79 minute read
Interview: Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien TD
Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien TD: “A matter of moral urgency”
Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage Darragh O’Brien TD published his Affordable Housing Bill with Cabinet approval on 4 May 2021, as news broke that a global investment company had block purchased most of a new housing development in Maynooth. The result was an instantaneous revival of intense media and public scrutiny of the ongoing housing crisis. Speaking with Ciarán Galway, the Minister discusses his legislative priorities, first time buyers and ambition.
To what extent have successive governments failed ‘generation rent’ and ‘generation stuck at home’?
This Government have put delivery, affordability and the chance to own your home at the very heart of housing policy. But it’s clear we have an ongoing affordability crisis. It has reduced home ownership rates to historic lows. It has increased the age of the average first time buyer by almost a decade to 35 years of age. Ireland has dropped from a world leader to below the EU average rate of home ownership. A generation is caught in an unaffordable rent trap, and as Housing Minister I’m committed to finding genuine solutions to help those people.
There are five main aspects to the
Affordable Housing Bill 2021 including the first direct build affordable housing programme by our local authorities in over a decade, a new form of cost rental tenure, a targeted and time-bound shared equity scheme, an increase in the Part V provision from 10 per cent social to a flat 20 per cent social and affordable with a minimum 10 per cent social housing and the provision of an owner occupier guarantee which will allow local authorities to designate a certain percentage of houses and duplexes for individual buyers.
I believe the rent pressure zones (RPZs), introduced in 2016, which had a cap of 4 per cent on rent increases, became a target for some instead, these RPZs expire at the end of 2021 and I am working with my department on options for their replacement as part of an overall rent reform Bill which will be brought forward in the autumn.
The new cost rental model, which will deliver 440 homes this year and which we hope to significantly scale up in the coming years, will also mark a step change in the rental market. It’s a model where the tenant pays the cost of delivering, managing, and maintaining the homes only. It will be long-term secure tenure.
What has this government delivered in the housing brief in the last 11 months?
Despite the challenges presented by the pandemic, government has been focused on progressing major reforms that will accelerate and increase the supply of housing — public, affordable and private. Boosting supply is key to resolving so many of our housing challenges, whether it’s helping those experiencing homelessness into a permanent home, reducing the numbers on our social housing waiting lists, or addressing our affordability crisis.
Immediately following my appointment in June last year, I convened two top level groups to focus on urgent actions around homelessness and social and affordable housing delivery. These groups consist of high-level officials, and key stakeholders across homeless charities, approved housing bodies, the Housing Agency and local government. Through these groups, we are trying to accelerate successful exits from homelessness, keep delivery at the highest pace possible, work through any blockages, and understand and address challenges arising from Covid-19.
Acknowledging that Covid-19 does present a massive challenge to delivery, in July 2020 we announced €40 million in funding as part of the Government’s stimulus programme for the refurbishment of 2,500 vacant social homes, which would be completed and allocated in 2020. This target was exceeded with 2,565 vacant social homes brought back into use across all our local authorities as a result of the voids stimulus. In total 3,607 vacant social homes were brought back into use nationally. Just recently (Friday 21 May 2021), we announced another voids programme with another 3,000 vacant social homes to be brought back into use this year.
We’ve also taken a number of practical steps to speed up delivery, revising the single stage approval process for capital expenditure on social housing construction projects up to €6 million; a key commitment in the Programme for Government which means that local authorities will have greater autonomy in constructing social housing, leading to accelerated delivery. We increased the threshold on the Repair and Lease scheme from €40,000 to a maximum of €60,000 to assist in bringing vacant properties back into use for social housing purposes and we have substantially increased funding for Irish Water which will help to unlock capacity for housing and development.
In the past year, I have introduced four separate pieces of rent protection legislation, providing protections to those who need them most while the pandemic continues, and we are currently working on a rent reform bill to be brought forward in the autumn.
Cost rental, a model which has been talked about for a number of years, will see its first tenancies delivered this year, and will be delivered at scale in the coming years. So, government has clearly sent a message to those who are renting that we do acknowledge the uncertainty that it brings and that we are working to make it a secure form of tenure for those who want it.
On homelessness we have made some progress but the situation remains challenging. Family homelessness is now at its lowest level since March 2016 and, thankfully, there has been an 80 per cent decrease in the numbers of families accommodated in hotels. But we need to keep doing all we can to support all those who are experiencing homelessness and we absolutely need to drive down the numbers experiencing homelessness, in particular in the numbers of single adults.
