Posted: December 19, 2024 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Housebuilding, Ireland, Social housing |
Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.
What would our politics look like if housing really were the most important issue in a general election?
After a week that’s seen the Labour government set out a series of bold planning reforms in pursuit of its ambitious target of 1.5 million new homes in England in this parliament, it’s a question that may seem to be moot or unrealistic depending on your point of view.
But it does not have to be either: take even a cursory glance at what’s happening in a country close to home and you will find an election where housing really was the number one issue at the polls.
The election in Ireland may not seem to have changed very much – the government will still be led by Fine Gael (FG) and Fianna Fáil (FF) as coalition negotiations continue – but housing could be set for a transformation.
On issues ranging from social housing investment to security of tenure for private renters, those parties of the centre right are well to the left of anything that Labour is proposing in England (or Wales).
On housebuilding numbers alone the contrast is staggering. That target for England works out at 300,000 a year and is widely seen as highly ambitious not to mention unachievable.
In Ireland, FF and FG plus the Progressive Democrats and Labour, the two centre-left parties that could form part of a coalition, are all promising 50,000 to 60,000 new homes a year. Adjust for England’s population (57.1 million) compared to Ireland’s 5.3 million and you get a range of 540,000 to 650,000 per year. That’s a level that really could make a difference to affordability rather than just slowing down the rate of house price growth.
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Posted: July 28, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Homelessness, Housebuilding, Ireland, Social housing |
Originally published on July 28 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
A housebuilding slump? Rising homelessness? Unaffordable house prices and rents? The housing crisis faced by the new government in Ireland is every bit as serious as the one confronting the new administration on this side of the Irish Sea – but then the similarities start to break down.
Just 75 days after coming to power, the coalition government in Dublin has published a comprehensive plan and a Cabinet-level housing minister is in charge of delivery. If that’s some indication of the priority it gives to housing, then the housing, planning and local government minister Simon Coveney compares the task of proving affordable and accessible homes for all to the introduction of free education 50 years ago.
Allowances have to be made for political hype and the plan has also been criticised for its failure to be more radical, but the contrast with England is still glaring even though the government is led by the closest equivalent Ireland has to the Conservatives. One reason could be that it took two months after a stalemate election In Ireland to form a government: the plan has been developed with the help of an all-party parliamentary committee; and Fine Gael depends not just on independents for support but also the rival Fianna Fail not to vote against its plans.
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Posted: November 15, 2015 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Ireland, Legal, Private renting, Rent control, Scotland, Wales |
Whether you’re for or against measures to control private sector rents, it’s going to be worth watching closely what happens to new legislation in Ireland.
After a long row between the Irish coalition partners, the government has finally agreed a package of measures designed to give ‘rent certainty’ to tenants until supply increases. The package includes:
- For the next four years, landlords will only be allowed to increase their rents once every 24 months rather than 12 months as at present
- Landlords will have to give 90 days notice of any increase (up from 28)
- Landlords will have to provide evidence that any future increases are in line with the local market rate and inform tenants of their legal right to challenge them
- Tenants will have stronger protection against unscrupulous landlords who falsely declare they need to sell the home or move in a family member: landlords will have to sign a statutory declaration and face fines if it is invalid
- Landlords who house tenants on social security will get 100% mortgage tax relief against their rent (up from 75%).
Note that ‘rent certainty’ is not the same thing as rent control. What’s interesting about the package from this side of the Irish Sea is that it anticipates – and goes beyond – all of the points raised in the growing debate on rent regulation here. The Scottish Government is dipping its toe in the water with a Bill that will allow local rent control in rent pressure areas while Labour will call for new powers to freeze rents in London if Sadiq Khan wins next year’s mayoral election.
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Posted: April 15, 2014 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Housebuilding, Housing market, Ireland, Social housing |
As ever the new UK Housing Review offers a mix of authoritative statistics and some fascinating new insights on housing across all tenures.
Published this week, the 2014 edition of the bible for housing types edited by Steve Wilcox and John Perry mixes a compendium of statistics plus several chapters of expert commentary. It’s also one of the few publications to compare housing in the different nations of the UK. All that’s missing is an index.
Reports elsewhere have highlighted the bias in the mortgage market towards landlords and the threat to the affordable homes programme after 2015 but I’ve picked out three more themes to illustrate the breadth of what’s on offer in the review.
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Jules Birch 