Property

The law can help: starting with a referendum by David Langwallner   There are human rights to food, water, healthcare, a minimum standard of living, and housing. Despite western opposition they found their way into the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966). They have wrongly been denied as rights in Ireland since O’Reilly v Limerick Corporation [1988]. This article is about the right to housing which is most famously recognised in The UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). “There can be no fairness or justice in a society in which some live in homelessness, or in the shadow of that risk, while others cannot even imagine it”, according to Jordan Flaherty [in Floodlines]. Yet the Irish State is not providing enough housing that is adequate and affordable. The problem is easily addressed. For as US educationalist Jonathan Kozol reminds us: “The cause of homelessness is lack of housing”. Clearly we need to build more houses. They should be of excellent quality, sustainable, built in accordance with a spatial strategy and using new funding models, such – for example – as have been suggested by the credit unions which seem to recognise a feasible and financially viable model which government ignores. In the boom although Ireland completed up to 20 new homes per 1,000 population – the highest rate in the EU, less than two new homes were for social housing, one of the lowest rates in the EU. More starkly, since 2008 the capital expenditure on social housing has been ruptured by successive budgets with cuts of 80% (from €1.3bn to €275m). Certainly Labour Minister Alan Kelly’s Urban Regeneration and Housing Act legislates for social housing. It requires developers to provide “up to 10%” of their housing units for social housing, though even Martin Cullen, as well as Ministers ever since, maintained the rate of “up to 20%” introduced in the 2000 Planning Act, albeit that the percentage was for “social” but also “affordable” housing. The new Act also allows the dubious retrospective application of reduced development contributions and the introduction of a vacant site levy. Elswehere the Minister promoted a reduction in apartment sizes. All in the supposed interest of increasing housing supply. Moreover, the last government failed to address problems in the rental market. The current rent supplement for a single person is €520 per month and for a couple, €750 per month, despite the fact that the cost of renting a two bedroom property in Dublin city, for example, is €1,700 per month. That government also tolerated an epidemic of evictions by banks and vulture funds that it has not adequately regulated. Instead it permitted them to engage in unfair commercial practices often in breach of both consumer protection and EU law. The non-interventionist obsession, nurtured in the voodoo logic of neo-liberalism, also drove failure to nationalise the banks permanently in the public interest – to provide public-interest lending, to secretive and apparently profoundly unstrategic deal-making in the deeply suspect NAMA and to a banking inquiry which failed, through lack of zeal, to hear key evidence; and inevitably to define the root cause of the canker. Why has NAMA not intervened to provide public infrastructure, – parks, museums and above all housing? 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”. NAMA has been interventionist in its deal-makings, why not in its public-interest interventions? In short we have become a socially dislocated nation where many of our citizens do not feel part of the society that has clearly abandoned them. The level of homelessness in Dublin city centre in particular now generates an almost surreal zombie-like feel to the streets late at night, redolent of New York in the early 1990s or the streets of Nairobi where multitudes walk the streets and fields in a non-directional and tragically aimless way. The question arises what causes such matters and what can be done. First, it is obvious that the root cause was our banking collapse responsibility for which our top lawyers, civil servants, bankers and their symbiotic plutocrats have been serially let off the hook, most recently by the feeble Banking Inquiry which toiled under a smokescreen of legal manoeuvres. It was morally correct of Pearse Doherty and Joe Higgins not to sign their names to such a charade. In my practice as a barrister I have noticed that the banks have pursued the policy of reneging on their contractual obligations to reinstate consumers to tracker mortgages after expiry of a fixed-rate period. Significant litigation in the Four Courts is now geared at understanding precisely what went on in this context. Further, banks with no interest in Ireland – Danske Bank and the Bank of Scotland – simply left the room and disposed of their assets leaving to others to hike up interest payments and/or sell the assets off to the underworld of vulture funds. The banks also bundled assets. In a particularly scandalous case now wending its ways through the courts Danske Bank refused a repayment offer of €90,000 from the consumer and then sold the house via receiver to a composite property portfolio at the bargain-basement price of €60,000. This is simply an outrage but it passed unprobed. Recent reportage suggests that the vulture funds are now gathering for mass evictions and in Tyrellstown we have witnessed a vulture fund perpetrating a mass eviction even where the residents can afford to pay their rent. As Village went to press, it seemed a new government would prioritise homeless, housing and mortgage difficulties. However, the commitment it the ‘Programme for Partnership’ between Fine Gael and Independents and in the ‘Confidence and Supply’ deal with Fianna Fáil are notably nebulous.