Earlier this year, government announced a total of €1.3 billion in Urban Regeneration and Development Funding (URDF). At its core this fund aims to deliver more compact and sustainable development ensuring our urban areas become attractive and vibrant places in which to live, work, visit and invest.
Since taking office, government has made the Affordable Housing Bill and the Land Development Agency Bill legislative priorities. Combined, these two Bills will work together to give people the opportunity of ownership. They are landmark pieces of legislation and are backed up by the largest housing budget in the history of the State. The Government has made a commitment that everybody should have access to good-quality housing to purchase or rent at an affordable price, built to a high
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standard, and located close to essential services, offering a high quality of life. I’m focused on bringing measures in that are going to help us achieve that goal. There is no silver bullet, and we cannot fix our housing crisis overnight. But I’m confident that at that we’re going in the right direction.
What are the objectives of the Affordable Housing Bill 2021?
The Affordable Housing Bill 2021 puts affordability back at the heart of the housing system and will reshape delivery of housing in Ireland. The Bill now has five key elements. It will provide for the first local authority-led, direct build affordable homes on State lands in more than a decade and our first ever national cost rental scheme. It also includes an innovative shared equity scheme and an expansion of Part V to help first time buyers.
The rollout of local authority-led, direct build affordable housing will be the central plank of the Government's affordable housing plan. Units will range from €160,000 to €310,000 and the upcoming Housing for All plan, which will be published this summer, will set out the ambitious range of targets throughout the State over the coming years.
Cost Rental has been much spoken about, but the Affordable Housing Bill finally puts this new and much needed tenure type on a firm legislative footing. This will help us deliver cost rental homes in the short term — we’ll see the first tenancies later this year — and into the future as we develop a more sustainable, affordable, high quality rental sector.
The conversation around the Affordable Housing Bill has at times zeroed in on the shared equity scheme. I welcome discussion, any scheme worth its salt has to stand up to scrutiny and take on board constructive suggestions but it will be a targeted, short-term measure designed to help people buy homes this year and boost housing supply.
There are inactivated planning permissions for over 40,000 units in Dublin alone and 80,000 nationally — we need these permissions to be activated. To directly address the concerns raised around potential price inflation we have put in place regional price caps. These are price caps, not targets, they are the upper limit at which a person can avail of the scheme. They are based on evidence from the CSO median house price data and provide for a range of house types within them to reflect market demand. Ultimately, they help to capture as many new units as possible while mitigating against any inflationary effect.
To put the scheme in context, it has been allocated €75 million, or 2.3 per cent of our €3.3 billion housing budget or 0.68 per cent of the overall €11 billion mortgage market. It is based on equity not debt with no obligation to buy it out so it is not a second mortgage and the macro prudential rules are fully protected. We are continuing to engage with the Central Bank on the scheme but I am confident it will offer those people who want to buy their own home this year a chance to do so.
The decision to increase the Part V provision to 20 per cent — with 10 per cent social and 10 per cent affordable — repeals the 2015 decision to reduce Part V and further strengthens it by applying it across every local authority. In real terms, this will result in an additional 3,500 affordable units per annum when fully operational.
Finally, the owner occupier guarantee which government has agreed to introduce, will allow local authorities designate a set amount of homes and duplexes (up to 50 per cent) for individual buyers into the future. Each of these measures demonstrate clearly that this government supports home ownership and wants to make it a reality.
Given the structural challenges which exist within the Irish housing market, what impact will the Affordable Purchase Shared Equity Loan Scheme have?
The new Affordable Purchase Equity Scheme will be targeted, time and
finance limited, and subject to regional price caps in order to immediately activate supply, counter any inflation risk and unlock realisable demand. It will be targeted at first time buyers who are seeking to buy a new home, but who cannot quite secure the full mortgage amount to do so at the present time. It will immediately help up to 2,000 potential owners this year.
The scheme will allow people who are currently paying more in rent than a mortgage would cost, to buy their first home. It’s the difference between them continuing to pay rent while trying to save every other cent over the next few years, and being able to purchase a home and pay down a mortgage this year. Again, to put the scheme in context, it has been allocated €75 million, or 2.3 per cent of our €3.3 billion housing budget or 0.68 per cent of the overall €11 billion mortgage market. Taken in tandem with the other measures in the Affordable Housing Bill it will incentivise new builds for new buyers in right places at right price points.
