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THE PRIVATE RENTED sector is heating up dramatically – all you need to do is talk to someone currently looking for a place to know that things are moving rapidly in the sector. What’s going on, and why?
Consider three elements of the Government’s strategy. First of all, the Government’s housing ‘strategy’ is almost completely reliant on private home ownership. Second of all, the Government’s strategy for stabilisation of the financial sector involves promoting house price increase and the deleveraging of banks, which means lending out less money to re-balance their books. And finally, wage decreases – these are, so we’re told, central to increasing Ireland’s ‘competitiveness’ and therefore attracting foreign direct investment.
So what does this add up to? If you’re lucky enough to have job, you can expect stagnant or decreasing wages, great difficulty in getting a mortgage and increasing house prices. Needless to say, this is not a favourable context for a housing strategy based almost exclusively on debt-fuelled private home ownership.
Once upon a time, the response to market failure with regard to basic social needs, in this case one which – and this worth underlining – no one can live without, was public provision. Not anymore, and this means those who can’t get into owner occupancy won’t be getting into social housing either. In fact, the social housing waiting list had doubled in recent years.
This leaves us with one option – the private rented sector. Hence the enormous demand for rented accommodation in Dublin and the increasing prices. There’s a domino effect here too. Those who in another era would have progressed on the road to home ownership (especially young couples in employment) are staying in private rented. These guys are getting all the best places, but they’re paying the price for it too. Landlords initially reduced rents when the crisis kicked off, but they’ve gradually realised that a housing crisis is also an investment opportunity and they’re pumping prices as a consequence. And the more you pay in rent, the more difficult it is to save for a deposit on a house.
Meanwhile, those next down the pecking order are squeezed into inferior private rented housing stock as they scramble to find any accommodation at all. And this situation is made all the worse by the existing problem of substandard housing. In 2009 an official inspection of 18,000 houses nationally revealed that 41% of private rented dwellings in Dublin city were sub-standard. The Centre for Housing Research, in an earlier report, found that for dwellings accessed by tenants in receipt of rent supplement 78% were below the legal minimum.
For many, young people, students, migrants, and unemployed people in particular, the situation is near breaking point. A quick look on any of the rental websites will tell you that landlords are picking and choosing, refusing to accept rent supplement and generally giving the cold shoulder to any one they don’t like the look of. If you’re on rent supplement or in one of Ireland’s many marginalised groups – in particular travellers, Roma, young working class people and those with mental health difficulties – you’ll know what this means in practice. This can also cause problems for those who lose their job only to find their landlord won’t take rent supplement – and so losing a job can mean losing a home.
The refusal of landlords to accept tenants on rent supplement is of particular significance. It has long been argued by housing experts, such as UCD’s Michael Punch, that rent supplement is a bad way of meeting housing need. It represents a significant monthly transfer of public money into private hands, while social housing suffers from lack of investment. However, it’s equally important to note that subsidising private landlords to provide housing for those who are officially recognised as being in housing need is deeply problematic because landlords can, and do, discriminate. And tenants, have no way to appeal or challenge their arbitrary opinions and personal preferences.
But whether or not your rent is subsidised, as demand piles on the rental sector our right to housing will continue to be undermined, a right which is recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which our merry Republic is a signatory.
And yet, despite the important work of advocate groups such as Threshold, tenants suffer an acute lack of political representation. With all the focus on home owners, none of the political parties have prioritised the issues we face. Perhaps this is because the sector is generally populated by groups with low election participation, or because it’s seen as transitory – a mere stopping point on the way to home ownership. Either way, scarce credit and dwindling social housing will no doubt see increasing pressure on the sector.
The interesting question is whether or not those of us who pay by the month to put a roof over our heads will step forward to demand these issues are addressed and place our right to housing on the agenda.
Mick Byrne is an Irish Research Council Post-Doctoral Scholar at the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis and participates in the European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and the City.
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My great great granny was in service in the 1890′s in Glasgow until her marriage in 1898 – she’d moved there from Castlecomer sometime after 1891 and didn’t return to Ireland until 1907. I’d really love to know more about her working life before she married.
