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IRELAND, WE HAVE an ideology problem, and everybody knows it. How have we come to a point in our history that we have so severely underinvested in almost everything that matters: housing, health, energy, food, skills, transport and liveability, the list goes on?
This is to the serious detriment of society, nature, and culture. It is costing lives and traumatising multiple generations.
What stronger indicators are there of a broken social contract than hundreds of thousands, from young to old, living in insecure accommodation and in fear of homelessness? Renter anxiety is at an all-time high since the government ended the six-month ‘no fault eviction ban’. A tsunami of evictions has been predicted.
After decades of living overseas, my partner Jude Sherry and I returned to live in Ireland in November 2018, basing ourselves in Cork city centre. We both have a background in design, education and sustainability so while we fell in love with the city, and in particular the friendliness of the people, we were absolutely shocked by the neglect manifesting itself through the decaying heritage, the housing and homelessness crisis, and the widespread vacancy and dereliction.
We quickly realised that Cork City was not alone, this was a national issue.
We were equally dismayed by what looked like societal acceptance – the normalisation of dereliction and homelessness. This was presented through sayings such as “that’s the way things are”, so we knew we had to do something about it.
We strongly believe that we, the people, have the power to change things so we decided to challenge the narrative that dereliction is normal. In June 2020, after 18 months of research, we started a conversation called #DerelictIreland on dereliction using Twitter as a way of curating it.
Places look ugly when you're #DerelictIreland pic.twitter.com/T4hM3g06Zr
— Frank O'Connor (@frank_oconnor) April 13, 2023
It has since become a powerful way to document the numerous buildings neglected and allowed to fall to ruin throughout the country. Although #DerelictIreland is a microcosm of the housing emergency it is a visually glaring element, which has significant negative impacts on society, from mental health to community cohesiveness and environmental destruction to name but a few.
This daily dose of dereliction using images and videos has challenged the false narratives and revealed the reality of this state-enabled vandalism. When people started to respond to the campaign, they looked around and realised the levels of vacancy and dereliction in their local village, town or city were not normal. There is now a growing realisation that that dereliction has been costing them and their communities.
The #DerelictIreland conversation has now grown into a self-organising, de-centralised grassroots movement of people across the country.
This community has shared tens of thousands of images and videos, all with a story, all reinforcing the need to change direction. Each post demonstrates that #DerelictIreland is an epidemic, enabled by years of poor policy making and weak policy implementation.
This national movement continues to catch the eye of national and international media as well as politicians. This people’s power has resulted in a reframing of dereliction and a suite of policy changes, all connected through the hashtag #DerelictIreland.
When we do nothing about the horrendous vacancy and dereliction throughout the country, we are missing a unique opportunity to provide homes at a lower cost and lower carbon output than a new build. We have over 188,000 vacant and derelict homes spread across the country. The highest rates of unused homes are where we should be encouraging everyone from 8- to 80-year-olds to live, in our town and city centres.
Have no doubt that we are participating in a humanitarian crisis. Rather than being the poster child of global economics, Ireland is operating like a developing country. Every part of the system is creaking and #DerelictIreland is just one visual representation of this.
So how did we get to this point in our history? We can blame recent external factors such as global supply issues and the war in Ukraine. We can blame our past; being colonised and the Catholic Church, but the reality is we allowed the “markets will solve everything” and “profit is king” approaches to undermine Irish society.
And while this was happening, we lost sight of our duty of care to the vulnerable in society. You only have to look at our abysmal records on providing childcare and healthcare – how we’ve failed in the care of the elderly in society, forced to wait on trolleys for endless hours, or how Travellers have been treated and refugees too in Direct Provision. Surely it is time to speak up and demand change?
This is a story of policy failures by successive Irish governments. The housing emergency is not a shock. We can point to many reasons; vested interest, ignorance, incompetence, and apathy to name just a few. However, fundamentally it comes down to our government’s value system, which is rooted in neoliberalism – the belief that free-market capitalism is a tide that will lift all boats. Those in power seem to believe that homes are a privilege and not a human right. It’s safe to say now that this ideology has been proven to be a destructive force in the fight against inequality.
If the government wanted quick solutions to this housing crisis, they could bring in emergency measures to ensure habitable vacant homes are immediately made available for rent. Following in the footsteps of Amsterdam’s, Barcelona’s, and Portugal’s Compulsory Rental Orders.
And yes, private property is always a tricky conversation in Ireland, however, the Constitution allows the state to put social justice and the common good above private property rights.
With an impending societal catastrophe, there surely is no better time to deliver on this and the ideals of our proclamation: “equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally”.
While successive governments have ripped up the social contract they could as easily repair it now if they wanted to. It’s time for a mass movement of policy, protest, and practice to bring this change about. In the short-term, we demand a national emergency is called, with a reinstatement of the eviction ban and the State purchasing of all landlord properties that are being sold. A ban on Airbnb of full homes should also be implemented and all the vacant homes brought back into use and enforcement of the vacancy and dereliction levies.