How will the Land Development Agency Bill 2021, coupled with the Affordable Housing Bill 2021 change how the LDA operates?
The LDA is a historic new agency and it will be a driving force to deliver affordable homes at scale and ensure we don’t let State lands lie idle in the middle of an emergency. The LDA has the potential to be a game changer in making sure we use every acre of land owned by the State effectively. It will assess all State land in our large towns and cities and where it’s needed, develop them for social and affordable housing.
House prices and cost rents will be set at an affordable level by geographic area by the Minister for Housing through regulations. This allows for local flexibility rather than a single rigid approach. The Bill, currently progressing in the Oireachtas, places the Agency on a statutory footing with legally set core goals of affordability and strategic land management. The Agency is already working on developing nine sites with local authorities on over 3,000 new homes. As I said earlier, increasing housing supply is a key objective for the Government and the LDA will play a key role in this regard.
How do you intend to “level the playing field” for first time buyers?
The Government is taking firm action to protect traditional family homes from bulk purchases while maintaining investment where it is needed. This will be done through an immediate stamp duty hike which was introduced by Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe TD and longer-term planning permission changes made by my department.
We have already issued new planning guidelines by way of a departmental circular under Section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 to require local authorities and An Bord Pleanála to prohibit bulk buying of houses and duplexes and we will be making an amendment to the Affordable Housing Bill to include the “owner occupier guarantee” allowing local authorities designate a set amount of homes and duplexes (up to 50 per cent) for individual buyers into the future.
These actions were taken swiftly in response to the very understandable frustration and anger at investment funds buying homes and crowding first time buyers out of the market. But these measures alone are not a silver bullet. They complement other government supports like direct build of affordable homes by local authorities, the expanded Help to Buy scheme and the new shared equity scheme to help level the playing field for first time buyers and turn generation rent into a generation that can own their home.
What do you hope to achieve over the next 12 months in your remit as Housing Minister?
In the immediate term, I want to see the Affordable Housing Bill and the LDA Bill enacted swiftly so that people can reach their goal of home ownership this year. The Government has also committed to establishing a Commission on Housing and this forum will examine a range of issues from tenures and standards to the quality-of-life issues in the provision of housing.
We have been clear that we will use every tool in our armoury to tackle our housing crisis and this involves harnessing the expertise and experiences of others — I hope to have this Commission established shortly.
I also want us to continue to drive down homeless numbers. In 2020 alone, almost 5,900 such exits from homelessness have been achieved. All these exits were to homes with tenancies. This work must continue in earnest. We are working on expanding the Housing First initiative, which provides homeless people with high support needs with housing and the wraparound supports required to maintain their tenancy. There are now over 500 active Housing First tenancies nationwide, and the success rate of these tenancies shows us that the approach is working.
Two very significant pieces of legislation are currently being worked on, one in relation to rental protections and tenure and the other in relation to planning. It is my intention that both will be published in the autumn. There is a lot more involved in this crisis than just the future of a single political party or government. Getting to grips with the challenge is a matter of moral urgency and civic duty.
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KPMG Ireland hosted a virtual round table discussion with experts from across local government and industry, applying their experience and insight to explore the role of local authorities in climate mitigation and adaptation.
In planning for the future, why is it important that local authorities give due regard to the National Planning Framework (NPF) and emerging technologies?
Shane O’Reilly
The National Planning Framework is Ireland’s national strategy for sustainable planning and development. It is strategically aligned to the National Development Plan. Within the National Planning Framework, several key strategic objectives, including sustainable mobility, high-quality international connectivity, and particularly the transition to a low carbon and climate resilient society, have innovative technologies at their core. Therefore, to ensure both future growth and development at local city, urban settlement, and rural scales, alongside the application of best practice technology, it is essential that local authorities have regard for and alignment with the NPF. It is a cohesive and proactive plan spanning the next 20 years and beyond and, in theory, it should maximise the utility of resources it spends on development and innovation. It is essentially preparing Ireland for the upcoming climate challenges it will face. In being proactive, it should have a degree of flexibility because circumstances will change, and technologies will emerge much more rapidly.
