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    Dismantling our housing

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    We’re in the middle of a housing crisis. But we didn’t get there overnight. This government engineered the very crisis it found itself in and came up with its own grand plan to solve it. Or thinks it has. But it is all part of a drastic disaster economics. It involves what we have seen until now: people dying in the streets, children sleeping in hotel rooms, soup kitchens feeding hundreds of people, tenants being evicted after the homes they were living in were sold, an unprecedented increase in the number of suicide… But we may well see much more of this, for this government has essentially abdicated its responsibilities to the wolves.   Selling off assets when there is an acute shortage should be the last thing any government would want to do   Local authorities were sidelined What started with Irish Water and the Local Property Tax is part of a larger scheme in which they are first suffocated of funds, then made redundant, policy by policy. This is now what is happening with housing. The implementation of the Social Housing Strategy is being hampered by significant infrastructural issues, which are not being dealt with quickly enough. That’s according to Dr Donal McManus, CEO of the Irish Council for Social Housing (ICSH). He outlines three critical issues – from the perspective of housing associations – that need to be addressed: lack of sites for development; the urgent need for coordination of funding schemes for social housing; and the absence of development programmes for housing associations. The most serious obstacle hampering implementation of the Social Housing Strategy is the failure to make enough sites available to housing associations, he says. “There are over 800 sites in public ownership that could be assessed for social housing and transferred from local authorities to housing associations. Housing associations could then access private finance to deliver much-needed homes. However, this is not happening due to unnecessary infrastructural obstacles and delays. Alan Kelly’s Urban Regeneration and Housing Bill legislates such a move. Developers under previous bills were to surrender 20% of developments to Local Authorities. Not only did they bring it down to 10% in theory, in practice it now stands at virtually zero. Instead they will lease these premises to local authorities, retaining ownership. This means the already depleted stock will not increase. Another recent Kelly announcement, a new tenant-purchase scheme, will exacerbate this. Under this plan, Social Housing is to be sold off at discounts of 40 to 60 per cent of market value. This does not make any logical or economic sense: selling off assets when there is an acute shortage should be the last thing any government would want to do. Local authorities just lost the capacity to provide affordable housing at a local level. The statistics below illustrate that trend: No funds for essential repairs either Local Government lost the ability to provide new homes, but it also lost the capacity to repair vacant ones. Thousands of houses are sitting idle nationally, most for want of funding from central government. The Essential Repair Grant was discontinued in 2011, when it reached its lowest figure at €92,000, down from nearly €52m in 2008. One of the arguments advanced by Alan Kelly in favour of his new tenant-purchase scheme was that these costs would not be incurred by local authorities anymore, but this is small change on the value of state assets being sold at a loss in the first place. Calls were made for the Local Property Tax proceeds to be allocated for these repairs, but these were instead diverted to Irish Water. Ironically, you cannot buy a house under the new tenant-purchase scheme if you haven’t paid your water bill. NAMA has a stranglehold Thousands of houses were not built for lack of funds, thousands more remain idle for the same reason, and yet thousands more are in the control of Nama and are not released in the market or for social housing at a time we need it most. The December 2014 survey on Unfinished Housing Developments noted that 4,453 vacant homes were then ready to be occupied, but starved Local Authorities cannot avail of them. The report highlighted that: “To date, demand has been confirmed by the local authorities for 2,121 properties that NAMA has indicated are potentially available (This relates to all developments and not just developments identified as ‘unfinished’). A further 507 properties are currently being evaluated bringing the total that may be deemed suitable to 2,628”. So right in the middle of a housing crisis, we find that Nama is still to identify houses “that may be deemed suitable”. Its website states: “As at end June 2015, NAMA had identified over 6,542 residential properties as potentially suitable for social housing. Of these, demand has been confirmed by local authorities for over 2,500 properties, of which 1,386 have been delivered for social housing use. Confirmation of demand is a matter for local authorities and is not something in which NAMA has a role”.   Only 1386 units were delivered nationally, a trickle. And notice again the discrete disclaimer: Confirmation of demand is a matter for local authorities and is not something in which NAMA has a role. In other words the government has ample supply, but will not feed Local Authorities any funds to purchase it from itself. Local authorities are made the scapegoat of this government’s non-policy on housing. The media toed the government line, and few if any asked the local authorities for their opinion when reports came out that “4000 Social Housing units offered by NAMA” had apparently been rejected by them. The reality is evidently more complex and refusals usually stem from the government’s own policy and frameworks on housing, as well as building regulations. For example, South Dublin County and City Management Association offered the following insight in a statement to “The Dublin Gazette”: “Local authorities do not turn down available housing units unless there are strong reasons for

