The current housing crisis in Ireland is not a mere ‘blip’, with a return to a ‘normal’ functioning housing market due to take place in the coming years. This paper argues that the Irish housing system, as a result of government housing policies combined with macro-level shifts in the economy towards precariousness and the increasing importance of global investment funds, has undergone a structural ‘shock’. This has resulted in a dramatic increase in housing inequalities and exclusion, from the rise in homelessness and those in mortgage arrears to the emergence of ‘generation rent’. This paper provides a critical analysis of the key government policies of marketisation and privatisation of social housing (HAP, Public Private Partnerships and leasing) and the financialisation of housing (the strategy for ‘economic recovery’ – NAMA and Real Estate Investment Trusts in private rental provision and land sale, vulture funds in mortgage arrears, the prioritising of investor interest over tenant security of tenure) and their role in contributing to the crisis and rising inequality. It looks, not just at who are ‘losing’ but also documents the ‘winners’ - those who have benefitted most from this crisis and the post-2008 housing regime in Ireland. Finally, it presents the case that if the crisis is to be addressed a fundamental shift is required in policy approach to treat housing as a social good and human right, but this is only like to happen if there is a cross-societal citizen mobilisation, with trade unions, social movements and NGOs playing a key role, in re-imagining a new paradigm for housing as a home in Ireland.

1. Housing shock in Ireland. New inequalities, financialisation, and
the right to a home
Dr Rory Hearne, Post Doctoral Researcher, Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute
Presentation draws on on-going research and writing –academic and policy:
An absence of rights: homeless families and social housing marketisation in Ireland, Administration, forthcoming
Rebuilding Ireland: A Flawed Philosophy? Analysis of the Action Plan on Housing and Homelessness, 2017, Centre for Faith and Justice
Housing and Austerity, in Roche, W., O Connell, P., Prothero, A. (2017) Austerity and Recovery in Ireland, Oxford University Press
Using the Human Rights Based Approach to tackle housing deprivation in an Irish urban housing estate, Journal of Human Rights
Practice, Vol 6, Issue 1, March 2014, pp 1-25

2. O 1. Theoretical frameworks & literature
O 2. The housing shock in Ireland
O 3. Roots of crisis - Marketisation of social housing
O 4. Roots of crisis - Financialisation processes
O 5. Impact on inequality & the right to housing
O 6. Alternative policy options
O 7. Politics of solidarity in housing – challenges
and possibilities

3. Urban political economy understanding of changing role of the
state’s approach to housing under neoliberalism &
financialisation
OCommodification & marketisation of housing –decline of welfare state e.g. privatisation of public housing–
create new markets for capital- “accumulation through dispossession” - rise of inequality (Harvey, 2005)
ODestruction of ‘society’ –creation of a ‘property owning democracy’ - ‘Asset based welfare’ (pension)
Housing: Home (public good) Commodity/Investment asset
OExplosion of finance capital has created challenges as profitable investment opportunities become
saturated and new ones must be created. In turn, urban space has become an increasingly important
channel for absorbing finance capital (Fields, 2017)
OThe financialisation of housing has also involved a broader restructuring of the finance-real estate
relationship through the increased role of large-scale corporate finance and global private equity funds
purchasing and investing in residential property and land (Madden and Marcuse 2016).
Global ‘Wall of Money’ Investment in housing/real estate as new ‘market’

4. Financialisation and economic inequality
•Housing and real estate opened as a key sector for
wealth accumulation for the growing ‘wall of money’
(pension funds, hedge funds, wealth funds) in a context of
rising risk in the wider ‘real’ economy
(Dewilde and De Decker 2016; Fernandez 2015; Rolnik 2013)
•“Safety deposit box” & tax avoidance mechanism for the wealthy - Housing systems playing a key role in the growing
wealth of the ‘1%’ and the re-emergence of ‘rentier capital’ (McCabe 2011; Piketty 2014).
Financialisation
Housing profit extraction Housing household cost = Inequality
(capital share) (labour burden)

