A meeting in the Mansion House in Dublin 100 years ago this month under the auspices of the Dublin Christian Citizens’ Council sought to highlight Ireland’s housing crisis. The head of government at that time, Cumann na nGaedheal’s (CnG) WT Cosgrave sent apologies for his absence, along with a letter applauding the charitable work of such groups. He stated that the government was constrained in its spending due to the debts incurred as a result of the Civil War, but in any case, providing housing was not just an issue for the State. Such was the scale of the problem “that it is only with the co-operation which private enterprise affords that the great hardships under which many of our people labour by reason of the dearth of suitable housing can be alleviated in a reasonable time”.
There was considerable public debate in 1924 about the housing emergency. A century on, there still is. Versions of the same issues are still aired, including the roles of central and local government, the balance between public and private and the overall mix of tenants and owners. Certain groups always mattered more when it came to the politics of housing. Building homes was a priority for CnG, and it made additional funding available for social housing. But overall, according to social policy academic Michelle Norris, “the focus of government attention moved from social to private housing”. A 1924 Housing Act offered significant subsidies for private house building, “which covered approximately one sixth of the usual building costs at the time”, resulting in a “dramatic increase” in private house building: “in contrast, local authorities’ social house building programme was reined in as central government proved unwilling to continue the programme of long-term subsidisation” of local authority house building initiated in the pre-independence era.
Towards end of that government’s life in 1931, a memorandum from the Department of Finance warned that the scale of subsidies being offered involved an “assumption that the capacity of the country to shoulder the expenditure would continue”. An increase in tax and reduction of expenditure, or both, was required to balance the budgets as a result of “the dreary category of disimprovements” in national income. The author asserted sternly “it is always easier to refuse to undertake new expenditure which has not hitherto been found necessary”.
The housing programme embarked upon by the new Fianna Fáil government in 1932 happened despite opposition from the Department of Finance, amounting to a slum-clearance programme and construction or renovation of 132,000 houses from 1932-42. But in 1945, after house building had been halted by the second World War, it was still estimated that 110,000 new houses were needed. National house building peaked at 13,291 (7,476 local authority and 5,815 private) in 1952-3. Impressive progress was also made in the 1970s. By the 1980s there was considerable focus on social exclusion and poverty in relation to housing, while during the boom a credit-driven price explosion promoted obsession with home ownership and social housing was sidelined.
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The political parties will slug it out over the coming months about the merits of their respective programmes; what cannot be denied is that peaks and troughs have always been central to the Irish housing story and economic change can quickly scupper grandiosity of vision. Sinn Féin, with A Home of Your Own, has promised to break this cycle and insists political will can drive that. History certainly proves that sufficient political determination can break down barriers. But an added and vital complication in this era is climate change, and that dwarfs even the housing crisis.
While Sinn Féin’s detailed plan includes mention of Housing and Climate Change (“We must dramatically reduce the volume of embodied carbon across all forms of development ... Government has a responsibility ... to ensure that housing is delivered in a manner that meets and where possible exceeds our emissions reduction targets in the built environment”), its finance spokesman Pearse Doherty has justified reducing the amount committed to the Future Ireland Fund and a fund for infrastructure, climate and nature. “They want to lock away billions of euro in terms of the future. I want to make sure that people’s future right here, right now is one that they can enjoy, that they can live in,” he said.
It is far too convenient to ignore that climate change is “right here, right now”, the prospect of homes under water and the large fines for not reaching climate targets; just as it is easy for Government to ignore warnings from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council about overheating as it revels in “giveaway” budget kite-flying. The council exists to ensure “we learn from past mistakes”. No one will choose the slogan “To Hell With the Future”, but it is starting to look like the coming election will merit such a rallying cry.