A Long-Standing Crisis
Earlier this week, RTE organised a televised debate about the different positions on housing ahead of the General Election. While we might have qualms about importing televised debates as a means to discuss such important societal factors, it is certainly the case that housing should be near the centre of our thinking as we go to the polling stations at the end of the month. There are currently 14,760 people officially homeless in this country, of which 4,561 are children. Rental prices in the last year alone have risen on average by 7.2%. Between 2015 and 2023 alone, Irish house prices rose by 69%, almost 50% higher than the EU average.
What this Centre wrote almost seven years ago still applies: the only problem with calling this a crisis is that it obscures the sense in which these dreadful realities are the predictable consequences of the policies that successive governments have strengthened and sustained. Many parties are promising an increased commitment to various “Help to Buy” schemes in the new government. It is hard to understand how this wouldn’t be inflationary. As the TCD economist, Barra Roantree has put it, these schemes might “benefit some potential homeowners, but neither do anything to address the fundamental issue, which is that we aren’t building enough homes.”
How The Debate Proceeded
The debate featured spokespeople from People Before Profit, Fianna Fáil, Social Democrats, Sinn Féin, Labour, and Fine Gael. It suffered the usual problem with Irish political broadcasts where everything is set up to generate conflict, with the ensuing chaos where different politicians vied to speak over each other. Each chapter of the debate was established with reference to an audience member who explained how the housing crisis was affecting them (these stories were mostly deeply troubling). In a predictable and not entirely convincing manner, each leader would seek to index whatever they said back to that citizen – clearly trained by some PR representative to appear relatable. You could tell that the Sinn Féin proposals were slightly terrifying to the other parties by how often they sought to corner Eoin Ó Broin. I will leave it to the viewer to judge whether those efforts were successful. All the representatives of the different parties did their best to repeat their focus-group-refined slogans, but the end result was that the viewer who wasn’t au fait with the nuanced differences between “Help to Buy” and “Help to Save” could easily have gotten lost in the word salads.
One of the notable things about the debate was how insular the conversation was. There were remarkably few references to ideas or examples from outside the State. Richard Boyd Barrett noted that social housing across Europe is not restricted to people who are on social welfare but did not have the time or the presence of mind to unpack why opening social housing for everyone could transform this situation. Rory Hearne alluded briefly to Vienna – widely acknowledged for their world-leading housing system – and was notable for being the one member of the panel who was able to transcend policy-speak to actually communicate that the point of all this house building is making a home. There was lots of wonkish discussion about “scaling up” and “aggregating supply” and “whole of government response” but very rarely did any of that talk rise up to a convincing vision.
Three Things Missing From The Debate
A Right to Housing
In that context, it was very surprising when, out of the blue, Ivana Bacik declared that “This is the civil rights issue of our generation.” A recurring demand from housing activists and housing organisations has been a referendum to enshrine a right to housing in the Irish constitution. Each politician had a web of stats about how many social and affordable homes need to be built, but no one thought to propose that establishing a lock-solid right in the foundational law of the Republic would create a political and legislative change that could accelerate this much-needed intervention. It’s very odd that we could talk about this as a generational civil rights issue when there isn’t even a right to housing in Irish law.
Mis-labelled “Cost-Rental”
The government representatives repeatedly made reference to how they had introduced a mode of housing they referred to as “cost-rental.” This is sometimes known as the “Vienna model” (as referenced above). During the pandemic, the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice proposed a plan for cost-rental housing which was fully costed, arguing that if implemented it could transform the housing crisis.
We were heartened when the Housing for All Ireland policy was announced with cost-rental as one of the three pillars of the government strategy. We were then dismayed to find that the rents that are on offer in the developments labelled in this way are still dramatically overpriced (Richard Boyd Barrett, in fairness, did note this). All budgeting advice holds that housing should not cost much more than about 30% of a person’s net income. At about €1,700 a month, there are very few working families who can afford these homes without sacrificing other essential services.
Real cost-rental housing is based on a differential rate calculated as a proportion of the citizen’s income, not established by the private developers.
The Complete Absence Of The Environment
In the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice we have consistently argued that housing is the frontline of our response to the environmental crisis. One of the reasons why the various political promises are so deeply unconvincing is that housing seems to exist in their heads as a graph on a spreadsheet. Pledges for an x% rise in affordable housing delivery over y number of years is an abstraction but when it comes to housing, people literally want concrete examples. It is too small an ambition to put a roof over people’s heads (although that ambition is not close to being met). People want homes, homes embedded in communities. And if we built those with high density, to modern standards, with public and active transport infrastructure in situ from day one, we would not just go a long way to addressing a vast number of social problems, we’d be cultivating a climate-resilient society.
Conclusion
After the last election, we compiled a list of the decades long interventions that our colleague, Peter McVerry, has made on housing policy in this country. It simply remains the case that as long as housing is treated as a market commodity, we will have unconscionable levels of homelessness. As we go to the polling stations on November 29, Christians especially should recall that while the Son of Man had no place to lay his head, everyone in Ireland should have a home they can be secure in. But we suspect, sadly, Peter’s back catalogue of criticisms will only lengthen.