5. Rental sector as new market in post-2008 financialisation
• Global institutional investors such as private equity funds buying billions
of distressed assets and loans and increasingly, through securitisation and
direct purchase, investing in the private rental ‘build-to-rent’ sector
(Aalbers 2016; Dewilde and Ronald 2017)
• Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) are playing a key role in opening
up such housing as an investment asset for global capital (Byrne, 2017)
Build to rent is “compelling opportunity because of the limitless demand”
(PWC, Emerging Trends in Real Estate, 2017)
• ‘A utopia (becoming reality) of unlimited exploitation’
(Bordieu, 1998)

6. Financialisation and the right to housing

7. Cities and financialisation
O Cities are at the epicentre of financial
property speculation
O “a consequence of London’s new prime
city status — and this is true of all these
cities — is that the property market
becomes increasingly hostile to its own
ordinary citizens.
O “There isn’t a global city I’ve come
across where unaffordability isn’t
coming up in some shape or form”
O Financial Times, March, 2018

8. 1. Housing shock in Ireland - the end of the Irish homeownership dream
• Dramatic structural change in Irish housing system - decline in home ownership & rise in private rental
• Increase in households in private rental: 2006 (145,317) 2011 (305,377) 2016 (342,222)
• Geography: Dublin 25% private rental, 59% home ownership in urban areas
• Generation rent: a majority of households aged 35 and under are now renting their home. Back in 1991, a
majority of households over the age of 26 were renting their home.
• Social class: home ownership rate above 60% of median income - 72.7% for those below 60% of median
home ownership rate of 47.6%
“The incomes of many
households are such that
aspiration to home ownership
in the communities in which
they came from and work is
unlikely to be realisable: this is
despite the fact that in the
recent past households in
similar relative economic
positions may well have bought
houses in those communities”
(Rebuilding Ireland, 2016)

9. GEO/TIME 2007 2014 Change
Ireland 78.1 68.6 -9.5
United Kingdom 73.3 64.4 -8.9
Iceland 86.4 78.2 -8.2
Estonia 86.8 81.5 -5.1
Latvia 86.0 80.9 -5.1
Slovenia 81.3 76.7 -4.6
Euro area (19 countries)71.4 66.9 -4.5
Denmark 67.1 63.3 -3.8
Bulgaria 87.6 84.3 -3.3
Luxembourg 74.5 72.5 -2
Austria 59.2 57.2 -2
Spain 80.6 78.8 -1.8
Greece 75.6 74.0 -1.6
Cyprus 74.1 72.9 -1.2
Belgium 72.9 72.0 -0.9
Finland 73.6 73.2 -0.4
Hungary 88.5 88.2 -0.3
Sweden 69.5 69.3 -0.2
Italy 73.2 73.1 -0.1
Malta 79.8 80.0 0.2
Netherlands 66.6 67.0 0.4
Lithuania 89.4 89.9 0.5
Portugal 74.2 74.9 0.7
Romania 95.5 96.2 0.7
European countries that followed neoliberal home ownership ‘ideal’ &
marketisation – UK & Ireland experience largest drop in home ownership
Source: Eurostat

10. Why does increase in private rental sector matter?
Isn’t a move to European rental model a positive
thing?
• It would be if we had European tenant protections, affordability and
quality
• Private rental sector in Ireland does not provide a secure affordable home
• Increase in households in private rental = increase in households exposed
to insecurity of tenure & economic eviction (largest factor in rise in
homelessness)
• Houses lower income households – more affected by rising rents (impact
on poverty and inequality)
• Generational inequality – precarious low paid work –restricted to
precarious housing

11. Roots of the current housing crisis - Marketisation in social
housing provision
1980s – present: Neoliberal shift in
housing policy from state to market as
primary provider of (social) housing
•Anti-social housing bias
Result: Long term increase in housing
Need:
Number of households on social
housing waiting lists
1996, 28,000
2005 42,000
2013 90,000
Extract from Rebuilding Ireland (2016)

