I see far more local small businesses benefitting from it. Butchers , bakers etc. see people needing to get out of the house, bit more.time than mad dash to Tesco at 6 on way home, will walk dog to local retailer etc. Small businesses thriving helps local community and society I’d have thought .
I also see a lot more parents present for kid matches on during the week. Be it a school match of a Wednesday or club match of an evening, numbers on sidelines and requests for lifts changed a lot. Can only be positive.
Where have you seen it net negative in terms of family and community life? Or by social benefit are you referring to adult socialising situations?
I think the above is fair…maybe more pronounced in Dublin where the traffic was a limiting factor on a lot of things.
I think social skills are declining massively is the flip side…lot of younger people have v poor capacity to engage with others, particularly people of a different generation. No idea how that dial will be turned
This is it. Most companies want to be in ‘green’ offices so are going for the new offices so they can say they can tick a box to keep the likes of @Little_Lord_Fauntleroy happy.
Before you would have a company taking an entire block or maybe one or two sharing. Now these new buildings are being let to multiple companies. All these are getting out of the older blocks where they have too much space now. Its these second hand older blocks that the companies are downsizing from that are struggling to let.
These are the ones that could be changed to residential but the cost and regulations are prohibitive. The Government could introduce tax incentives and guarantee to buy or rent them which should enable the bank to lend them the money as it takes away the risk. They wont because it will be seen as making the investor/developer profits rather than saying who gives a fuck once there is apartments to house folk.
Also less need to have that “prestige” plated address. Probably no real need for a receptionist anymore. The waste of having a ground floor conference room used sparingly shown up too.
Ireland has actually always been a bit behind other countries in shared offices because up the stumpy buildings built. All that is changing.
This was discussed on the hard shoulder last evening and the business news fella (Emmet Oliver?) was saying most people coming out of fixed rate contracts are going variable for the next little while. Interest rate increases seem to be finished for now and rates should start falling again.
Your cheapest option is variable so it seems like a non brainer to do that for the next few months and see how the fixed rate market develops.