project andall hands are on deck.
That's when the argumentshappen, when we are
micromanaging each other andsaying, did you see that email?
And you have to say, at thatpoint, just get lost.
I know, give me space, I'mdoing it, I've got this.
(03:47):
That's where I think, in atraditional sense, you wouldn't
have such micromanagement,because and it's because it's so
important to everyone, uh, thatthis is why that happens.
But that's the danger zone andthat's where the arguments
happen.
Rick (03:59):
And, yeah, you need to call, call them out for it and
it's it's, it's for sure,important to have very clear
lines of responsibility, becausea lot of these businesses
because I know your dad startedthe business right- that's right
.
Probably similar time to my dad,or maybe a little bit before,
and all of those guys were oneman bands, right, they were the
(04:22):
CEO and and director of hr, andit was all the one, exactly.
Yeah, so it would have been avery different environment for
for them then.
You know there's three of younow and you will have to divide
up the responsibilities and nottry and cross over in each other
.
Kate (04:37):
So well it is.
It is an interesting, um, uh,an interesting trajectory
because a lot of the let's callthem the OGs so your father and
my father has a huge history andexpertise in building.
But yes, they did start themfrom scratch, from absolutely
nothing, and a lot of thesefellas came from the country.
(04:59):
They are very sharp and theydid everything.
Rick (05:03):
A quick aside here.
Kate mentioned the OG builders.
She's referring to companiesthat were, in most cases,
started within the last 50 years.
Generally, these companies werestarted by tradesmen going out
on their own and they reallywere on their own no real
capital to speak of, nogovernment support.
Many of them failed, but theones who survived produced
thousands of homes in Irelandand employed thousands of people
(05:24):
and generated billions inrevenue for the state.
It is worth repeating thataround two-thirds of all housing
being developed currently isproduced by these small family
businesses.
So the next time you hearsomeone complaining about
property developers, remind themof that.
Now back to Kate.
Kate (05:38):
I'm part of a group of female property developers that
are also second generation, andthat's an interesting twist
because from females taking overthe businesses and being
involved in the businesses, Well, it certainly is.
Rick (05:51):
I actually wanted to ask you about that as well, because
it's even I mean, I'm at this 22years and it was always very
notable for me that there wereno.
There were no women involved,right.
But now it's changing and youdo see girls with the hard hat
on and the boots, which is great.
How do you find it working?
In construction?
It is still male dominated, Ithink.
Kate (06:14):
I think you have to have.
You have to be able to have ahard shell, and I have learned
this through conversation with alot of women in the
construction industry.
You have to brush things off,you have to stand your ground.
(06:34):
I have attended so many sitemeetings where not only am I a
woman, but I'm the client, andthese women that I'm speaking
about are also in that positionthe second generation, or gosh,
if anyone is a new femaledeveloper you you not only do
you have to manage the room, youhave to manage the people and,
(06:54):
yeah, you are the only woman inthe room.
But I have learned to.
I have to speak up, I have tomake my body bigger, take up
more space in the room.
There's these things that I amaware of, that I have to make
sure I do and also things cantend to get quite aggressive.
(07:14):
So picture this I'm in a andI'm referring to a real life
situation I was in aport-a-cabin with 25 men around
and a massive argument broke outand hugely disrespectful things
were said by the headcontractor and I had to
(07:34):
immediately call a halt to themeeting, pull the person outside
and say how dare you neverspeak to me like that again.
So yeah, and as a woman, it'shard to do, but it's also
empowering, and I think thatwomen are beginning to become
part of the constructionindustry.
Rick (07:54):
I think it's probably.
I mean, look historically, weall know the issues with getting
women involved into seniorlevels of business, but
construction is a particulardifficulty because a lot of
people that come into it on themanagement side are come from a
trades or engineering background, and those jobs are in still
today.
There's very few women becomingan apprentice carpenter or an
(08:17):
apprentice electrician, but itmeans then that the funnel up is
kind of a bit more difficult.
They tend to come fromarchitecture, finance rather
than from the other side.
Kate (08:26):
Yeah, it does tend to come from the sort of the STEM
subjects.
Actually, while we're on thatpoint, I spoke at conferences
lately in the last year whichI've been enjoying, and a
keynote speaker was Dr KatrinaO'Sullivan, who wrote the world
renowned book Poor, and she hasinspired a program in
(08:48):
collaboration with MaynoothUniversity to encourage young
females in their school goingyears into STEM subjects.
So I have just completed 10hours of mentor training to be a
mentor to transition yearstudents yeah.
To encourage girls fromdisadvantaged levels of society
(09:09):
into science, technology,engineering and maths, and I
think it's inspiring for them tosee women working in the
construction industry,engineering industry, et cetera,
to show that these roles arepossible.
Rick (09:22):
Yeah, it's great.
I mean, it is a little bit of achicken and an egg scenario.
You need more of them toencourage more of them, but it
will happen, I think, over time.
So that's real interesting.
There's a lot of things Iwanted to talk to you about,
Kate, but one of them is theNational Development Plan.