12. Austerity –cumulative social housing deficit
O Department of Environment suffered the second highest proportionate budget reductions of
any Department between 2008 and 2012
O reflecting neoliberal marketisation - anti local authority/state build social housing bias
O Result = cumulative deficit of almost 35,000 social houses
that would have been built if different decisions taken
O Austerity worked? No. Austerity related retrenchment
in social housing a significant causal factor of current
homelessness crisis
Source: Hearne, 2017

13. Rebuilding Ireland - deepening and enshrining marketisation and
privatisation of social housing = flawed approach
• Just 15% of the 134,000 ‘new’ social housing outlined in Rebuilding Ireland are new builds by
Local Authorities and Housing Associations -85% is private market provided

14. Rebuilding Ireland PR spin disguises the dismantling of social housing -
from homes to marketised temporary ‘solutions’
O So how many of the above are actually new build social housing? (vital because in a
supply crisis –actual new affordable build is the core solution, there is 35,000 social
housing austerity deficit, & HAP is not secure housing )

15. The reality of low level of new build social housing in Rebuilding Ireland
The new build figures actually includes outputs under LA and AHB Build programmes, Regeneration, Voids
and Part V
OSo 7000 ‘new’ social housing stock is in fact…
OVoids 1,757
OAcquisition 2266
OLease 798
OPart V 388
OAHB build 799
O1,058 local authority build
OSo just 7% of ‘social housing solutions’ in 2017 are actual new social house building (1,857)
OSo 2017 social housing build numbers are just over half the Rebuilding Ireland target of 3,200 new build
OCurrently just 3,900 social housing under construction (at two years – leaves us no where near
requirements)
OSo the state is not engaged in the largest social housing building programme on record– its smoke and
mirrors – hugely reliant on the private sector – worsening the housing crisis

16. Marketisation of social housing through the Housing
Assistance Payment
OParticipative research into homeless families’ experience of HAP & Hubs
OWe found that homeless families are structurally excluded from the private
rental market as they are at the bottom of the queue in a highly competitive
housing market, and vulnerable to class, gender, ethic or family status based
discrimination.
OA compounding of their trauma associated with homelessness.
OTheir right to access secure housing is also denied as HAP does not offer
effective security of tenure, resulting in an on-going fear and sense of
insecurity as they are denied an ontologically secure base of a permanent, or
‘forever’ home.
OThis is has a particular re-traumatising impact on homeless families who have
already lost that secure base before.
OThis raises a fundamental problem with HAP which is that it is a temporary
and insecure form of housing.
OFamilies are not ‘gaming the system’ but are making choices based on
achieving security of tenure – gendered moral rationality –as lone parent
mothers prioritising their children’s needs and support networks. Hugely
difficult decision of trading off waiting in emergency accommodation for a
secure home or re-entering private rental sector, years of insecurity and future
potential homelessness –policy ignoring this

17. New Inequalities – How HAP undermines the right to housing
O HAP fails to provide a security of tenure - a quarter of the 1,800 exits from HAP – have been
because landlords issuing notice to quit –selling up – another major crisis - when landlords
exit HAP after 1,2 year lease –families trying to find housing again crisis –further homelessness
O Re-Invest research suggest that HAP should not be considered a ‘social housing solution’ or
designated as social housing but another temporary form of housing income support
O Social housing reconstituted as a temporary ‘support’. Consistent with other neoliberal
policies access and entitlement is restricted.
O Placing responsibility of the homeless crisis onto the families –to find accommodation –
exacerbates their feelings of social exclusion, shame and failure
O HAP tenants are removed from social housing waiting lists. The 2016 housing waiting list of
92,000 households would increase to 128,000 with the inclusion of RAS and HAP recipients.
Thus HAP has a political use, masking the real scale of the housing crisis.