In the medium term, a state building company should be started to build and renovate social and affordable homes. In the long term, we need radical changes in our governance at the national and local levels, and we need a new value system and a cultural transformation. We need to give people an option other than going destitute or emigrating. Or do we expect them to be forever enslaved to a system that simply doesn’t care and doesn’t justify its status as a Republic?
Dr Frank O’Connor is the director of the global design agency anois, set up with Jude Sherry to create value through systems design for sustainability, circularity, responsibility, equality and social justice. For more, see anois.org.
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It isn’t a crisis for the politicians. They are contented landlords. I know of one young homeless couple who offered to repair and pay rent for a derelict house owned by Limerick Co Co. The Co Co firmly said No. They said it was too dangerous for the couples health and safety. So remaining homeless was a healthier and safer option for them?
@TheQueenofHibernia: yes but don’t you just know that one of them would cut their finger with a rusty nail and take a case against limerick co co?
@Sean: Exactly.
@Sean: why do you presume, everyone is just waiting to make an insurance claim.
This was an agenda put out by Insurance companies, for higher premiums. In actual fact less than 1% of claims are bogus.
Therefore 99% are genuine.
Go figure.
@Colette Byrne: Because the majority of landlords contributing here, like Sean and Liz, have nothing but contempt for tenants on general. They display it on every article that comes out.
Elephant in the room..when you have upward of 100,000 people annually entering the country, whether by legal or illegal means,then even if you build 30,000 new houses a year you’re just running to stand still,not even making a dent in the problem.Of course it’s the wealthy..landlords, landowners,big employers who profit from the never ending crisis,while ordinary working people face evermore competition for scarce resources. This is the fundamental economic truth that leftist academics can never own up to.
@alan collins: net immigration is normally cicra 15000 per year. Boasted last year to 60000 with Ukrainian situation. Pointing to immigration only lets FFG of the hook for creating this crisis in their hunger for profit. Or is that your real agenda.
@M Bowe: While the left cheer on unlimited inward migration, the right cheer on cheaper labour and increased rents. Both then point the finger at each other and trade insults while the centrists pay dearly for both.
@M Bowe: Please enlighten me as to how a political party profit from the housing crisis? I would have thought that it would be more likely to put them out of a job come the next election. There is no profit in a government causing outrage among the people.
@Lone Hurler: “unlimited”? Get your head out of the clouds. Calm yourself.
@alan collins: Source of your assertion that “upward of 100,000 people” entering the country each year?
@M Bowe: “cicra 15000 boasted to 60000″. Source of figures? @alan collins says more than 100,000. Who’s right?
@John Mulligan: the opposition do anyway. its why theres so much objections to planning
@M Bowe: The difference in figures between 2016 census and 2022 census, shows the population increased by 361000 people. The Ukrainians were not here at the time of the 2022 census. This is a long way from 15000 per year.
@alan collins: leftist academics???. Maybe look up the meaning of socialism, before writing. Neo liberalism agenda working here, with free markets.
The buildings are derelict in fact because they don’t meet the new fire and safety regulations. The homeless crisis has been caused by Gov interfence in the housing sector. The HSE gets billions upon billions of tax eur yearly but is still in constant crisis We pay 52% marginal income tax rates and some of the highest VAT rates in EU and levies and charges on everything. The public sector is completely unaccountable + incompetent but still one of the highest paid in EU. Our S/W + child allowance rates are some of the highest in the EU. Well over half the pop. gets some form of state benefit. If its “free market ideology” they’re going for, they’re not doing a good job at following it!
@Ian French: More people dependent on the government had led to these auction politics. Short term gain, long term pain.
@Ian French: That’s exactly how Neo Liberalism works in practice though. Privatise the gain for a few. Socialise the loss caused so the many pay for the riches greed. When you pay the taxes that pay for HAP the poor don’t keep that money, it goes straight in the pockets of the Neo liberal landlord. They are doing a great job at sacrificing public good for neo-liberal profits.