Local authorities built only 394 homes in 2017 by Mel Reynolds   MINISTER FOR FINANCE Paschal Donohoe set out the stall for Social Housing in Budget 2018: “I am allocating a total of €1.83bn for housing in 2018. Some 3,800 new social homes will be built next year by local authorities and approved housing bodies…1”. In fact Local Authorities are building a fraction of this figure. Gains and Losses Purpose-built new homes are an essential component of permanent social housing provision. But they are not the only component. Additional permanent stock can come from a number of sources. New and second-hand private-home purchases (acquisitions) and so-called ‘Part V’ housing – 10% of schemes acquired from or built by developers, all add to permanent stock. Official tallies also include ‘voids reclaimed’ as additional homes. These are typically short-term vacant local-authority properties brought back into stock but counted as additional homes. Leases can also count as, temporary, housing ‘solutions’, and are similarly included as additional stock. There are losses to stock to be considered. For example, just looking at new homes completed last year: Dublin City Council (DCC) completed 139 new-builds and purchased 58 ‘turnkey’ new homes from developers. However, DCC demolished 148 and sold 54 existing local authority dwellings, leaving a lower net figure2. Nevertheless, new-build social housing illustrates how the state is managing public resources and delivering new permanent stock on state land. Local Authorities own zoned land with a capacity for 48,724 dwellings nationwide yet they used just 0.8% of this state land capacity for new-builds, 394 units3. But state capacity is even greater. Nama-controlled land currently has a capacity for 65,399 dwellings. 10% Part V social housing could be provided, giving an additional 6,540 social homes.   New Builds The Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government (DHPLG) produces detailed new-build social housing data. Established as part of the ‘Rebuilding Ireland’ housing strategy in 2016, quarterly ‘Social Housing Construction Status Reports’ currently catalogue 930 projects with a ‘pipeline’ of 14,813 new homes, noting location, stage of delivery, number of units, and if units are being purchased or built by Local Authorities or Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs). These reports include two categories of new homes as ‘builds’. New-builds are purpose-built new social homes procured directly by Local Authorities and AHBs. So-called ‘turnkey’ units are new homes purchased from developers (acquisitions) and are somewhat contentious as the state is competing with private buyers in the open market. Both types are, however, additional permanent stock with security of tenure.   2017 Output In 2017 Local Authorities built 394 homes and purchased 386 ‘turnkey’ new homes from developers. AHBs built 270 new homes and purchased 654 ‘turnkey’ new home acquisitions4. Excluding purchases, there were 664 new-builds nationwide in 2017. 375 new social homes were built in the City and County of Dublin and, of this, the four Dublin Local Authorities completed just 232 new-builds. In 2017 there were 44,802 on Co Dublin housing waiting lists.   2018 Output In 2018 so far Local Authorities have built 364 social homes and purchased 123 ‘turnkey’ acquisitions from developers nationwide5. AHBs delivered 113 new-builds and purchased 200 ‘turnkey’ new homes. Excluding new home purchases, there were 477 new-build social homes in the first six months of 2018 from all sources. Dublin Local Authorities completed 145 newbuilds in six months. Local Authorities own enough vacant zoned land in Dublin to accommodate 29,377 dwellings but have used 0.5% of this capacity for new-builds so far this year.   Conclusion There were 10,694 subsidised leases in the first six months of 2018, 22 leases for every newbuild in the country6. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) estimate that, in areas of high demand such as Co. Dublin, a subsidised lease is twice as costly as a Local Authority new-build on state land. In 2018 more than €900m per year will be spent on subsidise private-sector social rents, homeless services and other rent assistance programmes. DPER project more than €1.7bn will be spent per year on state rent assistance by 20227. There has been little increase in new-build social housing in Co Dublin, the area with the most acute housing need. New-build social housing output will need to increase increase four-fold to achieve Budget targets.   1. Budget 2018 speech delivered in Dáil by Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe #budget2018” Leinster Express; https://www.leinsterexpress.ie/news/news/275348/budget-2018-speech-delivered-in-dail-by-minister-paschal- donohoe-budget2018.html 2. Noac Performance Indicators Report 2017 (p13); http://noac.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/NOAC Performance-Indicators-Report-2017.pdf 3. “State owns enough zoned land to build 114,000homes” Irish Times; https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/state-owns-enough-zoned-land-to-build-114-000-homes-1.3481853.Housing: land scarcity? – Eolas Magazine; http://www.eolasmagazine.ie/housing-land-scarcity 4. Minister Murphy publishes Social Housing Construction Status Report Q4 2017 – Rebuilding Ireland; http:// rebuildingireland.ie/news/ 5. Minister Murphy publishes Social Housing Construction Status Report Q2 2018 and details of Social Housing Output for Quarter 2 2018 | Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government; https://www.housing.gov.ie/housing/social-housing/construction/minister-murphy-publishes-social-housing-constructionstatusminister-murphy-publishes-social-housing-construction-status-report-q4-2017/ 6. Housing Data: 9 Oct 2018: Written answers (Kildare-Street.com) Q534- 537 incl.; https://www.kildarestreet.com/wrans/?id=2018-10-09a.1534 7. “Spending Review 2018 Current and Capital Expenditure on Social Housing Delivery Mechanisms – Daniel O’Callaghan and Paul Kilkenny , IGEES Unit and Housing, Planning and Local Government Vote” July 2018; https://static.rasset.ie/documents/news/2018/07/19.-current-andcapital-expenditure-on-social-housing delivery.pdf