Round table discussion hosted by
Kieran Reeves
The National Planning Framework is only one component of a national policy framework that includes climate action and transportation, but it provides real spatial coherence to what we must deliver in terms of compact growth along with its associated values. The NPF is interesting in that it aligns itself to the UN Social Development Goals and as such, in Limerick, we plan to align the Development Plan for 2022 to 2028 with the SDGs. The link to the National
Development Plan is very coherent and is critical in enabling us to come up with plans and policies, alongside the funding mechanisms to go with it. The URDF [Urban Regeneration and Development Fund] programme of investment has been really critical to us in Limerick in the last two rounds. We have put in place solid plans for the future of Limerick in the Limerick 2030 strategy. Furthermore, we have created new vehicles to deliver that vision trough Limerick 2030 Strategic Development DAC, established to drive forward key investments. Funding for some of this will come directly through the National Planning Framework via the National Development Plan and the URDF. Through our involvement in the Positive City Xchange Horizon 2020 project, we have created an inclusive vision incorporating citizen innovation labs, complementing the innovation coming directly from the National Planning Framework. It’s going to drive us.
Alan Dunney
The National Planning Framework is a really important policy framework. Both the National Adaptation Framework and the All of Government Climate Action Plan recognise the NPF as being a critical instrument in enabling the delivery of climate targets and building resilience at that local level. Ultimately, all local mitigation and adaptation measures will be delivered on the ground, and it is important that an overarching plan is in place so that we all work towards a common purpose. In relation to emerging technology, we are a very innovative country. For instance, employment in the technology sector in Dublin city is around 9 per cent, three-times greater than the EU average. We need to leverage that in terms of digitalising and automating our services, contributing to the sustainability agenda.
Clare McKeown
In Belfast, the net zero carbon transition is going to be a massive challenge, primarily from an engineering perspective. The decarbonisation of electricity and in particular the electrification of heat and transport sectors are the two key responses. It will be vital to have the planning frameworks 4
Roundtable Participants
1. Alan Dunney
Alan is the Regional Coordinator for the Eastern and Midlands Climate Action Regional Office (EM CARO) which is hosted by Kildare County Council. He is a civil engineer by profession and has worked in local government for 20 years. He has experience across several local authority functions including transportation, construction, water services capital and operations, flood risk management and landfill regeneration. He has been leading the EM CARO since its establishment in late 2018.
2. Clare McKeown
Clare McKeown is Sustainable Development Manager at Belfast City Council. She has been at the forefront of sustainable development policy implementation for almost two decades at both local and national level, as a senior policy advisor with the UK Sustainable Development Commission in Northern Ireland and subsequently Head of the Whitehall Team. She is currently leading a number of climate finance and technology related projects.
3. Shane O’Reilly
Shane O’Reilly is a Director within KPMG Sustainable Futures and leads the ESG and Sustainability service line. KPMG Sustainable Futures is a dedicated cross-functional team of experts who help corporates and public sector clients plan and execute programmes addressing ESG topics, decarbonisation, and long-term value creation. Shane holds an MBA, MSc in environmental management and a BSc in industrial and environmental chemistry.
4. Ger Mulvaney
Ger Mulvaney is Director of Risk and Compliance at IPB Insurance and has circa 20 years’ experience in the Insurance Industry. Ger joined IPB Insurance in June 2014, assuming the role of head of risk in 2016 and subsequently risk and compliance in 2018. Prior to joining IPB, he worked in the Central Bank of Ireland as an insurance supervision manager overseeing the risk-based supervision of several large international insurance companies. Ger started his career at PwC where he qualified as a chartered accountant and gained several years’ experience in the audit of insurance and other financial services companies.
5. Kieran Reeves
Kieran Reeves is a Senior Executive Planner in Urban Innovation at Limerick City and County Council. An experienced senior urban planner with over 25 years of local government experience in Dublin and Limerick, he has worked in a variety of areas including development management and strategic planning policy at local and regional levels. In recent times, Kieran has worked in the area of economic development as part of a wholly local authority-owned property development company – Limerick 2030 where he oversaw the development of strategic sites in the city centre. Currently he is working in the Urban Innovation Unit targeting the renewal of the historic city core.
Shane O’Reilly, Director, Sustainable Futures, KPMG Ireland
ready to adopt those. Knowing exactly where grid upgrades will be required for example for charging electric vehicles at night is going to be a key part of how we prepare for the future. We see the marriage of digitalisation and the decarbonisation processes as the new global industrial revolution. It is a huge technological transformation, and the planning system must enable it. In Belfast, we are looking at new building regulations and retrofitting the existing stock to an advanced low carbon standard, these issues will be a core component of this transition. Going forward a key priority will be to develop an effective public engagement strategy to build consent and maintain support for new measures given the costs and adjustments that will be required to transition to a net zero future.