I am aware that you are workingon a committee with CIF, IHBA,
(09:45):
I should say, about the NationalDevelopment Plan.
I'm completely uneducated aboutthis.
I can have lots of excuses forthat, but I'm just being a bit
overloaded of late with all ofthese different plans and
reports and stuff that have beencoming out from central
government that have not beenaccompanied with action
alongside them.
So I salute you for trying toget involved.
Can you give us a breakdown?
(10:07):
What is the NationalDevelopment Plan?
Kate (10:09):
The National Development Plan is probably the most
important strategic documentthat will inform the future of
Ireland for the next 25 yearsthrough till 2040.
So the National DevelopmentPlan it's the kind of the
cornerstone of an arch.
So it's the cornerstone piecethat sits as a policy level at
(10:32):
the top of every other singlelevel of report and piece of
policy and legislation.
So it's the medium to long-termvision about how many units are
built, how many homes are built, where they are built, and it
goes through region by regionwhat that looks like.
Rick (10:50):
And it doesn't cover all infrastructure like housing,
roads, hospitals, schools, or isit focused?
Kate (10:58):
It does.
Rick (10:58):
I mean obviously our end of it is going to be the housing
end of it, but is it anoverarching document that covers
everything.
Kate (11:06):
Yes, it does.
It covers all areas ofinfrastructure, so housing is
one of them.
Roads, utilities, wind farmsall of that is captured within
this overall nationaldevelopment plan.
It's pretty important.
It's important and the unusualthing is that there's only two
(11:26):
more times to review it.
So it started in 2018.
It runs through to 2014.
Every six years there is anopportunity to adjust for
anything that has changed in thelast six years.
So this is the first revisionof this framework in the last
(11:46):
six years.
So this is the first revisionof this framework and the
previous framework lists.
It's quite complicated, but Iwill just list out three main
points.
It projects what the populationwill be number one.
It also projects how peoplewill move around Ireland.
So, on a region per regionbasis, what the growth of the
(12:06):
regions will be.
So in the previous plan sorry,in the first revision they said
that there will be 50-50regional growth.
So 50% of the growth will be inthe middle and eastern area of
Ireland and the other 50% willbe in the southern and western
regions.
Rick (12:25):
And was that a prediction or was that a policy objective?
Kate (12:29):
It was a prediction and a policy objective.
Right.
Rick (12:33):
How has that been borne out?
Kate (12:34):
Well, I'm sorry, just the third thing that it projected,
that it established throughpolicy, was that 40% of all new
housing development shall be inurban areas.
So brownfield, urban areas.
What has changed and what?
So it didn't go to plan, so wehave had an extraordinary
(12:56):
complete explosion, as we know,in our population.
The population projectionsweren't big enough and the
population didn't move into thedirect regions as they projected
.
So Dublin has grownexponentially and the government
(13:17):
are trying to encourage peopleto move into the other five
cities.
So Dublin is one of the fivecities.
You've got Limerick, galway,cork and Waterford.
They want to increase the sizeof those cities, but it seems to
be Dublin centric and so thathas been a shocking development
that nobody could have predictedright?
Rick (13:36):
People want to live in the big city where all the jobs are
.
Kate (13:40):
Yeah, the population is a major one.
Why are these things important?
Because the data containedwithin the national planning
framework so say, there isprojected to be 6 million people
or 7 million people and theselittle nuances are extremely
important because whatever thenumbers are decided on, then
(14:00):
they get filtered through allthe national policies.
So it goes then through theregional plans, the regional
plans, the county developmentplans, to the local plans and
then it tells the, at the verysmallest level of the system,
how many units, how much land iszoned and how many units they
(14:22):
can plan for.
And so, without the populationbeing correct and when we keep
undercooking the projections inthe housing you under project,
under plan, we don't have enoughzoned land for the developers
like us to build, and the localauthorities say, well, we've hit
(14:44):
our plans.
And in some instances you'llfind that county development
plans are downzoning, they'redownzoning the land.
Rick (14:54):
It's not unusual for that.
I mean, it's very common thatthat's been going on in a lot of
places.
Kate (15:00):
Yeah, and so there are problems.
If you think about the massiveincrease in population, we have
underbuilt and undersupplied.
The Housing Commission reporthave come out with a figure of,
on average, an undersupply tothe market of 235,000 homes.
So we need to play catch up.
So the national planningframework is a medium to
(15:21):
long-term plan.
What we need to see is theshort-term plan.
We need action, we need to zonethe land that is needed to
catch up and build thatundersupply units.
And then we haven't even begunto talk about, year on year,
what is required for ourincreasing, growing population.
Rick (15:39):
And in a previous episode with Kate English from Deloitte,
we discussed that and sheexplained to me the difference
between structural demand andthe, the unmet, the previous
unmet demand.
Um, you know, and we we got to,we got to big numbers pretty
quickly.
You know that there there'shundreds of thousands of units
that were not built, that neededto be built, and there's
ongoing demand, um, which theesri are saying is, on a base
(16:03):
case, 40 something thousandunits a year.
