No Fiscal Space For The Homeless!

 

I sent an email to Barry Andrews https://www.fiannafail.ie/meps/barry-andrews requesting link to his commissioned report, ‘Delivering on Housing in Ireland’, some days ago, still no reply. Also sent an email to the news desk ‘Cork Examiner’ requesting a link to report I couldn’t find; plus ‘Western People’, no link to report there either. Finally, found it here, you can download from link below.

 

https://www.housingeurope.eu/resource-1817/delivering-on-housing-in-ireland

Delivering on Housing in Ireland

Coverage of this report on RTE has been poor. You can find Drivetime coverage here, its item number 8, follows the item ‘1 in 4 Can’t Boil An Egg’

https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/drivetime/programmes/2023/0707/1393449-drivetime-friday-7-july-2023/

Drivetime Friday 7 July 2023

Sarah McInerney and Cormac O hEadhra brings you all the latest news and stories of the day from around the country and beyond

Buried in the programme  2:29:30 minutes long, you’ll have to wait until 1:40:20.

You wouldn’t believe there’s a Housing Emergency in Ireland.

 

But RTE is preoccupied or corrupted depending on your point of view, with ubiquitous coverage of the RTE Scandal, about which RTE has egg on its face. Tubridy I believe innocent of all charges levelled against both him and his agent both acting under instructions from RTE seeking to obtain best deal for themselves in a rotten system. They can’t be blamed for the system being rotten.

The real problem lies in a management structure wed to the private sector. This is ‘Public Service’ broadcasting, there should be a cap on salaries commensurate with ‘Public Service’.

Just another instance of government incompetence, Michael Martin stating he is against capping salaries!

The real scandal in RTE is its treatment and coverage of Ireland’s Housing Crisis, coverage being little more than the offer of an echo chamber for government and opposition spokespeople to air their well-rehearsed chorus of views. But propaganda is often not about twisting the truth that’s told to people, it’s often more about concealing the truth, covering it up. Easy enough to do if you simply leave out news that matters and substitute it with light netertainment stories!

They cover the crisis better even in Europe apparently see this report!

https://www.euronews.com/2023/07/06/irelands-housing-crisis-millennials-a-generation-sacrificed

If RTE starved real investigative journalism of investment in personnel or resources, now we know where the money went, Tubridy and Musical lossmaker extraordinaire.

Where I live, I know of at least 3 abandoned housing developments, each one I could do with some investigative news on why they are abandoned, real stories that would give depth to how housing policy, is not working in Ireland.

If they were train wrecks, RTE would send a news team and cameras to report on them.

On my way to Wicklow, driving through Baltinglass, the village is full of derelict abandoned buildings, ripe for renewal and development, as housing sorely needed. So it is throughout Ireland. No way from the amount of renewal, redevelopment, refurbishment, new builds, could anything approaching the consciousness of a housing emergency, be felt.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/land-development-agency-may-ease-stalled-construction-of-homes-1.4642222

I often reflect on how it is with an Open Goal namely, homelessness, lack of supply and affordability, government is getting away with it, with not one punch from RTE being landed on any of the government political representatives, charged with responsibility and accountability.

Invariably, government representatives will quote from the nonsense contained in ‘Housing For All’ (it should be renamed, ‘Housing Affordable Only by the Rich’)

Click to access 238681_7b958e84-bb18-4650-ab90-87c8dd511ec8.pdf

Nonsense such as this quote, “Extension of Project Tosaigh:

Following
indications from the market that a number of
Build to Rent and Build to Sell schemes may
not be proceeding, the LDA is engaging with
relevant developers to identify projects that
may be suitable for Cost Rental, affordable
housing or social housing. Market engagement
will support current housing delivery and
targets in the relevant local authority areas.“

See this report on Euronews https://video.euronews.com/mp4/med/EN/WT/SU/23/07/06/en/230706_WTSU_52236930_52236933_600000_120643_en.mp4

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41147878.html

Each of the initiatives proposed by government to end the housing crisis, has failed abysmally, arguably making our Housing and homelessness crisis, much worse.

Adding to the crisis, is the abysmal performance of RTE in responding to the crisis. It’s approach has been to give extensive airtime to government spokespeople airing initiatives failing to make a dent on homelessness.

 

Soft interviews are the norm, abysmal, cringed interview with Michael Martin on a recent Late Late Show by Ryan Tubridy.

 

Invariably, on RTE opposition spokespeople are brought on to, allegedly, counterbalance with opposing arguments. Repeatedly, various initiatives are discussed often repeated ad infinitum, until the arguments and policies are normalised as part of ordinary radio discourse. The most RTE will do to make the housing crisis real, is to interview people across Ireland as they search for a home.

 

Could we at least take one area of the country, say South Dublin, establish a baseline of need. Look at what’s being built. Do what RTE never do, talk to the builders about their plans. Talk to councillors about what’s needed. Now comes the investigative part. What are the mitigating factors either in Planning, Land Development Agency, Financial obstructing this small area in the country, from making progress on its housing needs.