Ger Mulvaney
Clearly, there are broad systemic issues at play when we are talking about the effects of climate change and the risk of increased instances of natural catastrophes such as windstorms, floods, and wildfires. A coordinated national approach involving all stakeholders and available technologies is the way forward that is most likely to be successful. In relation to technology, insurance providers would like to see increased use of big data, for example, this could include tapping into information held by the technology multinationals located here in Ireland to assist with risk management. Likewise, catastrophe models are tools that can be deployed to identify, assess, and manage natural catastrophe risks. These models are highly sophisticated in terms of assessing the likelihood of storms and floods, as well as the associated damage. The increased use of such models is trending up across Europe and indeed globally, and Ireland is catching up in this space.
To what extent are planning regulations a help or hindrance to sustainable development?
Kieran Reeves
The mechanics of regulation are fine, but I think addressing the regulation around the creation of our plans is much more important. Physical regulations around buildings, for example, must react to technology advancements, and already have in some instances, including in relation to nearly zero-energy buildings. The system already allows for the regulations to be changed quickly to reflect changes in technology or circumstances. However, there is a need for change in how we make our plan and policies. Two years to devise a city or country development plan is too long. Additionally, development plans are running to over 1,000 pages. That does not incentivise collective buy in or support. People do not want to engage with such a long and detailed process but that is what is happening. We need to simplify and disaggregate the process to enable greater agility. At the core of this is the need to create a proper vision for the future and the establishment of key performance indicators and targets. Around this vision, a series of action plans are developed and continuously updated to reflect changes in circumstances, finance, etcetera. The pace of change in relation to the climate agenda is so fast that even existing policy frameworks will require agility.
Alan Dunney
The length of time it takes to develop a county development plan is a challenge. We are seeing local development plans going out for consultation but with the new all-of-government Climate Action Plan and the Climate Amendment Bill likely to be enacted soon, the goal posts will have shifted significantly. Nationally, the Wind Energy Development Guidelines and the Development Plan Guidelines
Alan Dunney, Regional Coordinator, Eastern and Midlands Climate Action Regional Office
would also be of great benefit to the forward planning process, particularly as our planners are looking at a development horizon to 2025.
Kieran Reeves
In Limerick City and County Council, we consulted on the development plan last summer and I aligned every submission with the UN Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs], comparing them to what we did in 2010. Undoubtedly, there is a shift in public desire from economic concerns to a focus on communities. That is not a shift that has occurred overnight. Factors such as the merger of the two local authorities in Limerick and the development of the National Planning Framework and regional strategies has meant that is now over 10 years since the last development plan. Local authorities need to be able to respond much quicker and be increasingly innovative in their actions so that they evolve to match circumstances, technologies, and progress.
Shane O’Reilly
Planning regulations are beneficial, but they need to be supported by practical application, at a correct spatial scale, to avoid becoming a hindrance. The UN Sustainable Development Goals have only been around for between three and four years, which is probably not long enough to make a material difference but what they are doing is shaping national planning and a wider legislative framework across Europe. The alignment of the NPF’s strategic outcomes and strategic investment priorities is based on sustainability, so there is a clear direction of travel. If designed and implemented with the proper goals, planning regulations can greatly help the emergence of sustainable development by ensuring that sustainable solutions are elevated to goals. The key challenge with planning regulations is to ensure they keep pace with the times and ensure that expectations match the level of affordable technologies, providing sufficient incentives to upgrade outdated technologies.
How can local authorities facilitate a sustainable future for natural resources such as waterways, forestry, and biodiversity?
Clare McKeown
Local authorities are large landowners. We own parks, playing fields, woodlands, and forestry, with rivers running through some of that estate also. Managing these spaces into the future will be important in order to protect biodiversity and use that land for climate adaptation purposes. This is evident in Belfast City Council’s new Blue and Green Infrastructure Plan. We are also coordinating Belfast’s One Million Trees programme. While the initiative is inherently positive, where these trees are planted and the species that are planted is vitally important. As such, we intend to liaise with communities over the 10-year lifespan of the programme. Learning from other cities about nature-based Climate solutions is important. Belfast is a member of the Global Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cities Network. It enabled us to observe the plans that other cities, such as Rotterdam, were undertaking.