18.  Attempt to ‘normalise’ and legitimise Family Hubs
 In contrast to government and policy maker’s portrayal of new forms of
emergency accommodation, Family Hubs, as positive improvements on
hotels our research co-constructed new understandings of damaging
experience of ‘therapeutic incarceration’ (emerged through
participation – directed by families)
 Rules to maintain child protection impact on parental autonomy, family
functioning and parental mental health
 Gender perspective from lone parent mothers on negative impacts on
the children in hubs
 These are consistent with findings on emergency homeless
accommodation in the wider literature
 June 2017 – creation of 19 ‘Family Hubs’ – to housing 528 families - 254
families, 371 family units in commercial hotels being reclassified as
Family Hubs, expansion to Kildare, Limerick, Carlow
 New gender inequality in housing – majority of homeless families headed
by lone parent mothers
Family Hubs are not homes but emergency homeless accommodation

19. HAP poor value for money as long-term social investment
Financing of a direct build social housing unit in Dublin through state
borrowing would cost approximately €800 per month (Reynolds,
2017) vs monthly payment for a HAP unit in Dublin is €1,244 = HAP
unit in Dublin is €5,328 more expensive p.a. than a new state build
unit
Over a thirty year period this equates to a HAP unit being €159,840
more expensive. And…
….if private market rents increase (as they have done in recent years),
then the cost of HAP necessarily has to increase in time.
And…No state asset left at end of HAP - landlord gets value of asset
wealth accumulation
….at the end of 30 yr, the private landlord has accumulated an asset
via HAP state payments
Vs in direct social housing state has the asset (for further social
housing, where the state gets income in rent, and it can be used as for
borrowing for investment in social housing)
Rebuilding Ireland - 120,000 households in private rental sector state
subsidies by 2021= €1bn p.a to private landlords. If direct building by
local authorities and housing associations = 55,000 social housing
units over 10 year period and 165,000 units over 30 year period.

20. • Advertisements were placed in the media early in February 2015
seeking participants to a technical dialogue to explore options
for developing some large Council owned lands
• “Responses indicated that the market in Dublin is interested in
working with the Council to develop some of its land for a mix of
housing types and tenures” but…
• “It is nervous about becoming involved in mixed tenure private
rental and below cost rental unless there is a safety net of
guaranteed lease funding in the event of a shortfall in rental
income to repay Return on Capital Employed to investors”
• Developers and investors over influence on how and when
public land developed
• 2018: Land still lying idle in midst of crisis while state engages
in market speculation – example of financialisation – relying
on speculative investors interest
Financialisation and privatisation of public land through new and expanded PPP projects
Just 30% social housing!

21. Illogical and unethical approach - allowing public land lie
idle in midst of a housing and homelessness crisis
O “A major part of the new approach to housing provision” in the Rebuilding Ireland plan is
proposed “mixed-tenure housing development on State lands, including local authority lands”.
O The plan is “actively targeting State sites in prime residential locations and
investing in infrastructure and State-supported housing”.
O objective to identify and release to the market a tranche of lands (from the ownership of other
public bodies) capable of yielding up to 3,000 new homes in the first phase, with sites being
made available (to developers) at costs that can deliver homes that ordinary people can buy or
rent” (Department of Housing, 2016, 12).
O Based on the Dublin City Council ‘Housing Lands Initiative’ and, “the development of Social
Housing Public Private Partnership (PPP) bundles”
O So refusing to develop housing on public land – taking marketisation and financialisation
approach – repeating failed PPPs
O Because of idea of ‘failed’ public housing estates and refusal to invest in building social housing
O But public estates did not ‘fail’ – became residualised and segregated –nothing inevitable about
state building housing being ghettos
O Rebuilding Ireland takes that policy and makes it cornerstone

22. Enhanced Long Term Social Housing Leasing Scheme – another
example of marketisation & financialisation of social housing
O The owner will be paid up to 95% of the market rate
- as opposed to 80% (85% for apartments) under the
existing lease agreements
O CSO/Eurostat requirement that lease cannot include
an option to renew at the outset or asset reversion
at the end - NO ASSET!!!
O Under the enhanced lease arrangement, the owner
is responsible for both structural maintenance and
day to day repairs
O Resulting from social housing consultation with big
capital and finance
O Of the 50,000 social housing homes to be delivered
under Rebuilding Ireland, 10,000 are targeted to be
leased by local authorities and Approved Housing
Bodies (AHBs) under leasing arrangements
O under the Department’s Social Housing Current
Expenditure Programme (SHCEP).
O A number of key differences between the existing long
term lease and the enhanced lease, the purpose of
which is to facilitate larger levels of private
investment in social housing while ensuring that the
capital investment is off balance sheet in respect of
Government expenditure.