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    Band Aid

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    62 people now own the same wealth as the poorest 3.6 billion people. 1% owns more than 99%. The gaps are widening. Talk of overseas aid may seem like trying to use a sticking plaster to plug a haemorrhage. In a world of trickle up economies with ever growing needs driven by conflict and climate, aid remains critical. Despite the critiques of aid in the past decade, without it, many of the Least Developed Countries, would collapse. This Government is not without achievements in Official Development Assistance (ODA). Following the financial crash in 2009, the aid budget was an easy target and was slashed by 30% in the 2010 budget. Those affected by cuts in the aid budget are not visible and certainly won’t arrive at Leinster House on their tractors. Several Irish NGOs were also downsized and their aid programmes closed as a result. Following that significant cut, however, the aid budget was stabilised at around €600m. This was made possible by cross-party support and opinion polls which showed the tacit support of the public. Over 80% of people in Ireland regularly state they are in favour of aid. They may not raise it on the doorsteps, but they see it as the right thing to do. On the other hand, all OECD countries are committed to giving 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) in ODA and we have failed to reach this target. The commitment is a long-standing gold standard in international development and one which many countries had been close to achieving before the financial crash. In 2009, Ireland was giving 0.59% of GNI in ODA. The target, as a percentage, is set up to be cyclical. Countries will give according to their means as their economy expands and contracts. The commitment to reach the 0.7% target was in the Programme for Government of the current Government, with a target date of 2015. However, there has been no real commitment. The economy is now growing yet the aid budget has remained at. We increasingly and significantly lag behind the OECD target. Our aid provision now stands at 0.38% of GNI, the same as in the early 2000s. A new commitment to reaching the target within the life time of the next government is essential. Significant improvements have been made in the quality of Ireland’s aid programme over the lifespan of the current Government. International trends reflect shifts towards concessional lending and private-sector engagement. However, Ireland’s aid programme has become more poverty-focused. This is both in country focus, with one of the highest rates of funds going to Least Developed Countries, and in the types of programmes it funds. The aid programme has bucked the international trend of skewing aid to serve the needs of the donor country and has remained highly poverty-focused. ‘One World, One Future’, the Irish Aid policy, was launched in 2013 following a public consultation. It sets out Ireland’s priorities in overseas development. The commitment to addressing hunger is clear. The current Government spearheaded the drive to address hunger globally and led on international initiatives such as ‘Zero Hunger’ at the UN. It has become a leader in this area and ensured that this initiative was central to the new Sustainable Development Goals signed in New York last September. Questions have been asked, however, about the involvement of Irish Aid in the corporate- backed Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture, which has received much criticism from global civil society, and attempts to link this to the hunger agenda. The biggest gap, however, is the failure to embed the priorities for development in all government departments. While both the Irish Aid Policy, and the ‘Global Island’ policy, the core foreign policy statement, boast commitments to development and human rights as a “whole of government effort”, little has been done to implement it. This incoherence is stark. As Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary General said during his visit to Ireland last May: “One cannot be a leader on hunger, without also being a leader on climate change”. Coherence demands that our commitment on global hunger is matched by a commitment to funding programmes for climate adaptation and resilience matched with equal effort to reduce our own emissions. Aid remains essential. However, if aid is to be effective it requires commitment as well as joined-up thinking across all policy areas. This challenge must be addressed by the next Government. Lorna Gold Lorna Gold is Head of Policy and Advocacy with Trócaire