Shane O’Reilly
While national plans can provide guidance for development, specific objectives can be defined by local authorities and communities. When it comes to local authorities and natural resources, it is important to consider what they can control and influence. Local authorities have a great influence on the sustainable future of their natural resources. As such, they have a key role in evaluating the current condition of their natural resources, benchmarking this against national or international leaders, before creating a cost-benefit analysis to determine objectives for the local authority and the community. What is currently being achieved by local authorities through green and blue infrastructure strategies and biodiversity plans is evidence that where they do have control and appropriate objectives, a positive outcome is deliverable.
Alan Dunney
It is about leadership, as exhibited by the work of LAWPRO and the community water officers, our environmental awareness officers, heritage officers and area engineers. There are several examples of effective initiatives. Firstly, most counties will now have adopted the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan. If you drive the length and breadth of the country, you will see that there are different techniques being used to manage our land banks, road verges and our parks. Secondly, many local authorities are beginning to engage with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine on its afforestation programme. Thirdly, the County City Management Association is collaborating with the GAA, as a major landowner, to drive climate action and sustainability through the GAA network. Running in parallel to the Healthy Club initiative, the Green Club Programme aims to drive four pillars of climate awareness into the community: energy; biodiversity; water; and travel. 4
Ger Mulvaney
Fundamentally, the Government and local authorities have undertaken many useful initiatives, but what people individually are doing themselves is vital to protecting our natural resources. To that end, cultural change is necessary, and we have not quite got there yet. This requires some critical reflection on the actions taken to date to ensure buy in as well as contribution at an individual level and the GAA initiative is an example of that taking root. There is only so much that government or a local authority can do without communities of people also assuming a leadership role.
Kieran Reeves
Blue and green infrastructure will play a critical role in the transition to a sustainable future. Through their own example, local authorities provide leadership in this sphere. Equally, it is about engaging with our communities. The Public Participation Network allows the local authority to engage with communities as part of the decisionmaking process. We are lucky in Limerick to have the support of the JP McManus Charitable Foundation which, in partnership with the Council and communities across Limerick, sponsors a range of community initiatives including Team Limerick Clean Up and Going for Gold. Beyond this, the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund can be utilised to support communities in developing smarter, active travel routes. This means connecting different parts of our towns and villages, through the GAA clubs, the schools, and the housing estates, using safe walking and cycling alternatives to roads. It is critical that we engage and involve all facets of society in our decision-making. Limerick City and County Council is developing a Citizens’ Observatory as part of the Positive City Xchange project and another EU project called Green Leaf where people are invited to contribute data and information about their local environment and to contribute to the policy making process.
How can the benefits of collaboration between industry and local authorities be maximised?
Alan Dunney
We need to be innovative in relation to the partnerships we develop to facilitate a variety of projects, ranging from anaerobic digestion through to residential retrofit. The private sector is showing flexibility and agility in how it is beginning to deal with the challenges of climate change and there is an opportunity for us to work with industry to facilitate the changes that are needed. There are many areas in which local government can benefit from partnership with the private sector and there are a lot of new opportunities for economic growth arising from climate action. Equally, demand from the private sector to partner with local authorities is increasing, with the realisation that local authorities have responsibility for on-the-ground delivery.
Clare McKeown
Given the speed required for transformation, collaboration between local government and industry is key. Innovation will be required on a large scale, as will the need to work together to solve problems. Business can be supported to come up with new solutions for the benefit of society through SBRI initiatives. We have been fortunate enough to be involved in three Innovate UK fund collaborations, bringing together the public and private sectors, along with SMEs and academia to solve problems. We are currently working on £9.2 million fund seeking to repurpose Virgin Media’s communication infrastructure for on street charging for electric vehicles in residential areas. The EU Horizon 2020 fund is another route. These types of collaborations evidently create new jobs, new industries and promote wealth creation and inward investment. I am pleased that our city is engaging with those institutions and businesses.
Kieran Reeves
The public sector can act as challenge setters to encourage private sector innovation. Limerick is one of two EU ‘lighthouse’ cities selected for a major climate change pilot programme. The Positive City Xchange smart city project aims to establish Limerick as Ireland’s first positive Energy City. We are working with a multitude of companies ranging from start-ups to established companies and, in the coming weeks, will be testing a small river turbine programme in the River Shannon in a bid to support local communities. The Small Business Innovation Research fund is another fantastic tool whereby local authorities and public sector bodies can support private sector innovation in research and development. We can provide sandboxes for the private sector to test and evolve solutions, all the while capturing the benefits for the public good.