@Ian French: Every single time neoliberalism fails and governments are forced to step in people blame “government interference in the markets” for the market failures that necessitated the government “interfering” in the first place. The reason that HAP was brought in was because low earners couldn’t afford to rent anymore and homeless figures where shooting through the roof. The figures were clear as day at the time. They had to bring in HAP because the neoliberal model of supply had already failed on housing and everything they’ve done since was a delay tactic while waiting for the market to meet demand. I was part of a letter writing campaign at the time telling politicians that if they brought in HAP without price controls that landlords would raise their rents across the board. The government told the people that we were demonising landlords and that they weren’t greedy and they wouldn’t price people out of the market. Landlords put up rents and every single time the HAP limit had to be raised, rents went up immediately across the country. Landlords made the decision to raise rents, no-one forced them, now some of them want to pawn responsibility for their own decisions on to “government interference” and the poor and low waged. Half the workers in the country take home less then 29,000 a year and they own -3.2 % of the country’s wealth, a hell of lot of those people will go homeless without welfare payments of one form or another and the rest won’t be able to consume goods outside of what’s necessary to live. Tax payer money is subsidising those people’s wages, their wages are completely unfit for the cost of living in this country. Meanwhile worker productivity and profits have gone through the roof. The way I see it is that there are lot of people in this country who actually still don’t understand what neoliberalism is, they couldn’t tell you who Hayek or Friedman are, but still support their system of economics. You understand that none of the neoliberal economic models work? I mean they just don’t match the reality of markets and have no predictive power in the long-term. Neoliberalism uses the welfare state to make workers dependent, to subsidise the wages they should be paying and to externalise their losses. Do you think we want to rely on welfare to survive? No, we want to be paid a fair wage for a fair days work and that’s all. I really wish people would stop kicking down in this country, try kicking up at the people with all the power. There is virtually nowhere in this country advertised within the HAP limits. Landlords pay the same rates of income tax as every worker.
Well the first thing that has to happen is that those in Leinster house have to stop voting as the landlords they are.
@Kerry Blake: Those with such a conflict should not be allowed a vote or say on such matters.
First lie covers it. It is a FFG ideology crisis and will only be changed when we change voting for any of them.
@M Bowe: It won’t. Next election will be more of the same – auction politics and less money to deliver on promises.
Just get out and vote please.
@Gareth Wogan: Vote for who? Almost all parties are for increasing government. Therein lies the problem – your voting choices are: Who’s the least worst?
@Lone Hurler: so vote for the least worst instead of the worst worst who have caused, and continue to worsen, the crisis.
Very simple let the Matrons run their District hospital and let the local County Council s build houses for their locality..worked perfectly in the past..why TF. the government changed it is beyond belief
Sean, ahhhh, yeah, shure, it’s only the homeless trying to get a claim from the insurance. Same old roger the dodger lies, allegations and sneers, when anyone questions your inability to get your job done. Which purportedly is to house people. Or is it your job to obstruct people who are in need of housing?
Too much bureaucracy giving ‘civilised’ a bad name. If someone wishes to take on a derelict house (under the control of a county council) to restore, let them sign a release form stating they, the individual, take full responsibility for accidents or mishaps caused to themselves in their endeavour.
Are we or have we become a nation of problem makers/ problem pointer outers and not a nation of problem solvers. If article is correct and there is indeed 180,000 derelict or rundown properties , there is the start of a solution. If a property is derelict/rundown , is it safe to say the majority of them would have the utilities already on site, if still needed to be upgraded. These properties are not making money and probably costing local authorities money. Sell them to potential home owners for day $1, with the condition it is for their residential use only and when they come to move on the local authority has first refusal on property for going market rate.
Local Authorities are by in large totally inept and lazy. The staff are cushioned by the elected representatives who have tolerated their poor performance over the years. Until such time as the local governance received proper devolved structures to manage the housing issue we will still have to continue put up with poor outcomes.
By far the biggest factor in the housing/rental crisis is mass immigration.I dont need reports or studies to know that,I just have to walk for 5 minutes in any city or town in Ireland.
One person above asked why Councils don’t build anymore. 2 reasons IMO. First Am Bord Pleanala came along with their zealots. Then, the collapse in 2008, EU oversight which is too much. The Troika strong arming Gov and in turn Taxpayers. And Yes, too many snouts in the social welfare trough. Those of us in the middle paying PAYE are the most vulnerable. We need to revolt.
Dr Frank, a brilliant piece on the sad state of our nation and great initiative to use social media to raise awareness of the impotency of those in leadership in Government.
My research conclusion is that NO ONE can solve the current housing crisis until the Referendum on housing is passed – like French, Dutch, and even German Constitutions which balance property rights with citizen (as in ‘people’!) rights.
While the Irish Constitution provides for the common good taking precedence over Property rights and enables the State to CPO land for dangerous road bend widening, ESB pylons, Telecoms infrastructure, ports etc , the purchase of land at Agricultural rates of €9000 per acre for housing, rather than €4Million per acre is not for the ‘Common Good’ – as only those who can purchase those affordable houses benefit – not the Common Good.
So a Referendum on Housing is absolutely required to fix this as per other countries.
Of that there is no doubt and asap, otherwise the problem of no affordable housing for all those on average incomes will continue for your kids and your grandkids. That is certain.
BTW The Ban on Bedsits should be lifted at the same time as the Ban on Evictions.
https://www.change.org/p/irish-referendum-on-family-home-special-status
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