But when you add that to theunmet demand you quickly get to
80, 90 thousand units a year.
Kate (16:09):
I'm so glad you pointed that out, because that was a key
flaw maybe and it did point itout in the ESRI report that the
housing deficit to date wasn'tadded in.
Rick (16:23):
Yeah, we need immediate action, and I said to her as
well that I look at this verypessimistically.
I know you're not a pessimist,right?
You're not like me, or I'm moreof a nihilist.
Actually, I was told recently,the idea that we will ever get
to the point where we'reconstructing 80 to 90,000 units
a year in Ireland is, to me, isa fantasy.
(16:45):
Right?
We did it once, 2007, I thinkthere was 80 something thousand
units constructed.
That was in the height of themadness.
We're struggling to get to40,000 now.
To get to 80,000, we need todouble the size of the industry,
right?
So we need to double the amountof labor, we need to double the
amount of capital We'll getonto that in a minute.
(17:05):
We need to free up all of thelog jams that are associated
with it right Aroundinfrastructure, irish water, or
Ishka Aaron, as they insist uponbeing called now.
And planning, and planning tome.
I am sure people listening tothis are just sick of hearing
about it.
But if we don't change that,this NDP is pointless, right?
(17:26):
We're never going to hit any ofthose targets unless you.
You know, it's like trying tobail out the Titanic with the
glass.
Kate (17:33):
Well, here's my take on it , so I changed my mind yeah.
Okay, well, I'd like to justtalk about capacity, which is
the first point you brought upin your question.
And how do we double the housebuilding market?
I think it's really simple.
I've produced a series ofdiagrams where and it goes back
(17:55):
to my original point of how thehome building market is made up
If the top 10% builders that Imentioned deliver 35 to 40% of
the units, which is what theycurrently do if they grow by, if
they double in capacity, whichI think they can, so say,
glenveig and Cairn aredelivering 1,500 units around a
(18:21):
year.
If they double to 3,000 units ayear, which they have the land
bank to do and they have thecapacity to do, let's say that
happens.
The rest of the market beingthe other 60% of the home
builders, on average deliver areally small amount of units a
year.
It's only about 34 units.
That's what the data says.
(18:43):
If the small home buildersincrease their capacity 10% year
on year for the next six years,we will be able to make it to
80,000 units, for sure.
So it's that small growth.
Rick (18:58):
But that small growth can't happen without all of the
other barriers being taken away.
Kate (19:02):
No, they can't.
Small builders need funding.
We need access to equity to buysites.
So, because the planning systemis so risky, you need to
actually have about three orfour projects on the go so that
one of them comes through Intimes gone by.
(19:23):
It didn't work like that.
Rick (19:24):
I'm sorry to interrupt you .
It's worth just exploring thata little bit, because we have a
lot of people that listen tothis that are not in the
development industry.
What you said there makesperfect sense to me, but it
might not to other people.
So I think what you mean andcorrect me if I'm wrong.
If you have three or four sitesthat, um, that don't have
planning, and you start goingthrough the planning process on
(19:45):
all let's call it four and let'ssay they all start at the same
time.
To make it simple, you're goingto have maybe one that gets a
planning refusal.
You're going to have one whereIrish water say that they can't,
uh, they need upgrades toservice a site.
You can have one where, uh, youget planning but then it gets,
(20:06):
uh, appealed to board plan alland board plan all.
It's delayed and then theygrant the planning and then it
gets judicially reviewed.
So you're kind of hoping thatyou get one through that system
that you can actually build.
And while you're building thatone, the other three, you try to
work out all of the problems.
The problems.
Kate (20:21):
It's like it's like a pinball machine.
You have a ball and you'reflicking five balls hoping one
of them will land.
Rick (20:29):
Yeah, so that's how risky planning is yeah, and that is
what leads into all the otherthings that we as an industry
get criticized for, like delayand cost.
If the planning say we didn'thave to apply for planning, it
was just set out like it is indenmark, on this piece of land
you can build that.
You just file the forms, youget to build it.
There's no asking can we buildthe thing that you've already
(20:51):
zoned the land for?
If it was like that, we wouldhave a lot less problems, right,
because we would be able toscale up and down supply of
housing very quickly.
Kate (20:58):
Absolutely Like if it was more prescription about how many
floors can be built, what areas, and so what density, what
scale, what height.
If things were, if the planningsystem were more prescriptive,
(21:20):
then everybody, including all ofthe neighbours, would be clear
about what can be built andwhere.
Rick (21:26):
And it's not prescriptive.
And you know I don't want toturn this into a planning chat,
but you know the new PlanningAct is I don't think the
president has quite signed ityet, but it's been sent to the
president for signature.
Even that, I mean, to me is amassive missed opportunity,
because it only happens every 20or 25 years that we reform the
planning laws.
It's not going to make plansprescriptive as well.
(21:48):
It's still going to delegate anawful lot of power to local
authorities to just willy-nillydecide that, oh, we don't want
tall buildings, we don't wanthigh density, we don't want this
, we don't want that.