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    The Government’s not that interested in the North

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    The outgoing government is showing the same lack of vision on the North as it has shown generally. In 2011, the Programme for Government had a total of 120 words on the North in its 64 pages. Significantly, 45 of these were on security: “The threat from dissident paramilitary groups cannot be underestimated. We will foster the continuing strong relationships between An Garda Síochána and the Police Service of Northern Ireland to deal with this threat and we will also ensure the necessary resources to deal with these groups”. That reflected the belief that the Good Friday and St Andrew’s Agreements solved the political problems. The North is a security issue, to be contained. Any continuing violence is pathological in nature, rather than the result of from political failures. It neatly mirrors the knee-jerk reaction of much of the Fine Gael heartland, innately fearful of violent Republicanism. It reflected shifts in the Labour Party. At the time the Programme was drawn up, Labour was dominated by former Workers Party members, who had come to the party via Democratic Left. The Workers Party had been largely financed from robberies and extortion carried out by Official IRA members in the North. There is, of course, no indication any of those who became Labour TDs had any knowledge of these activities. However, media reports made them increasingly embarrassing in the South. When Democratic Left collapsed into the Labour Party, it abandoned its Northern organisation. It also further diminished interest in the North: while the SDLP is theoretically a sister party, the connection is increasingly distant. Certainly, both government parties have an innate hostility to Sinn Féin, which does not assist relationships with a Northern Executive where Sinn Féin is the second largest party. Enda Kenny is certainly on the Nationalist wing of Fine Gael – which sees Sinn Féin as betraying the legacy of 1916. However, the Taoiseach has never indicated the North was among his political priorities. Since the Programme for Government was drawn up, there have been three Progress Reports and one Statement of Government Priorities. In three, the North has barely featured – except as a security issue. The 2015 Report marked a departure, with no security concerns mentioned. It did not, however, reflect any greater engagement. The Coalition has made little impact on the North, except involvement in drawing up the Belfast Agreement and its successor, the Stormont Agreement, which brought Southern-style austerity to the North. On an optimistic note, there has also been ongoing growth in Cross-Border sharing of services. This has improved the quality of life of many, particularly those, on either side, who close to the Border. There are questions about some Cross-Border projects. The Coalition has promised up to £400million for the A5 project: the North’s largest-ever road project, a dual carriageway from Newbuildings, Co Derry, to the Monaghan Tyrone Border. The project has been controversial, with the North’s High Court quashing planning permission, and the planning process has restarted. No part of the existing A5 is among the 50 busiest stretches of road in the North, and a part of the proposed route was submerged during December’s floods. While the Coalition is generally perceived as hostile to Sinn Féin, Sinn Féin sees the A5 as a flagship project: the SDLP is doing its best to be as vocal in support. Northern nationalists generally perceive the Coalition parties as indifferent or hostile to them. This is accompanied by amnesia regarding the great majority of the Northern IRA having supported the Treaty in 1922: and Fine Gael’s amnesia regarding the 1922 Provisional Government organising military attacks on the Northern state. Northern nationalists, to the extent that they engage with Southern politics, tend to see Fianna Fail as their party. The SDLP is theoretically a sister party of Labour in the Socialist International: officially, it seeks support from the three big Dail parties: in practice, it was always closer to Fianna Fail, and many would now like to become Fianna Fail’s Northern organisation. While Sinn Féin’s ministers in the North have a working relationship with the Coalition, the party feel it is hostile, and drags its feet on some Cross-Border initiatives so as not to give prominence to Martin McGuinness. On balance, Unionist parties would prefer the return of the Coalition. A DUP source told Village it had no particular problems with the Coalition. “They were sufficiently wrapped up in their own problems”, the source said. “In talks, they have been sufficiently anti-Shinner that it is useful”. However, the source felt the two big Southern parties have only slight differences on the North, though was surprised at the anti-Sinn Féin vehemence of some Fianna Fáilers. Ulster Unionists lean very much towards Fine Gael, some hoping to develop relations. However, no party feels a re-elected Kenny government would take any Northern initiative.

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