Shane O’Reilly
The Covid-19 response has served to highlight how collaboration can offer interconnected solutions. Climate change challenges facing local authorities can be very complex and multiple stakeholder engagement is the preferred route to solutions. Collective, cumulative
Kieran Reeves, Senior Executive Planner, Urban Innovation, Limerick City and County Council
resources generally benefit all parties, particularly if it is a community public impact project. Maximisation can be achieved through the likes of open forum discussions, collaboration on strategic future planning and private engagement through PPPs.
How will climate mitigation and adaptation programmes be funded and insured into the future?
Ger Mulvaney
The insurance model works because funding from the many pays for the claims of the few. If this were to become funding from the many pays for the claims of the many, it would likely provoke a collapse of the business model where insurance becomes too costly or no longer viable. What insurers are doing is stress and scenario testing to get a sense of the exposures in relation to climate change. There is a realisation of a need to evolve from being the indemnifier of all that could go wrong to helping to mitigate and manage the risk down. As we observe increased migration of investment portfolios towards environmental, social and governance criteria and sustainable-type investments, it is in the insurers interest to follow a similar strategy. Additionally, IPB is evolving its product offering to ensure it better aligns with the sustainable activity of local authorities. Insurers also have access to the global reinsurance market and data to assist in really understanding the risks. We are working with local authorities to help understand and quantify the risks and support mitigation but there is space for greater collaboration. Clare McKeown
Identifying how we are going to finance the transition is going to be vitally important and we need to ensure we are planning ahead in order to avoid having stranded assets and to ensure a Just Transition. Belfast City Council is a member of Place Based Climate Action Network or PCAN, an Economic and Social Research Council-supported network with a sharp focus on green finance, green business development and the just transition. The PCAN project is bringing together the research community, climate strategies, financiers and decisionmakers in the public, private and third sectors to explore green finance and green business. It has been hugely informative in understanding how green finance will operate and how it can be mobilised into the city.
Kieran Reeves
Globally, there is an understanding that if we don’t handle this transition properly, the world economy could collapse. Currently, the technology exists to get us to 2030 but post-2030 we are going to need a massive acceleration of technology, that will need to be financed, managed and future proofed. That challenge is focusing minds and we’re seeing the emergence of several funds for sustainable investments. Horizon Europe, for example, is a €95 billion programme and we’re starting to see other innovations including the monetisation of data to mitigate risks. In one colourful analogy, our current situation is akin to building an aeroplane mid-flight while running out of fuel and trying to determine how to land it. Alan Dunney
I do not think funding should be a barrier to getting our structures established and getting our staff ready to embrace this challenge. There is €1 trillion aligned with the European Green Deal Ireland will benefit from access to that. Additionally, the Programme for Government has pledged that €1 in every €5 in Ireland’s capital budget for transport is to be spent on active travel each year. Meanwhile, the OPW has set out nearly €1 billion for flood risk management over the course of the NDP. Local government has been pursuing climate change work for the last number of years and I do not think access to funding should be a barrier to getting on with that work. All that said, funding will be required over the coming years to really tackle mitigation and adaptation projects at a scale required to meet our obligations under the Local Authority Climate Action Charter.
Shane O’Reilly
Climate finance is the cornerstone of the EU’s Green Deal and access to green finance will play an ever-increasing part of central and local government budgeting. Our five-year climate budgets, as proposed in the Climate Action Bill, are a potential mechanism to apply taxation to the heaviest of greenhouse gas emitters; not just those who are currently part of the EU ETS, but all industries and sectors. While funds available are vast, there is significant competition for access, and they are not endless. Those at the top of the pile for funding will be the greener and more mitigating projects and I am hoping that this competition will accelerate the innovation we need over the next decade.
Home ownership rates collapse
Income poverty and material deprivation, two key indicators of living standards, have declined by one-half and a one-quarter respectively in Ireland between 1994 and 2019, a new report has found. Despite this, high incidence of low living standards among lone parents, their children, and those of working age in households without anyone in paid work.
In the report, Poverty, income equality and living standards in Ireland by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), it was found that Irish income equality is at its lowest ever recorded level “on the eve of the pandemic”. Ireland’s score on the Gini coefficient, a measure of the distribution of income across populations designed to gauge income inequality, was 16 per cent lower in 2019 than it had been in 1987.
