Housing crisis ignored
Waiting lists in Dublin increase by nearly 200%
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In the 1996 Department of the Environment survey there were 702
applicants on the South Dublin waiting list. Now the numbers have
risen to 2,035
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To the uninformed outsider it might not seem that there is a
housing crisis in the 26 Counties. Nowhere is this ``let's ignore
the problem'' attitude more prevalent than in Dublin where numbers
of homeless people and housing waiting lists are greatest. Yet
the media is preoccupied with other pressing issues of home
ownership.
Last week the newspapers, radio stations and even television news
bulletins of Dublin reported extensively on the sale of a house
in Dalkey for £5.6 million, a record for such a property. The
fact that a basic necessity such as a house could be an expensive
commodity was, it seems, not an issue. The only issue was who
could the mystery purchaser be.
Jack Nicholson, George Micheal and Eddie Irvine were all possible
buyers. Well, one thing for sure is that none of the purchasers
were any of the 1,209 households assessed in March 1996 by the
Department of Environment as being in need of local authority
housing in the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown council area of which
Dalkey is a part.
Throughout Dublin and the 26 Counties families are finding
themselves effectively homeless. On the one hand they are waiting
for their local authority to provide housing because they cannot
afford the ever-increasing purchase prices. Then they are caught
out in the rental sector because of increasing rents.
A recent survey by Threshold, the housing advice agency, showed
that residential rents in the greater Dublin area are set to rise
by between 20% and 25% this year. Rents already increased by 12%
in 1997. Threshold has in 1998 had to turn away more 1,000 people
who could not find affordable rental accommodation.
In the Dublin Corporation area, the 1996 Department of the
Environment housing assessment survey found 3,966 applicants were
waiting for local authority housing. Figures released by the
Corporation last week showed an increase to 5,500 applicants
waiting for housing now in July 1998.
Sinn Féin's Dublin South West representative Seán Crowe
highlighted the increase in South Dublin's housing waiting list.
He told An Phoblacht that in the 1996 Department of the
Environment survey there were 702 applicants on the South Dublin
waiting list. Now the numbers have risen to 2,035 applicants.
Seán Crowe said that ``Dublin is in the midst of a housing crisis.
Consecutive governments linked as they are to many of the large
property speculators in the city have allowed this situation to
develop''.
``The number of houses being built at present is totally
inadequate to the huge demand. The lack of a coherent home
building strategy will condemn thousands of families to
overcrowded and rundown accommodation for years to come''.
Examples of the lack of a proper strategy for local house
building are easily found. Last week Dublin Corporation cited the
lack of available sites for building. They claim that all the
remaining housing lands in the corporation's ownership will be
built on by 2000.
But there is still ample building land in the city. The private
sector apartment and retail development in the picture is one
that was built on a site formerly owned by Dublin Corporation but
sold into private ownership.
Sites like this were sold all around Dublin in order to balance
the corporation's accounts in the 1990s. The corporation had to
sell these sites because central government funds to the
authority were being cut.
The choice for Dublin Corporation was either introduce service
charges or sell vital sites that could be used to solve the
housing crisis. Dublin Corporation sold the sites. Now the
spending allocated for local authority housing by central
government has increased by £40 million to £214 million in 1998.
Dublin Corporation is it seems unable to make full use of the
increased funding available now because of the previous years'
cuts in funding.
other example of this blinkered attitude to the housing crisis
is also found in Dublin. Dublin Corporation is running out of
building land in the city. However the Dublin Docklands
Development Authority has 1,300 acres of redundant land in the
inner city to redevelop. How come none of this land can be made
available to Dublin Corporation to build homes?
Don't hold your breath waiting for a central government
announcement allocating some of the hundreds of available acres
in Dublin's docklands to Dublin Corporation's home building
programme. Instead we will get the planning permission for towers
of luxury apartments and more record house sales. We will not get
a home building programme that takes account of the people's
actual needs. It's just another week of profits and balance
sheets before people.
Minimum wage march
The Minimum Wage Commission might have delivered its report and
recommendation of a £4.40 per hour minimum wage, but the campaign
to ensure the implementation of the Commission's recommendations
goes on.
The Dublin Council of Trade Unions (DCTU) and the ICTU are
continuing their campaign around the minimum wage to urge ``No
watering-down of the recommended rate per hour; Immediate
implementation of the National Minimun Wage; Minimum rate without
strings or loopholes attached.''
The DCTU are today (9 July) organising a Tour de France Public
Awareness Carnival Support Parade. They are carrying on their
campaign because the current minimum wage proposals will not be
implemented until April 2000. During this two year waiting period
inflation will have reduced the value of a £4.40 minimum wage.
Worse still, the Commission has surrounded the wage proposals
with conditions and loopholes while employers are still lobbying
against the implementation of the Commission's weak proposals. So
the DCTU campaign continues. As the old saying goes - They
haven't gone away you know.
Quangomania
The memory of Margaret Thatcher might be fading but the effects
of Thatcherism are still being felt in Ireland. One often
overlooked feature of the Thatcher years is the introduction of
Quasi-Autonomous Non Governmental Organisations - Quangos for
short.
Quangos were introduced by the Tories throughout Britain and the
Six Counties, usually as a way of ceding the powers and
administration of local government, health and education sectors
away from Tory controlled councils into the hands of central
government appointees.
It should come as no surprise to find that in the Six Counties
there are more Quangos than any area in Britain. There are
according to Klaus Boehm, the editor of a new 700 page directory
titled Quangos and Quangocrats, over 50 such bodies in the Six
Counties. Boehm also found that Quangos in the Six Counties cross
a far broader spectrum than those used in England, Scotland and
Wales. It seems then that this is yet another element of British
undemocratic rule in Ireland that will have to be dismantled.
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