So you still go in to what isessentially a game of roulette
in the planning system.
Yeah, hoping that the outcomeis economic for you to be able
(22:08):
to build.
Kate (22:09):
Yeah, I think, I think a lot of it.
I think the county developmentplans have a lot to answer for.
The county development plansset out all of these
recommendations and criteria andwhen you go to apply for a
planning permission you can bejudicially reviewed for MC.
I'm so sick of seeing.
Do you know what MC means?
Do you know materialcontravention?
Rick (22:32):
MC, MC, MC.
Material contravention isalright.
Kate (22:34):
Material contravention of the county development plan.
So when a county developmentplan, if you do anything that is
not in alignment with thecounty development plan, you can
be judicially reviewed and Ithink that so I was actually
reading on the currency lastnight there was a wind farm that
(22:55):
was that has just been refusedby onboard Planola in County
Donegal.
That could have, if it werebuilt, could have powered 80,000
homes, but it was refused bythe board because of a
discrepancy in the countydevelopment plan.
The county development plan,when the wind farm went through
(23:17):
planning and had started theirplanning application, it was
zoned as open to considerationfor wind farms and the county
development plan had has lapsedand now it's not open for um,
the zoning has been taken away,but I mean that's not even
contravening the developmentplan.
Rick (23:34):
The fact that it was allowed lapse is is a disgrace
there's so many inconsistenciesin in we'd be here.
Kate (23:40):
We'd be here all day talking about them.
Rick (23:41):
I don't want to use up the whole I don't use up the whole
thing, but like it's a, it's ahuge issue.
Judicial reviews everybody inthe development industry has
been dealing with this and we'reall sick, I know we all.
It's like group therapy we allsit around and we talk about, we
tell our terrible stories ofour judicial review trauma.
You have a particular uh siteI'm not going to say where it is
(24:03):
big, big site accommodating alot of people.
You got planning and there wasa judicial review lodged.
That's really not theinteresting point, right?
The interesting point to me waswhat happened during that
process.
Are you able to talk a littlebit about that and tell us how
all that unfolded?
Kate (24:21):
Sure, just before I get into that point, which I know
you're alluding to, what theimportance of that project was
for us as a family business.
The project that you'redescribing is in South County,
dublin.
It is 200 units, 200 apartmentunits that our entire team
(24:43):
should have moved on to.
So that has screwed up ourpipeline.
That was the next project, soit is difficult to have a
sustainable business model whereyou have staff that are
incredibly talented and you needto provide job security for
these people when your projectand your pipeline is suddenly
(25:05):
stopped.
So JORD, the project was JORDand we received planning
permission in 2021.
We bought the site in 2020.
So we have had that projecthanging around on our balance
sheet, paying interest on thatland and that site since 2020.
So you can imagine the cost ofthat project.
(25:28):
To us now it's shocking.
And the project was judiciallyreviewed.
We received planning permissionin 2021.
Three years later.
So the case was heard by thecourts in 2023, in February of
2023.
So it took three years to getthrough the courts.
(25:49):
The other problem with that,before I get on to the granular
part, is that the planningpermission only lasts for five
years.
So we don't have time to buildit.
Rick (25:58):
It doesn't pause, and that's something that people
maybe don't also appreciate thatyou get a five-year planning
permission, you get judiciallyreviewed.
The planning permission startswhen you get granted it, and if
it takes three or four years toget through the courts, tough
luck.
Kate (26:12):
It's withering.
Rick (26:12):
It's withering and the vagaries of the rules around
planning timelines.
If you don't have the buildingsubstantially complete before
the expiry of the planningpermission, your planning
permission has lapsed.
Now there is no definition ofsubstantially complete anywhere,
and that is down to individualcouncils, and in fact,
(26:34):
individuals within the councilsform an opinion as to what
substantially complete is.
Ergo, that situation neverarises.
Nobody ever goes and buildssomething right up to the end of
a planning permission, assumingthat the council will be happy
with it so if something doesn'tstart within the first two and a
half years of the planning,it's not happening at all and
(26:55):
you won't get funding for iteither.
Kate (26:57):
Well, that's so yeah, you won't get funding, you can only
apply for the extension to theum, to the duration of the
planning permission until thelast year, and no bank will fund
it with that risk.
Rick (27:10):
And there's a predisposition to refuse
extensions unless you're underconstruction, right?
Because we had this recentlywith Dunleary where we tried we
had a site that had planning andwe were trying to get a
different planning.
We got that it was J-Ord.
We tried to extend the previousplanning because we were just
going to go build that as ourfallback, dunleary, refused it.
We took a judicial reviewagainst Dunleary's refusal and
(27:34):
Dunleary fought us all the wayin the High Court to make sure
that this planning expired.
So if any of the guys therefrom Dunleary that are listening
to this, congratulations.
You did successfully preventthe construction of a couple of
hundred units again.
So hopefully you're proud ofyourselves.
But that's the scenario that weall find ourselves in with this
(27:57):
stuff.
