The Lost Decade of Social and Affordable Housing: Austerity and Marketisation

This chapter outlines the ‘lost decade’ of social housing provision in Ireland: the austerity and marketisation policies that resulted in the collapse of social housing building from 2009 to 2019. It shows how austerity measures involved an intensification of the ongoing neoliberal shift from the direct building of social housing by local authorities to the marketisation of social housing provision through the private sector. The forms of marketisation are detailed including the increased use of the private rental sector for social housing (via subsidies and leasing), but also the purchasing of units from the private market. It details how from 2010 onwards, the provision of social housing via subsidies to the private rental sector almost entirely replaced direct building of social housing. This includes the Governments housing plan, Rebuilding Ireland which embedded marketisation and austerity, by using the housing benefit - the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) as the main form of housing provision. It details how HAP and other private market forms of social housing provision worsens the housing supply crisis, is poor value for money, results in tenant insecurity and discrimination, and facilitates the financialisation of housing. And how this is one of the main reasons the Irish housing system suffered such a major shock with the emergence of a new homelessness crisis in 2013.