A rather different insight into the ‘housing crisis’ is provided by the refusal of Fingal County Council of an application by Eirebus for the retention of 25 modular and mobile homes at their base in Corduff.
The units had been described in the application as “Ancillary Essential Service Worker Accommodation to facilitate the operation of the existing bus depot.”
The Fingal Council Planners in their decision to refuse describe the 19 units as “akin to shipping containers.” They further state that “the detached and communal nature of the kitchen, toilets, and shower facilities is not appropriate given the nature of the layout arrangement.”
One observation described the accommodation as providing “Inadequate residential amenity and conditions.” That is supported by the Fingal planner’s conclusion that “the modular and the mobile home units are a form of substandard residential living spaces which is unacceptable.”
The accommodation is currently home to 43 employees who share a kitchen, three toilets and two shower units. The need to have them close at hand is justified on the basis that the company operates 24/7 with shifts beginning as early as 4am.
That requires “a clear need for flexible accommodation arrangements to support the ongoing delivery of essential transport services.”
HOW EIRBUS CLAIMS TO BE HELPING SOLVE THE HO USING CRISIS
CWPA Planners strike an altruistic note on behalf of Eirebus where they state that “accommodating employees within the private rental sector would place additional pressure on an already constrained housing market and would result in direct competition with local households for a very limited supply of available accommodation.”
One could come the Wise Acre and suggest that moving Granny into the shed might similarly reduce competition in a “constrained housing market” and free up much needed accommodation, perhaps for bus drivers from Cape Town or brickies from Bangladesh.
The company’s own planner, CWPA, notes in its submission that 68 of the 92 workers based at Corduff are of other than Irish nationality. So the company has added to the demand for accommodation in the local market.
The reason being that it is immigration, which includes the importing of overseas workers along with asylum seekers, students and relatives, which is the main driver in the demand for accommodation of all sorts.
Therefore, Eirebus and other employers which opt in preference to employ non-Irish nationals are not a passive actor in all of this. They will of course claim that they have no choice and that population growth and all of the other demands that creates require them also to employ those overseas workers.
Well yes, and we hear the same about nurses and doctors and carpenters and pizza chefs. As if in a state in which 25% are born overseas that none of that 1.25 million or thereabouts ever uses a doctor or needs somewhere to live or orders takeouts.
WHO ARE THE LADS LIVING IN THE EIREBUS MODULAR HOMES?
Eirebus claim that their labour requirements have led them to depend overwhelmingly on drivers from outside of Ireland. Which is the reason they need to house them where they are based for work.
Bus and coach companies – including Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus – have been allowed to recruit drivers from outside the EU/EEA area since December 2022. This had been an ineligible occupation prior to the change.
Eirebus and other coach and bus companies appear to have survived pretty well until that. Although they have performed even better, as we shall see, since the liberalisation of the labour market.
Since 2023 Eirebus has been issued with 51 work permits. That accounts for a significant number of the 75% of their current workforce who they state are non-nationals.
Their workforce was 59 according to their accounts for 2020 so the expansion since then has pretty much been exclusively due to the recruitment of drivers from overseas. That is a not uncommon feature of companies who have benefitted from the liberalisation of the permits system is that they quickly resort to almost exclusive hiring of people from abroad.
THE INTENSIVE LOBBY FOR MORE PERMITS
The successive opening up of the labour market – and some would argue the lowering of work conditions and even average wages – has, and continues to be, the purpose of intensive lobbying.
The Coach Tourism and Transport Council, welcomed the December 2022 announcement and noted it as “a concrete example of a positive outcome arising from Government and industry collaboration.”
Another statement said that they had “advocated tirelessly” for the change over several years.
Eirebus is a key member of the CTTC – Eirebus director Jeff Clarke is one of the CTTC directors – so whatever problems it claims to have in accommodating the people it has recruited from outside of the EU are of their own making.
EIREBUS PROFITS ROSE FOLLOWING INTRODUCTION OF PERMITS
Far from losing out through the apparent extra pressures placed upon them, Eirebus financial statements indicate that they have done well and that it is those working for them whose lives are more austere now. Relatively at least given that their Irish drivers presumably did not and do not live in cabins.
Unless of course one believes that starting work at 4am, living in a modular home with 42 other people and sharing a kitchen, three toilets and two showers is living the dream. Especially when as noted in the planning documents that the toilets and the showers are “detached” and require going out of the accommodation area to access them.
The benefits for the company are quite evident.
Eirebus had taken on nine extra staff between 2023 and 2024, including five drivers. Their average payroll cost per employee fell from €44,191 in 2023 to €43,061 in 2024.
In the same 12 month period the average remuneration of its directors, Sinéad Kavanagh and Jeff Clarke, rose from €265,447 to €343,080. An indication that liberalisation of work permits certainly did not impact adversely on Eirebus bottom line.
I think I shall return to this as it involves other companies and the implications that the Fingal refusal might have down the line.