23. Impacts of marketisation and financialisation of social housing –worsening the crisis
 Rebuilding Ireland acknowledges that securing the social housing output is “dependent on a number of critical factors”
including, most importantly, “A functioning private residential construction sector, with levels of supply to meet
demand (delivering 10% social housing units under Part V and providing a supply for targeted acquisitions)
 Strategy reliant on supply from a housing system & private rental sector in state of huge under supply – adds demand
and reduces private rental supply , increasing rents and prices- does not increase supply of permanent social housing
homes - a third of all private tenancies are state funded social housing schemes
 Thus market strategy of social housing amplifies crisis within wider housing market
 Rebuilding Ireland social housing strategy effectively hands the private sector a monopoly of housing provision – with
all the attendant risks
 Importantly making social housing delivery reliance on private sector both global and domestic investors that is
affected by market instability
 No lessons learned from mistakes of the (recent) past….
 “reliance on the private sector and the market to guarantee the provision of these key public infrastructure projects
was a short-sighted policy and a naïve gamble that ignored, firstly, the reality that markets are inherently cyclical and
unstable, and, secondly, that the primary goal and interest of the private sector, in this case developers and their
financiers, are providing profitable returns to shareholders with investors not being responsible for guaranteeing social
outcomes. (Hearne, 2011)

24. Roots of the crisis 2. Irish government strategy of (re-)financialisation to
enable banking and economic ‘recovery’
O Housing crisis the ‘collateral damage’ for saving the banks – a price worth paying?
O Financialisation 1. bringing in vultures and global investors to purchase distressed loans and assets off banks and
NAMA
O Financialisation 2. Support rental and house price inflation as political and economic strategy for attracting
investors to achieve 1. & post 2013 2. increase supply of ‘buy-to-rent’ & social housing– in reflection of Ireland’s
changed housing system –
O The attraction of the ‘Wall’ of private equity and vulture funds to buy up toxic loans and assets –strategy follows
Irish state development model – attract foreign investment with tax ‘incentives’ (avoidance/haven mechanisms)
O Shift toward international investment- REIT exempt from corporation tax in 2013 in order to “facilitate the
attraction of foreign investment capital to the Irish property market” (Noonan, 2013)
O Result: major increase in commodification of housing (see investor figures below) and deepening crisis of
housing unaffordability:
Evictions from BTL in arrears, vulture funds purchasing mortgages in arrears – tsunami of reposessions (14,000), Real
Estate Investment Trusts now Ireland’s largest landlord –setting unaffordable rents and supplying unaffordable
housing
O Land hoarding - waiting for (and contributing to) house prices to rise e.g. NAMA sold development land (sites) to
investors that had the potential for up to 20,000 housing units but just 1,100 (5%) of these have been built or are
under construction.

25. NAMA playing key role in financialisation & worsening crisis
O “By pushing for maximum commercial returns, Nama is working against
the interests of those looking for an affordable and secure home. It is
continuing the speculative-asset approach to housing that fuelled the
crisis. This promotes residential property as a commodity rather than a
social good” (Hearne, 2014, writing in the Irish Times)
O “to increase significantly the flow of assets to the market to tap into the
increased international – and increasingly domestic – investor interest in
Irish real estate” (NAMA, 2014)
O Land hoarding - waiting for (and contributing to) house prices to rise e.g.
NAMA sold development land (sites) to investors that had the potential
for up to 20,000 housing units but just 1,100 (5%) of these have been
built or are under construction
O NAMA building 20000 ‘starter’ homes (Noonan). So how ‘starter’ are
these?
O NAMA (via its receivers Deloitte) is arguing for a reduction in social
housing being built on state land in the midst of a housing emergency.
Glass Bottle site receivers appeal Poolbeg social housing plans

