Housing, Equality and Inequality

Abstract

The Introduction to this volume identifies high levels of home ownership as one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Irish housing system in comparison with other EU member states. These home ownership levels are linked to longstanding and numerous state subsidies for home buyers, as outlined by O’Connell in Chapter 2. In the absence of similar incentives in the other housing tenures, owner occupation became the tenure of choice. A persistent theme in the housing literature is that inequalities are exacerbated when market provision is dominant and that this pattern of inequality is heightened during a property boom with rapid house price growth relative to the increase in the average industrial wage (Lee et al, 1995; Forrest and Murie (eds), 1995; Thorns, 1989). In the Irish context, house price inflation since the mid-1990s has effected a silent redistribution of wealth in favour of home owners and owners of development land at the expense of those trying to enter the housing market. In these circumstances, the highly subsidised home owing majority became increasingly privileged compared with people in other tenures. The result is a situation where there are stark inequalities in the Irish housing system. The experiences and outcomes for landowners, financiers, estate agents, landlords and speculators are dramatically different from those outside of this circle, including: the increasing number of homeless people; private tenants paying escalating rents; those on low incomes; those on growing waiting lists for social housing, and others in housing need. Furthermore, residualisation in the local authority sector is such that its tenants are increasingly characterised by low incomes and multiple deprivation compared with tenants in other sectors and owner occupiers. Interventions by governments over many decades are a key cause of inequalities in the Irish housing system and current housing policy continues to sustain them. For example, schemes such as the Seaside Resorts Scheme facilitate the acquisition of second homes by wealthier people during a period