It's absolutely insane.
Kate (27:58):
The really insane thing about it is the personal
vilification that can happen.
So throughout this JOR period,at the very beginning of the JOR
, when the JOR was lodged therewas actually we discovered that
there were posters going aroundthe local area with my face on
it, my sister's face, my brother, the mezzanine finance company
(28:23):
who funded the development aswell, and it was saying Kate
Rattigan, building for theCuckoo funds and the Vulture
funds.
Here's the price of these units.
They're going to be 600,000each, and and it was.
It was plastered all over thelocal area.
(28:44):
We don't know who did it, or Ibet you have a fair idea.
Rick (28:48):
who did it?
Kate (28:49):
Yeah, I mean you can make assumptions, I'm not going to
say that but it's thatvilification and that idea that
the property developers are evil.
I mean that's why I referred toWinterbrook.
As home builders, like we'redelivery focused, all we want to
do is build houses and hand thekeys over to a customer.
I mean, why is it so hard?
Rick (29:10):
And you're goddamn needed and we're all needed and this,
you know.
This really gets my goat,because that's where this has
come to right, that theenablement is on the political
class.
They have permitted people tofeel so entitled that they can
go around preventing anythingfrom being built in an area
(29:30):
where they happen to livebecause they feel it is their
area.
So they're a feudal lords tothe point where they go and put
posters of people up like tryingto intimidate you.
In any other circumstancethere'd be calls for a police
investigation for that, yeah.
And the fact that this, thisgoes on and it is a South Dublin
thing I live in South Dublin.
(29:51):
I get things through themailbox all the time.
You know.
This vitriolic hate of the ideathat something, something would
be built anywhere near me in myarea is insane.
It's insane that this has beenpermitted to get, to get this
far.
Kate (30:08):
It is insane.
I think, when you have thesesystemic problems happening,
that we need to take a pause andgo.
Whoa, I mean, this is haltingdelivery of housing units for
Ireland.
It's stopping our economicgrowth, our FDI investment.
It affects the economics ofIreland and people shouldn't
(30:30):
have that power.
And when they do have thatpower, something's broken,
really broken, so it needs to befixed Like.
My view on it is that we havetoo many points where third
parties can have their say inwhat a housing development looks
like and whether or not itshould receive permission.
I think people should beinvolved at the plan making
(30:53):
stage and then only the odd caseshould people have something to
say about it.
I think there's too many timeswhere people can, where people
can make submissions and stopdevelopment happening.
Rick (31:07):
Yeah Well, people don't want their say, they want their
way, and I think that's the realissue with this.
If it was just about people say, they would have their say and
then they would walk off quietlywhen they got what they wanted.
They didn't get what they want,but that's nothing.
It's not what it is.
They want to prevent everything.
It's not just housing, it'severything.
It's wind farms, it's solarfarms.
I mean, the amount ofobjections to solar farms would
(31:29):
blow your mind.
They are down on the ground.
You cannot see them, you cannothear them, and people are
mobilizing against them becausethey don't.
You know, one of the things isusing up good farmland that
could be farmed by a farmer,right, batshit, crazy stuff.
And the fact that we permittedis insane.
If we did that with any otheraspect of public policy, imagine
(31:49):
if the government wanted toraise taxes and they said oh,
we're going to let everyone havea view on it.
They just announcedmulti-annual funding for RTE 725
million euros.
Imagine if they said okay, well, this is what we're going to do
.
We're going to fund RTE, but ifanybody wants to stop it, by
all means pay your 20 euros,hire Fred Logue and you can have
(32:09):
a judicial review and we'lldelay it for three years and
we'll just turn off thetelevision in the meantime.
Kate (32:13):
I mean, you can't make everyone happy and you have to
go with the greater good andwhat's the benefit to society
and the greater good?
And these things shouldn't beallowed to happen.
Rick (32:25):
Yeah, Well, there we go.
We've solved it all in thatcase, so we don't need to worry
about that.
Kate (32:30):
I mean, we're not going to solve the planning system, and
I think I'm sick of talkingabout the planning system, so
let's assume the governmentplease fix the planning system
for us and make it work.
Okay, so let's just park thatfor a second and talk about the
funding.
Winterbrook has a building team.
We have the capacity to deliverhundreds of units a year and we
(32:54):
should be doing that.
And what's one of the keydrivers stopping that growth?
Well, first of all, we've beenbidding on so many sites that
have planning permission and,honestly, it is a race to the
bottom.
It's a race to the bottombecause we're all bidding over
the same land and the otherthing is you're dealing with
someone else's design thatdoesn't make sense for you, and
(33:17):
the thing that someone likeourselves would bring is we
bring value in our own flair onwhat kind of homes we build and
the design and the quantity.
It's all unique to us and theviability and what we apply for
makes sense to Winterbook.
But when we're building outsomeone else's design and number
(33:40):
of units, it probably doesn'tsuit us and it really is a race
to the bottom.
So what we need to have is ourraw material, which is the raw
material in our case is land,because we need four or five
planning plays on the go.