26. Increase in investors buying homes
O In 2010 First-Time buyers bought 12,000, or 42% of homes for
sale, while investors (named in the graph as Household Buyer-
non-occupier and Non-Household Buyer) bought half that
number, just 6,254, or 21% of homes for sale.
O Show that from 2013 onwards there was a significant increase
in the purchase of housing in Ireland as an investment
O But by 2017, the proportion of First time buyers had fallen
substantially as they bought just 21% of all homes for sale,
while investors now bought almost twice the amount of first
time buyers and increased their proportion – now buying a third
of all homes (33%, 20,000 properties) for sale.
• In the first quarter of 2017 investor purchases have amounted
to 38% of all buyers.
• These purchases add a significant demand for
housing and thus are inflating house prices and
making them less affordable for those seeking
housing as a home – but also removing them as
potential homes and renting out at more expensive
inflated rents

27. New Inequalities in Irish Housing
Adapted from Drudy & Punch, 2005
Winners Losers
Speculators and investors
Developers and Land owners
Financiers (e.g. banks, building
societies)
New form of ‘Property-Finance
industrial complex’
vulture funds, REITs, global
investors
Landlords (increase in state
reliance for social housing -
€730 million state subsidy – a
third of all tenancies)
Home owners (although
reduced in proportion – In 1991
81% homeownership - collapsed
to 67% - concentrating wealth)
Estate agents
Solicitors
Newspaper Property
Supplements
Homeless
Tenants
First-time aspirant buyers
Home-owners in mortgage arrears
Overcrowding
Substandard local authority housing
estates
Low income/temporary employed
Domestic violence victims
Travellers & other ethnic minorities
Those with disabilities
Students (lack of accommodation –
rising rents)
Dublin & commuter belt
Building workers -Housing as source of
unequal working conditions
• Inequality of power as finance interests exert
influence over governments– undermining of
democracy by over influence of global investors
over housing systems and housing policy
• Housing system reflecting, reproducing and
creating wider societal inequality - who is
profiting from Irish housing crisis? Top 1 per
cent in Ireland owns 33 per cent of the country’s
wealth and that 90 per cent of the country’s
wealth is held in land and property
• Precarious lives: ink between precarious and
low paid work & precarious housing situation
– younger, lower income, migrant –paying highest
housing burden in rent - returning as wealth
accumulation to already wealthy
• (Global and Irish) wealthy ‘rentier class’ and
vultures increase their wealth exponentially
from the poor, young and low and middle income
workers, firstly in the labour market through
lower wages and precarious work, secondly, in
the sphere of ‘social reproduction’, through
higher rents and mortgages, and thirdly from the
state in the form of lower taxes and higher
subsidies

28. Government policy based on a flawed market approach to housing ‘supply and
demand’
OA) Incentives (reduce apartment size, planning, invest in infrastructure, offer development finance) and ‘demand-led’ policies (Help-to-
buy’, mortgages etc) will increase the ‘buying power’ of buyers and profitability of house building for private finance and developers and
thus increase housing ‘supply’
OTo resuscitate the residential construction sector, we have streamlined planning, provided funding of €200 million in the infrastructure
fund and delivered new apartment guidelines, and we are setting up Home Building Finance Ireland (Minister for State, 2018)
O“What we are trying to do is to ensure that the viability of residential investment is significantly improved... The sites are there but for a
whole series of reasons, some of them are not being moved on. …we are starting to see an appetite for risk and investment in residential
property in Dublin... We have seen extraordinary increases in rent for residential properties which has changed that appetite. …We need to
make sure the incentive remains in place to ensure that money is investing significantly in residential property” (Coveney, 2017).
OYes it is a supply crisis – but ignores A) increase supply doesn’t reduce house prices B) incentives don’t necessarily produce houses e.g.
land hoarding by vultures C) increased supply doesn’t provide ‘affordable’ supply (filtering, as with ‘trickle down’ economics doesn’t work)
OAlso financialised approach results in reluctance to do things that deter investment e.g. tenant protections from eviction!
O
OKey issue is providing affordable supply and only guarantee is increasing non-market (state & not-for-profit) housing provision private
market will not provide affordable rental or sale