”Nothing to see here” approach means Ireland’s Fire Safety Task Force was wrongly comprised, only looked at buildings over 6 storeys and assessed only half of the 226 buildings identified as at risk By Orla Hegarty and Lorcan Sirr   IT WAS PURE LUCK that the March 2015 fire in Millfield Manor in Kildare didn’t kill anyone. The luck factor was that the fire happened midafternoon when many people were out at work. In less than thirty minutes, a terrace of six timber-framed houses burned down. The next year, five reports into safety failings in Irish schools confirmed that the issues are not limited to housing. In 2017, a tower of social housing in London, Grenfell Tower, caught fire. A series of technical failings, including combustible cladding, resulted in more than 72 people losing their lives. A 2018 report found that their “current system of building regulations and fire safety is not fit for purpose and that a culture change is required”. The Irish response to these events – in a country where timber-frame houses are prevalent, and where construction has fewer controls than in the UK and no independent oversight – has effectively been ‘nothing to see here’. The then Minister for the Environment, Alan Kelly, commissioned a report into the Millfield Manor fire. It was due to be published in January 2016. The report eventually saw daylight in mid-2017, but only after a round of Freedom of Information requests. When he saw the report, Alan Kelly said it was not in accordance with the terms of reference. Significantly, the report didn’t look at failings in the regulatory system; and it referred homeowners in other estates back to their own architects and engineers, the very same people who had been waiting for official guidance from the report The 24-page document that was published largely restated existing regulations and offered advice on how to prevent fires; there was no mention of concerns about timber-frame construction, or the Department’s own report in 2003 that had warned about timber-frame construction which subsequently accounted for up to 30% of homes built in the boom and which make up a substantial proportion of new estates now under construction; and nor did the report use the houses as a case study, as it was claimed it was supposed to do. Councillor Cian O’Callaghan called the report a “spectacular failure”. Last year Minister Eoghan Murphy established a Task Force to carry out a review after the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which was published in May of this year as ‘Fire Safety in Ireland’. The composition of the Task Force is worth noting. More than 80% of the Task Force who authored the report were civil or public servants with only three external members out of eighteen (one from SIPTU, one fire engineer and one architect). 45% of the membership came from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government itself who are responsible for fire safety regulations. Following Grenfell, the UK government established an independent expert advisory panel and this group have been reporting as the issues emerge. The terms of reference of the report pulled its punches with a very limited scope of reference. The most notable limitation was in the type of buildings that were to be examined in the report: only multiunit social housing and buildings “more than 6 storeys or more than 18m with external cladding or rainscreen systems” were to be examined (842 in total). This therefore ignored buildings up to five floors, critically excluding buildings such as schools, hospitals, shopping centres, student housing and even airports, as well as the thousands of apartments (many of timber frame construction) built during the boom where residents have been calling for a national audit of fire safety risks . In addition, the report offers reassurances about cladding, detection and alarms, without assessing the substantial risks of fire and smoke spread due to inadequate compartmentation and poor construction. In May the Fire Safety Task Force concluded “at this point the combination of contributory factors which gave rise to the Grenfell Tower tragedy do not appear to be present in buildings in Ireland”. It had identified 226 buildings where building owners were required to assess the fire safety risk because of their cladding, but there is no indication of where they are. Five hospitals have been named as the subject of a HSE investigation, although at the conclusion of the Task Force’s work fewer than half (47%) of the buildings identified as being at risk had even been technically assessed and in some cases no progress had been made because the building owner wasn’t identified. There is no duty to notify occupants of the buildings concerned. The locations are known to the local fire services in the 31 local authorities, but the Task Force compiling the report did not have this information. Indeed, finding information on fire safety is no easy task in Ireland. Each fire authority is obliged to keep at its offices a register of fire safety notices served by it and the register must be open to inspection by any person at all reasonable times. Try getting access to the register, however, and in many instances you are met with “why do you want to see it?”, “are you looking for something specific? ”and “you’ll have to make an appointment”, all of which are hardly in keeping with the spirit of a “public register”, but very much in line with the spirit of “nothing to see here”. Or maybe more accurately, “there may or may not be anything here to see, but we’re damned if we’re going to make it easy for you to find out”. Under the provisions of section 20(1) of the Fire Services Act 1981, fire authorities may issue a fire safety notice on the owner of a building if they are of the opinion the building is unsafe. Such notices can prohibit the use of the building or parts or it; direct the owner to carry out certain fire-safetyrelated works