The cost of that land is reallyexpensive.
Our business is a hugely cashand equity hungry business.
(34:01):
So say we spot a portion ofland and we need to put in about
35% equity into that deal,which say that's about three or
four million.
So every 40 unit scheme abuilder like us needs to put in
about 3 or 4 million.
Multiply that out by about five, those five schemes I talked
about.
I mean I find it hard tobelieve how many small and
(34:24):
medium businesses are that havethat amount of money on their
balance sheet.
So a fix would be having thestate come in as an equity
partner to um assist thepurchase of um of zoned land.
But not but you don't have thepermission.
Rick (34:42):
Yet um banks don't lend on zoned land anymore and that's a
problem well, you canunderstand why they don't, given
what we just discussed, right,because the difficulty for them
they take a view on say, well,we're going to come in and buy
and lend on his own land.
What's your plan?
We say, oh yeah, we're going tohave planning in two years.
And they say, okay.
And then five years later,right, you're taking down the
(35:04):
posters of your face all over,say county dublin, and the bank
are saying has that planningworking out for you?
Kate (35:09):
well, it's frustrating because if you have a solid
business plan where you'vespotted a site like we're
looking at, a site in Wicklowand it has a capacity for, say,
100 houses, it is perfect.
We know how to apply forpermission where we stick within
(35:29):
all the rules.
But it is that question.
But the state or an entity, abanking entity, has to take that
risk with us and come on thejourney.
That's the problem.
Rick (35:40):
It's a big issue.
I mean, one way that thegovernment has of solving that
without contributing equity isjust by fixing the frigging
planning system, because thenthe banks will lend against
their own land again.
If it was relatively sure, asit was before I mean, it didn't
used to be like this no, no, weused to be able to buy zone land
and get funding on it.
Yeah, because we would getplanning.
Kate (35:58):
It's a fundamental problem .
Rick (35:59):
It might take a year, but you would get planning.
Now you've no idea if you'regetting planning right.
Could be, could get it, couldbe.
Five years later.
You're still.
You know that uncertainty is anissue.
The funding is stemming fromthat right.
It's not like that the banksuddenly lost their appetite.
They are looking at it andgoing this is bananas.
Because it is bananas, the riskprofile is too high.
(36:21):
It's crazy, yeah, but it's agood idea.
I mean the government maybewould argue that they are doing
that right, Like that they arevia the LDA.
I have my own views on the LDA.
I via the LDA, I have my ownviews on the LDA.
Kate (36:34):
I don't want to hear them.
Rick (36:40):
Yeah, I mean, I've said it .
I don't think it's a very goodidea for the state to be being a
house builder, because thestate has proved over the last
100 years and every state hasthat it cannot get value for
money out of anything.
But the LDA are going aroundbuying land, right, they're
taking state lands that havebeen perhaps underused and are
attempting to get planningpermission.
I guess they're about to findout what we've all been dealing
with for the last decade.
Kate (37:01):
But I think the state have been incredibly important in
the supply of housing andaffordable social housing.
I mean, that's all I hearbuilders like us are doing.
Well, it's the only show intown now.
I mean, if's all I hearbuilders like us are doing.
Rick (37:16):
Well, it's the only show in town now.
I mean, if the state weren'tdoing what they were doing, we
would be back to 2009,.
2010 in terms of theconstruction industry would stop
Because and again the statehave chased all the private
capital out of the market withlit pitchforks.
As I said to Kate English, ifyou chase the private money away
, then what do you?
Got left with right, you'releft with public money.
Kate (37:37):
Yeah, Well, I think, I think the public money is really
important and they have been.
They have been shouldering thesupply and without them and
forward fund deals, I don't Ithink a lot of businesses like
ours would be out of businessand I think they're really
important, but the we shouldn'tforget about.
So say, for example, in 2050,the population is meant to grow.
(37:58):
It can grow.
The projections are between sixand seven million.
Like that's a lot of people.
And how much funding is neededfor seven million people in 2050
?
It's been projected to bepredicted to be 20 million and
the state only provides threebillion of that.
It's been projected to bepredicted to be 20 million and
the state only provides 3billion of that.
We need that institutionalcapital to come back into the
(38:19):
market to lend us the other 17million.
We'll never get there without17 billion.
Sorry, what did I say?
Rick (38:26):
Yeah, you said million.
Kate (38:28):
No, it's billions.
Rick (38:28):
17 billion euro per annum per year For the next 25 years.
Kate (38:32):
Is needed.
Yeah, annum per year for thenext 25 years is needed.
Yeah, so we, we, we cannot um,we cannot, uh, scare away we
need the institutional moneyback in the market.
Rick (38:41):
We need we need half a trillion euros of institutional
money over the next 30 years andwe have not been doing a whole
pile to incentivize that moneyto come in here well, it's a
fundamental flaw, then we needto be incentivizing
institutional capital back intothe market.
Yeah, because we just, you knowand this, this is one of the
other things that goes on isthat the magic bean salesman, as
I call them, talk about thestate doing everything in the
(39:01):
state should be and there shouldbe no private development, like
it's absolutely fanciful.
