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was the British housing bubble of the 1980s, which was to cause significant problems when it burst in the 1990s. Nevertheless, much less obvious at the time was the impact of credit liberalisation on house prices.

      Ryan-Collins argues in his recent book Why Can’t You Afford a Home? that the most significant impact was a dramatic increase in house prices as mortgage finance actively sought out ever increasing house and land price values which were not only more profitable than standard investment in the productive economy but also more secure. He argues that up to the 1960s house prices were relatively stable irrespective of changes in income and population. However, from the 1960s to the 1990s house prices jumped by a dramatic 65 percent.19 His conclusion is that the ‘evidence suggests that the Anglo-Saxon economies that deregulated their mortgage markets in the 1980s saw faster rises and more volatility than those economies that did not’.20

      While the impact of credit liberalisation on house prices in Southern Ireland was more delayed than in Britain, it did eventually arrive, albeit assisted by a second wave of financial deregulation led by the European Union in the 1990s and access to cheap credit arising from membership of the single currency.

      By the end of the 1980s, however, the more significant outcome was a successful transition from a State funded property-owning housing system to a private finance-led model. In 1971, 68 percent of homes were owner-occupied, the figure rose to 74 percent in 1981 and higher still to 79 percent in 1991.

      When taken together, the reductions in public expenditure on social housing and private buyer subsidies coupled with the liberalisation of mortgage finance brought about the end of the State’s role as the principal funder and provider of housing. The era of asset-based welfare that had been in place for more than half a century was coming to a close. While social and owner-occupier supports would continue in the future, they would be much more peripheral to both Government policy and the overall operation of the housing system.

      The housing system increasingly comprised of residualised public housing catering for a much narrower group of lower-income households and an ever growing private homeowning sector. While the private rental sector underwent little change in terms of size, conditions or regulation this would change as both the squeeze on the social housing sector and the expanding mortgage credit sector converged on the long-neglected tenure.

      In 1988 the National Economic and Social Council (NESC) published a major review of housing policy, based on a detailed analysis of every aspect of the housing system, by John Blackwell from University College Dublin.

      The Council’s recommendations reaffirmed the status of ‘owner occupation as socially desirable’ arguing that ‘it should be encouraged as the main housing tenure’.21 Concern over the residualisation of social housing and the need to reduce public expenditure on owner-occupier supports were also key recommendations.

      Significantly in their discussion of Local Authority Housing the issue of social ‘polarisation’ and ‘segregation’ was raised. The combined impact of the Surrender Grant, tenants purchase and the recession were all noted as causes of increased social-economic marginalisation of some Council estates.22 In response the Council suggested that the

      practice of building large social segregated local authority and private housing estates should be discontinued, and local authorities should plan socially mixed communities by purchasing private houses for letting and building houses for letting in private estates.23

      This and other recommendations were to have a significant impact on the development of housing policy in the coming decade.

      Two important developments at the end of the 1980s were to set the tone for significant changes to housing policy in the coming decade. The 1987 Programme for National Recovery agreed by the Fianna Fáil government was the first in a series of trilateral social partnership agreements involving Government, trade unions and business.

      The core focus of this, and indeed subsequent agreements, was pay and productivity, underpinned by reducing public debt and stabilising the State’s finances. While social policy commitments were included, particularly after the involvement of the community, voluntary and environmental sectors, they were clearly secondary to and dependent on the primary objective of generating economic growth.

      The social policy commitments of the 1987 agreement were contained in a section titled Greater Social Equity and detailed twenty-two actions across social welfare, health, education and housing. The fact that there were just two commitments on housing policy indicated where it lay in the social partners’ priorities. The agreement included a promise to introduce new legislation dealing with homelessness and a ‘special emphasis … to be given to the housing needs of disadvantaged groups’.

      The following year saw the passing of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1988 which provided for the first time a statutory definition of homelessness and created a dedicated stream of funding for Councils and Approved Housing Bodies (AHB) to provide accommodation and supports for people experiencing homelessness. The Act also introduced a new requirement on Local Authorities to produce triennial social housing needs assessments and social housing plans.

      However, the real shift in housing policy came with the publication in 1991 of A Plan for Social Housing by the Department of Environment. This was the first major statement of Government housing policy since the 1969 Department of Local Government document, Housing in the Seventies.

      The 1991 plan set out an overarching approach for housing policy underpinned by the significant changes to funding and provision that took place during the previous decade. While heavily influenced by the 1988 NESC report, it lacked much of the earlier document’s nuance. Crucially it laid the foundations of a policy consensus that has informed almost all Government housing policy since.

      The plan sets out three key objectives: ‘promoting owner occupation as the form of tenure preferred by most people; developing and implementing responses appropriate to changing social housing needs, [and] mitigating the extent and effects of social segregation in housing’.24 It promised to ‘introduce a range of new measures to deal with social housing need’ which were expected to ‘improve housing prospects and [grant] quicker access to housing for people of limited means’ as well as ensure ‘a more efficient and equitable use of resources, improved opportunities for community and voluntary action in housing [and] more choice in housing’.25

      The document exuded a certain optimism detailing that, according to the first Housing Needs Assessment carried out under the 1988 Act, there were just 19,000 households in need of social housing and that 1990 saw the first increase in capital spending for social housing since 1984.

      To meet this housing need the plan promised ‘a range of complimentary and innovative measures that will reduce the traditional degree of dependence on local authority housing’.26 Crucially the document asserted that ‘The resumption of house building by local authorities on the scale of the early to mid-eighties … would not now be appropriate.’27 This was a very narrow interpretation of the NESC recommendation on the need to counteract class segregation.

      The significant policy shift was justified as being ‘in line with the international trend which is away from the direct provision of housing by public authorities’ and was designed to avoid ‘reinforced social segregation’ which was deemed to have been a feature of the more traditional approach to social housing provision.

      While clearly the primary rationale for this new diversification was fiscal, i.e. avoiding a return to large-scale capital expenditure, the 1991 Plan was the first occasion in which the policy objective of promoting ‘a better social mix’ was clearly set out.28

      To achieve these objectives the plan outlined a twin track approach of improved capital spending for direct Local Authority building to increase output in 1991, alongside a medium-term target for the new delivery streams to reach 5,000 social housing units a year. However, it was estimated that these new streams would initially deliver just 750 homes in 1991 and within three years reach the 5,000 target.

      Central to these new delivery streams was an enhanced role for Approved Housing Bodies. Up until that point the role of the not-for-profit sector

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