29. Alternative policies to provide affordable and secure homes in well planned communities
1. A new semi-state, not-for-profit, Irish Affordable Homes Company (think big like the ESB rolling out electricity)
build up to thirty thousand affordable homes for mix of incomes - ‘cost rental’ houses, HAP cover low income,
homes for ownership. for mix of household incomes (well designed, planned with facilities, space, large
apartments, sustainable passive design). Set out plan for integrating across local state land rather than PPP
piecemeal
2. Majority of housing on state owned land should be social, affordable rent and co-operative purchase. Sale back to
LA or housing company not on private market to avoid speculative investment (40/40/20)
3. Increase capital funding for local authority and Approved Housing Bodies (AHB)- additional capital spending of
€1bn in 2018 –rapid housing programme to house homeless
4. Right to housing in legislation and constitution
5. Stop vultures - expansion of mortgage to rent scheme – housing coop and housing associations
6. Prevent homelessness and enable private renters have a secure home - strengthen tenant security again eviction -
- change legislation on evictions/sale/family use & rent caps maintained & extended
7. Family Hub Emergency Accommodation - Design model should respect dignity - danger of long term institutional
embeddedness – legislative Sunset clause 2019

30. The politics of housing and solidarity
OTo get alternative policies implemented requires a counter power of civil society and public to force state and government to
change direction as government ‘captured’ by market ideology and vested property, investor and wealthy interests –who do
NOT want increase in affordable housing or land supply
OThis is a battle over the soul of Irish housing – a defining period
OActive undermining of society-wide solidarity on the issue by government and state agencies blaming the victims like the
homeless and those in mortgage arrears – exacerbates feelings of stigma and shame and therefore silence
A process of cross society solidarity construction required
OIt’s a political act and strategy – how to win the narrative
OVital to challenge normalisation of homelessness and housing crisis & victim blaming – educate and inform on real causes of
crisis
OMany of those affected – from private rental tenants to those on housing waiting lists to aspirant home owners – have not
been convinced of or aware of alternatives and campaigns
ODominance of home ownership aspiration – public/social housing not seen as relevant – positive narrative of rising house vs
children not being able to afford housing
OConstructing and empowering solidarity (and charity) –people can change the system - mobilisation, organisation
OCommunication - Using language and ideas that connect with and convince workers, generation rent, aspiration home owners
OHow a greater provision of affordable rental/purchase/social housing benefits
all groups
OPolitically government weak on housing - and international reputation matters
– why national movement/protest in a potentially powerful position at the moment
OLocal and national elections
•The lack of connections between the various groups affected by crisis and failure to show a common cause and solutions
•Crisis likely to worsen further –still time for movements and citizens to shape
outcome- the crisis is developing – evolving, widening –
bringing in new groups = new potential allies and alliances
•Eurobarometer poll (2017) - housing is the most important issue facing the
country (57% of respondents cited it as the most important issue vs 2013 just 4%)

31. Conclusion: understand housing’s fundamental role in economic and social
development
Housing’s key role as central to people’s fundamental sense of well-being, the requirement of basic need of shelter, as a home to
be protected, to raise and nurture individuals and family with dignity, as a place for quality living within a wider community and
its role in providing sustainable development have been undermined and replaced by its treatment under neoliberalism as a
financialised asset which places its primary value as its use as commodity exchange for investors.
This approach housing will continue to have profound implications for the coming decades – not just in terms of the failure to
meet basic housing need of our populations – but wider societal inequality and cohesion, economic development, environmental
sustainability and consequently politics.
It appears that to fundamentally change Irish housing policy requires putting the right to housing in the Irish Constitution
Article 11 of ICESCR provides for right to housing:
“adequate housing” must be affordable, habitable, accessible, include security of tenure, availability of services, materials,
facilities and infrastructure. Its location must allow access to employment, health care, schools, child care centres and other
social facilities (United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 1991)