Housing crisis can be ended
BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN
| |
Figures from the Housing Needs Assessment showed increases of up to 200 per cent in some areas. The total numbers waiting for houses had increased from 27,500 in June 1996 to 38,000 in June 1999
|
10,250 families will be housed by the state in 1999. This is just under 27 per cent of the total numbers of families on local authority housing waiting lists. 38,000 people were registered on waiting lists at the end of June this year.
House prices in the 26 Counties are among the most expensive in Europe. An average urban home costs more than 18 times annual disposable income. In 1999, the average price of a new home was £101,911.
The housing charity Threshold believes that annual rent increases of between 25 per cent and 50 per cent are quite common. Evictions they say have increased by 500 per cent in the last year.
These are just some of the figures that show there is a housing crisis in the 26 Counties. There has been a Dublin government response. They have commissioned two expert studies and increased the funding for a local authority house building by 18 per cent to £230 million.
However it falls way short of a state wide housing action plan that is urgently needed. Instead of action on tackling the many deficiencies in housing policy there has been a series of accusations and counter claims between Leinster House politicians.
The spate of accusations began with the disclosure of massive increases in housing waiting lists in a Sunday newspaper last week. Figures from the Housing Needs Assessment showed increases of up to 200 per cent in some areas. The total numbers waiting for houses had increased from 27,500 in June 1996 to 38,000 in June 1999.
The increase should not have shocked anyone who was following the housing problem in the 26 Counties. Every local authority keeps monthly figures on waiting lists in their area. The Department of the Environment Housing Needs Assessment is simply a three-yearly snapshot of these waiting lists.
Criticism should be directed at the Department of the Environment for not conducting the Needs Assessment at least annually. The review is done to help plan public sector housing programmes. The fact that this is only done every three years shows much priority the department and successive Dublin governments have given to formulating housing policy.
This week, Labour spokesperson for the Environment Eamon Gilmore has been making hay out of the figures. Yet Gilmore was part of a government that did very little between 1994 and 1997 when there was, just like today, a growing housing crisis.
It is only when the housing crisis spills over into the private sector that the crisis became an official one. There have been growing housing waiting lists since the early 1990s.
Then as now the Dublin government failed to tackle the problem. Between 1988 and 1993, hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of local authority housing stock was sold off for bargain prices.
Much of the housing stock that remained was badly maintained or in some cases not maintained at all. Public sector house building targets were often not met. In Dublin City, the corporation consistently failed to reach its target of 600 houses a year.
Current government policy is to free up more serviced land for private sector house builders. Planning processes are being sped up so more private sector houses can be built. This might lead to more houses being built, but will not lead to cheaper houses.
There is a need for a systematic housing plan that links public, private, co-operative and shared ownership schemes. These schemes need to be formulated locally and implemented nationally. They need to tackle the housing problems immeadiately in the short term and plan for long-term housing needs.
Price controls must be introduced to stop profiteering in the private sector.In the past in Ireland, when the private sector failed to provide services the state intervened, often quite successfully. Telecom Eireann, the ESB, and Aer Lingus are examples of such an enterprise.
The Dublin government could easily start a state house building company that would build public and private housing schemes without the profiteering currently in evidence throughout the housing market.
With over £5 billion in the state coffers, there is no excuse for any more delays.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)