It's, it's a third of theannual tax.
Take that the state has.
Uh, just on housing, right,that's what it would be.
So that means we're not havinga healthcare system or we're not
having an education system.
We're certainly not havingcapital spending on any single
other thing.
So it's nonsense.
(39:24):
It's a nonsense argument.
You need the private money.
It's the same as the sky beingblue.
It's just a fact, and the factthat it's not happening.
Well, anyway, that tells youwhat you need to know the fact
that it's not happening.
Kate (39:37):
Well, anyway, that tells you what you need to know.
Yeah, I, I think the privatemarket and the um having homes
for sale to the private uhmarket is is is being
undersupplied and it's a miss.
So, say for, for winterbrook,it would be a a key ambition to
provide houses to the privatemarket.
You know, I I find theinstitutional investments so
(39:58):
selling apartment blocks to theinstitutions it does come with
their problems though, too.
I think yield plays aredifficult.
So, if we can get back to housebuilding and that's why we need
to zone the land, the green,the green sites for home
builders to build the homes Ithink yield plays we would like
(40:19):
to be zero to 20% of ourbusiness, really, because you um
like we, we built a project outin Dockie, um we've, we just uh
handed it over in September oflast year and um we we entered
into a forward fund deal with wesold it to Irish Life and we
(40:42):
agreed the price back in 2020with them and so many things.
You sell it on a yield.
Rick (40:49):
So many things change.
Kate (40:50):
So many things change, the interest rate changes.
For both sides it mightn't besuch a good deal.
So it's tricky.
They're tricky projects andapartment projects.
As we all know, you can't phasean apartment scheme.
They're extremely expensive tobuild.
(41:11):
You need a lot of capital upfront.
Rick (41:14):
um, there's a lot of regulation yeah, I agree with
you and the.
The regulation aroundapartments has been has just
driven the cost up and it's kindof can't do it now, right yeah,
it's very difficult to makemoney at building apartments I
mean the last block ofapartments we built.
We lost money and they were indog actually, as you know,
around the corner from you.
We you know beautiful thing,it's winning awards but we lost
(41:37):
money.
So I won't be doing that again.
Okay, magic wand time.
I want to hear you.
I know that you have listenedto the podcast and you know that
I give people a magic wand, soI'm expecting you to have a good
one.
What I'm giving you?
A magic wand here are the rules, because everyone likes to
break the rules a lot.
It's one thing and it can beanything, but it can't be like
(41:57):
you can't change, like humannature.
So you can't magically make theresidents of South Dublin be
pro-development, because that'snot going to happen.
Right, it's not that magic.
You can change a policy thingor something like that, but it
can't be completely fancifulwhat you got, yeah.
Kate (42:12):
I think my magic wand moment would be to point out
that there's too muchbureaucracy in the system.
We need to simplify everything.
The policy, legislation,everything has got too
complicated and we need moreaction and simplification.
I know that sounds very kind ofaspirational, but there's too
(42:33):
many inquiries on inquiries onthe inquiries, and everything is
taking too long.
We need key decision makers tomake the key decisions.
Why are there so many differentnumbers out there, like we need
33,000 homes, we need 50,000homes, we need 80,000 homes,
coming from disparate parts oforganisations.
(42:55):
We just we need to be reallyclear, have clear data.
None of the state agencies arecollaborating.
Everyone is in these littlesilos.
I think we need to join up ourthinking between infrastructure,
between land zoning, betweenpopulation projections.
This is a major kind of bugbearfor me.
(43:17):
I'm 40 years old and since I'vebeen born, there hasn't been
one major piece ofinfrastructure built or created.
You may have an overgroundLewis, that's about the extent
of it and like the DART is inoperation for 40 years this year
, but that went on a train linethat already existed.
It wasn't that revolution.
(43:39):
I don't think we've come upwith revolutionary ideas to
achieve our growth and I thinkbureaucracy has stopped that we
come up with the ideas and thenwe don't do them.
Yeah and we don't like we havehave major infrastructural
problems.
We have the Dublin city iscreaking, Even if we did meet
(44:02):
supply, the infrastructure isnot there to support the growth.
Rick (44:07):
And then when we tried to deliver it, I mean the Metro,
right there was the farce thatthey're like unveiled the plan
for the metro, and then therewas a GAA club in North Dublin.
It's like nope, we're notmoving, so reroute the train
line, you know.
Kate (44:21):
And this is the kind of stuff that we go on with, right
and like the Dublin is about torun out of water, not about to,
I mean, it's creaking at theseams.
So if you go and you do getthat lucky permission Irish
Water Iskair might turn aroundand say we don't have the
capacity to, and they're tryingto get it by taking it from down
west and there's opposition tothat.
Rick (44:40):
Yeah well, I mean that's what is incredibly.
Kate (44:44):
It's a scheme.
It's a plan that we need tobuild to bring more water to the
Dublin region, and they have to.