 

One could argue government policy over the past decade has made our crisis worse, with billions being spent propping up property prices and raising rental costs ironically by bridging gaps between what people can afford and what Landlords and property developers demand. We saw this with Irish Water and European efforts to obstruct public ownership instead to promote private investment that would take ECB European Investment Fund off the Irish books, taking water into private ownership.

 

Luckily, through many efforts that asteroid did not hit us. Similarly, FF/FG will not, because of European Fiscal Space rules curbing investment in infrastructure, they will not jointly support a nationwide, building programme set up and executed though County Councils, to build the infrastucture in housing we require, that is both affordable and supportive of the needs of growing families and individuals. Instead, we have the ever increasing mess denying our population homes they require. Authoritarianism, centralisation, increasing bureaucratization is the norm verging increasingly towards totalitarianism.

 

Its now a distant memory the voters demand for housing and better health care were last listened to.

 

Creation of https://lda.ie/ Land Development Agency with the purposes of The Land Development Agency Act of 2021 https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2021/act/26/section/2/enacted/en/html#sec2 

has been a disaster. It has become a bureaucratic nightmare for developers and local councils to bring about achievable goals to increase housing stock.

 

“The Government has been urged to delay a long-awaited overhaul of the planning system, after senior planners found key parts of the new regime were “unworkable”.

The intervention by the Irish Planning Institute (IPI), which represents more than 1,000 private and public sector planners, has called into question sweeping new laws which are supposed to accelerate building in the face of the worsening housing crisis.

With the delivery of thousands of new homes on hold because of planning and court delays, Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien published draft laws in January in a bid to streamline the system.

The legislation includes contentious measures to bar residents’ associations from taking judicial review cases in the High Court against planning decisions. It will also introduce fines for breaches of new mandatory planning deadlines.”

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/housing-planning/2023/03/27/government-overhaul-of-planning-system-rejected-as-unworkable-by-irish-planning-institute/

There is a pattern emerging here, not enough resources, not enough staff in news room of RTE, in our planning system. Combined with increasing bureaucratization and centralisation if not authoritarianism of our political system from the ground up. Development is being stifled and is seizing up. A giant MESS. Some argue a giant mess brought about by our membership of the EU that has virtually destroyed our Fishing Industry (compare to Norway).

 

But who is to blame? With RTE, a root and branch clear out of top management responsible for its mess, is required asap. We need to take a root and branch clearout of our Dept of Housing that has abysmally failed to deliver. There are many leading NGO’s and those experienced in the construction industry, there are many Micheal O Leary’s of the aviation industry, who’ve the commercial and business experience to bring about needed change in the Dept Housing.

 

Barry Andrews MEP is to be commended for his initiative in bringing a focus on European initiatives that may help unlock property development to ameliorate some of the increasing problems surrounding homelessness in Ireland.

 

The irony is the late hour of the initiatives proposed and the wonder they’ve not been acted on over the past 12 years. Such initiative’s I’ll cover here next blog see his Chapter 4, are of value, but whether such initiatives are a facile cover up of an increasingly totalitarian EU hell bent on reducing the power of local government and hell bent on the spreading of increasing bureaucratization and suppression of the democratic will of people, is yours to judge.

 

FYI I’m using ‘homelessness’ in my extended definition here, not only to represent people forced to live in tents and doorways without a roof over their head, but that increasing population of young families, people forced to live in their parents’ homes, or even in rented accommodation. Unable to create a home for themselves, they may be forced to live in unaffordable rent-to-buy (defined as a home by our present government), or they are forced to leave Ireland unable to work here, unable to afford accommodation costs, should accommodation even be available.

 

Europe and membership of the EU is becoming increasingly disastrous for young Irish people

 

In his interesting interview buried in Drivetime linked above, Barry Andrews MEP, states

 

https://www.housingeurope.eu/section-40/brussels-team

11 problems identified in report including

1. Affordability
2. Supply
3. Young people
4. Unmet need carried forward from rebuilding Ireland

Report is Series of Recommendations that flow from a review of member states and what they are doing to tackle housing crisis in their countries.

Challenges around interest rates, inflation, ukrainian population that have come to EU, also shortages of labour throughout construction sector.

Barry Andrews MEP “Ireland failing to access big pots of money from the EU to develop social housing…don’t think report says Ireland is failing to..report says ireland could do better on particularly some of the new funds that are emerging…eg new social climate fund related to the energy performance of buildings directive which will come into effect next year!!

What I’m trying to correct is the narrative out there that the European union really does not have anything to do with housing…it’s really a matter of national state competence…not only are there major pots there for local authorities, for central government and for approved housing bodies, there’s a massive range of ideas on how we could deliver on issues around affordability and supply, look at Section 4, 19 policy recommendations.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41177782.html

Unfortunately, we have to live with a state of national incompetence in dealing with our homelessness crisis, shortage of supply, price increases. Helped by RTE, homelessness and problems in our health care system eg ‘waiting lists’, ‘lack of beds’, are increasingly sanitised and normalised, mostly through concealment of the real stories, behind  headlines.

 

Till again……

 

 

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