No dogs, no blacks & no Irish, the vast majority of people who left Ireland for foreign shores had to fight tooth and nail to survive. It’s very ignorant and typical to hear the indoctrinated mouth pieces comparing our history over centuries being compared to the mass forced uncontrolled souls being herded into DP centres with “sure weren’t the Irish welcomed all over the world nonsense
@Agenda21:
Agree 100%.
Whilst DP is far from perfect, especially during this time of unprecedented global pandemic, state sponsored visitor welfare – including food, accommodation, security, clothing, education, medical – was a luxury never offered or even available to any of our emigrants making a new life abroad in distant times past.
And for all that welfare, nothing expected in return, which in anybody’s language is a great blooming deal, especially if after initial assessment, processing the opportunity for permanent stay being the very worthwhile prize.
For those emigrants from era when Ireland was shaking off shackles of colonization, survival was name of the game, so whatever work was available was manna from heaven.
@Agenda21: “Mass forced uncontrolled souls” what kind of rhetorical drivel is that? We treat asylum seekers like dirt. The brits treated us like dirt. It’s not that complicated hun.
@Black and Brown Irish people exist.: Shut up and get back in your box ye slapper
It was not only in Britain it also here too Service girls aged13 were suffering too . Ask anyone who remembers what their grandmothers said . It was an awful time for women men and children who were poor .
Can we suppose it was any better in Ireland at the time being servants to the priests and nuns,
@Michael Maher: Nice try at deflection but no. The ‘big house’ was a thing of the Anglo Protestant ascendency, until the birth of Yeats’s ‘terrible beauty’ in the early 20th century.
@Bramley Hawthorne: I note that whatever the subject is initially, eventually someone will always refer to the abuse carried out by religious orders in Ireland is this our very own version of Goodwin’s law? If it is what shall we call it?
@Pat Coyne: I never mentioned about the religious perverts but was referring to the slaves they had in their kicthens.
House mistress to Irish servant girl:
“Have you dusted this?” as she ran her finger on the mantelpiece”
Reply:”Yes ma’am”
House mistress:” I can write my name on here”
Reply:”Ma’am it’s a great to be able to write”
Smart cailín!
That carry on was happening all over the world and still is to some extent and worse ,we have some of our own smuggling people around the world and causing the death of many lately .We have our drug lord’s some the most notorious in the world ,of course this does not justify what went on in the past
@FlopFlipU: how many & at who are ye pointing fingers at bad shoe
@flamrock: tell us more please!
@brian oconnell: my post was deleted…that’s very unfortunate Christian of you.
@flamrock: my post was deleted, that’s very un Christian of u.
@brian oconnell: I was a at that time an apprentice refrigeration engineer and the person in question who was over the plant hated Irish people, I’m not sure why, he broke my b ss every day for no reason. After that he seen the light.
@flamrock: I think my point is…you don’t have to go all the way back to the 1800 to find discrimination.
We should be proud of how far we have come as a nation (…..and an economy). We could try to attribute it to certain political decisions, but let’s just say that once we got our freedom from Britain we’ve worked hard, using our intelligence and creativity to get where we are.
@HonDeDeise: yes we did.in some cases the world followed our example. Despite our politicans best efforts we have indeed come a long way.
My granny was a domestic servant at Borris House in Carlow, how I wish I’d asked her more about it.
In America these women as mothers were very ambitious for their children’s education. The next generation of these immigrants as a result enjoyed a better life.
Very interesting endeavor Catherine, best of luck with it.
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. People in Ireland in 2095 will say the same about us who are living in the years 1990-2020 onwards. Historical evaluation is often relative to the worldview of the individual historian. Historians generally tend to look on past eras as inferior to contemporary eras. [There are a few exceptionalist medievalists who consider the general spirit of the Renaissance in continental Europe to have been superior to the general death-seeking spirit of the twentieth century - the debate continues.] There are also relativities of social setting. Some historical researchers may assert that being a Catholic servant in Big House Ireland was ‘better’ than being an English servant girl in a middle class Victorian household in Clapham. etc. etc.
@Garreth Byrne: don’t forget.history is not written my the enslaved or the poor.in the case of conflict it is always written by the Victor.
It all happened in this country as well not even a hundred years ago when the Irish farmers got the land
Hon Ellen ya boy ya, I cheered every one of those ‘ Belts ‘ …
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