It's called the Water SupplyProject for the eastern and mid
and eastern regions of Irelandand they need to build a 170
(45:06):
kilometre pipeline from theParteen Basin in Tipperary
through to Pemount in Dublin.
But without it the 85% of ourcurrent water relies on the
Liffey, so it has to be builtand it can't be ejected to.
Rick (45:28):
But it will be.
Yeah it probably will be.
Kate (45:31):
And then we also have an issue with wastewater, so we
need more wastewater reservoirs.
Another insane thing is I sawanother notification of E coli
in the water there a day or twoago.
So every time there's a stormin Ireland there is a sanction
whereby you can't swim in DublinBay because, basically, the
(45:54):
rings and water treatment plantis overflowed Like that just
shouldn't be happening.
So my magic wand is to reducethe layers of bureaucracy in the
entire system, from thenational planning framework down
.
Someone needs to say here arethe national roads that need to
be developed.
We use the existing lines thatare already there, be it roads
(46:14):
or whatever.
Put on more highways to eitherside of it.
Build more train lines aroundalong the existing train line
pattern.
We need to use what's there,but we need to give it more
oomph.
Rick (46:25):
Well, you heard it here first.
Kate Radigan calls fordictatorship.
I will take the first shiftBenevolent dictatorship, right
yeah, an infrastructure czar, weshould.
I mean, jokes aside, we shouldhave an infrastructure czar.
Right, housing isinfrastructure.
This idea that we have aDepartment of Housing, your
Department of Rural Development,we've got a Department of
(46:45):
Transport this is nonsense.
There should be a Department ofInfrastructure.
Housing is one of those things.
There should be four regionalplans for the four provinces,
not local plans, regional plans,ireland would fit inside.
Kate (47:00):
Lake Ontario and not county plans.
No, there should be no countyplans.
Rick (47:02):
Ireland would fit inside Lake Ontario, right?
That's how small it is.
And we have, you know, 26regional authorities.
In fact we've more because someof them have two, right.
And then you've got Cork, thathave a city council and then a
county council, and Dublin hasfour.
Kate (47:20):
It's too many.
The whole system has just grown.
It didn't used to be like thateither.
Rick (47:23):
Right, when I started it was just Dublin city council.
I mean, that's not.
There was Dublin.
It's one county, it's thesmallest county.
There's no need to have themfour.
We have four sets of planners,we have four sets of everything
and yet can't do it right, likethe HSE.
It's the same thing.
We just keep adding all ofthese layers of bureaucracy as
(47:44):
you say, and then you have.
I'm wondering why things don'tget better.
Kate (47:47):
And I think the government are aware of it, because they
had to bring in the OPR in 2019,I think it was the Office of
the Planning Regulator toregulate that the policies that
have been mandated through thenational planning framework
actually trickle their way downto the local authority level.
Rick (48:11):
But even the OPR has been a disaster, because it comes in
and it just blindly says we'refollowing the NPF, even though
everyone knew it was wrong.
Kate (48:20):
The NPF doesn't have the rights.
It's moved on.
It has the wrong information init.
Rick (48:24):
Everybody knows, but it's just.
No, those are the rules.
It is akin to what was going onin the Soviet Union that you
just follow the rules from thetop and those are the rules, and
nobody.
There's no allowance forsomebody to say, hey, let's be
smart about this, we know thosethings are wrong, so let's have
a bit of flexibility.
Yeah, no, can't do that.
So if we're going to have thatkind of rigid system, we're not
(48:48):
going to get out of this.
Kate (48:50):
I know I agree with your point that we need one group
that sits and monitors, that hasindependent voices monitoring
the system and that comes upwith the key moments of
infrastructure that are neededand orchestrate the whole thing
as the orchestrator of anorchestra.
Rick (49:11):
Right, exactly, a lady sitting at the top of the
Department of Infrastructure.
I think we'll get a lot ofstuff done, yeah.
Right, exactly, a lady sittingat the top of the Department of
Infrastructure.
Kate (49:19):
I think we'll get a lot of stuff done, yeah, and I'm there
for it, right, well,application received.
Rick (49:23):
Kate, thanks a lot for coming in.
That was a good chat and we'vejust gone over the hour, which
is meant to be our hard limit,but we sometimes breach it.
I find it very interesting.
I think your points are are areall on the money.
You know, small developmentbusinesses need uh are part of
the solution here.
We actually produce most of thehousing output even though we
(49:44):
don't get any of the headlines.
And if, if we don't get the rawmaterial, you're, you know,
karen and glenn bay, in fairnessto them, double the travel
they're out.
But it's not enough, right, youneed the small guys, and I want
to thank you and your familyfor your contribution,
particularly to Francis.
(50:05):
Over the years it's beenamazing.
You've done some amazingprojects and if we had more
setups like that, we'd be inmuch better stead.
So thanks for that and thanksfor coming on and chatting to us
and giving us your views.
Kate (50:19):
Thanks a lot.
Rick (50:23):
The Build is produced by Carrie Fernandez and me, Rick
Larkin.
Music is by Cass.
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