Irish Social Housing

Abstract

Review Article Irish Social Housing Social Housing Policy in Ireland: New Directions, Eddie Lewis (Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 2019), xv + 342 pages. Home: Why Public Housing is the Answer, Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin: Merrion Press, 2019), xix + 283 pages. Housing in Ireland, The A–Z Guide, Lorcan Sirr (Dublin: Orpen Press, 2019), xx + 358 pages. Judging from the colour supplements and breathless tone dedicated to private housing in the Irish media, there is something exhilarating about private home ownership. This excitement does not extend to social housing, which, if it is covered at all, is typically discussed as a dour, detail-heavy question of policy.1 Yet it is a question of fundamental importance for any society concerned with justice and equity and once we scratch the surface, it becomes a topic of fierce contestation. This is demonstrated powerfully in an anecdote shared in Eoin Ó Broin’s recent book on the Irish housing system. He recounts a dramatic dispute between church and state which occurred in 1968. At the eye of this very public storm was a set-up that sounds like the beginning of a bad standup routine: ‘A Dominican priest, a Jesuit, and a member of the Communist Party of Ireland were talking … ’. During a broadcast of Outlook, an RTE show edited by Fr Austin Flannery OP, there was a discussion of the housing issue with Fr Michael Sweetman SJ and Michael O’Riordan, spokesman for the Communist Party. In the aftermath of the discussion, the Minister for Local Government accused Flannery of an ‘abuse of privilege’ by a ‘socalled cleric’. The then Minister for Finance, Charles Haughey, dismissed Flannery as a ‘gullible cleric’. However, the anger of the government at this effort to highlight housing injustices was not quelled by name-calling. For every future show which Fr Flannery produced, a member of the Garda Special Branch would be posted to sit in the RTE studio as a silent observer to prevent any recurrence of previous events. As each person requires a home to flourish, the government were sensitive to criticism and worried about political damage if the extent of housing inequality was to be unveiled. Time Studies • volume 109 • number 433 74 Studies_layout_SPRING-2020.indd 74 Studies_layout_SPRING-2020.indd 74 27/02/2020 13:59 27/02/2020 13:59 moves on but it remains the case that there is nothing new under the sun. In the midst of the current Irish housing and homelessness crisis, three books were published in 2019 representing diverse views, influences and experiences. Eddie Lewis, a former civil servant in the Department of Housing, has written Social Housing Policy in Ireland: New Directions, a detailed account of current social housing policy, outlining a number of potential paths and then expanding upon a preferred route forward based on his political experience and administrative nous.2 In Home: Why Public Housing is the Answer, drawing on a leftist Republican heritage, Eoin Ó Broin, Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on housing, lays out his case for a much more radical vision for how the state should provide housing. Lastly, from an academic perspective, Lorcan Sirr explores some of the complexity of housing policy by writing an encyclopaedic and thoroughly accessible book, Housing in Ireland: The A-Z Guide. In this review article I will firstly present a general overview of each book, allowing them to be considered on their own merits. Then, drawing out some threads of consensus and disagreement within the books, I will outline how neoliberalism has changed how social housing is understood and subsequently funded in Ireland, and then consider the future of social housing policy. Eddie Lewis, who worked in the department until 2012, admits in his foreword that Social Housing Policy in Ireland: New Directions has been ‘many years in gestation’, which is evident in the author’s in-depth knowledge of the topic, his familiarity with the thought process behind why certain decisions were taken and his mastery of the financial details and numbers. Displaying a commendable loyalty to former ministers, as no names are mentioned, his book fills in gaps in public knowledge by clarifying the rationale during decision-making and lifts the veil on priorities within the...