Disposable income growth was also found to have been strong, “if volatile” despite “a lost decade between 2007 and 2017”. Income growth over the last three decades has been “remarkably strong”, averaging more than 3 per cent per year in real terms. Income growth was also found to have been broad-based, rising by 3.6 per cent per year on average for the lowest-income fifth of people compared to 2.7 per cent for the highest-income fifth.
Income inequality has risen sharply in most western economies in this period, but the ESRI states that this has largely been avoided in Ireland due to high employment following the 2008 recession. However, high incidence of low living standards among marginalised groupings such as lone parents and intergenerational inequality in areas such as homeownership will remain as causes for concern.
Intergenerational inequality in housing
• One of the key findings of the report is that “in addition to poorer prospects in the labour market, a growing share of young adults are facing high housing costs”.
This is attributed to the collapse of homeownership rates for young adults, from over 60 per cent at age 30 for those born in the 1960s to less than 20 per cent for those born in the late 1980s, meaning many more young people are now “more exposed to rapidly rising rents, especially in urban areas”.
• More than a fifth of those born in the 1980s were paying more than 30 per cent of their disposable income on housing at age 30, while only 13 per cent of those born in the 1970s were doing the same. ESRI data did not extend back far enough to survey older generations at age 30, although it was found that less than 10 per cent of those born in the 1960s spent more than 30 per cent of their disposable income on housing around age 40, compared to 13 per cent of those born in the 1970s.
• The report states that the “combined effect of these developments is to cast a pall over the prospects of young adults and should be cause of serious concern for society at large”. It then suggests that one area where “policy can help is ensuring the provision of high-quality active labour market programmes with sufficient capacity to cater for the numbers that will need them in the years ahead”; these policies, it states can “tackle the root causes of high rents [and] will also disproportionately benefit those younger adults who otherwise risk being left behind”.
Living standards
• Rates of income poverty and material deprivation, two key indicators of low living standards, have declined substantially across the population as a whole: by one-quarter and by one-half respectively between 1994 and 2019.
Under all three definitions of income poverty, where the poverty line is defined by a rate of median equivalised disposable income, the rate rose over the 1990s, from 17.8 per cent in 1987 to 21.4 per cent in 1999 using the 60 per cent of median equivalised disposable income definition; from 8 per cent to 12.7 per cent using the 50 per cent equivalent definition; and from 4 per cent to 6 per cent using the 40 per cent definition, despite a fall in the early 1990s. All three measures then declined substantially over the 2000s such that they had fallen below their 1987 level in 2010.
• However, the report found consistently high levels of income poverty and material deprivation among lone parents, their children, and those of working age in households without anyone in paid work. This predates the Great
Recession and has been an enduring feature of Irish society since at least the early 1990s. Material deprivation is here defined as a household unable to afford two or more of the following items: two pairs of strong shoes; a warm waterproof overcoat; new (not second-hand) clothes; replacement of worn out furniture; a meal with meat, chicken, fish (or vegetarian equivalent) every second day; a roast joint or its equivalent once a week; home heating during the last year; presents for family or friends at least once a year; drinks or a meal for family or friends once a month; and a morning, afternoon or evening of entertainment once a fortnight. According to the report, child deprivation rates are much higher for children in one adult households. The rate of deprivation for children in one-adult households has stood above 40 per cent in all but three of the years since 1987, and more than 50 per cent for most of that time.
• The report states that “the incidence of income poverty and material deprivation remains closely linked to the absence of anyone in paid work, both in single- and multi-adult households”, which “suggests that the social welfare system may provide a more targeted and effective tool for addressing low living standards than policies to increase low hourly wages”. It is warned that this “should also give rise to concerns about the impact of Covid-19 related job losses, particularly if those who have lost work are unable to return to their previous positions or find new ones for an extended period of time”.
Building on belief
Deepak Chaudhari, Country Head for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in Ireland, outlines the company’s global reach and its ambitions to bring its global experiences to Irish customers through its expanded capabilities in Ireland.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was established over 50 years ago and has grown into a global player in the IT services sector, with 488,000 employees in 46 countries.
The multinational company generated US $22 billion in the fiscal year to 31 March 2021 and Chaudhari believes that TCS’s commitment to its customers lies behind figures of 98 per cent repeat business.
The Country Head in Ireland highlights TCS’s reputation as a quality employer and points to its recognition as a Global Top Employer by the Top Employers Institute — one of eight organisations worldwide to have achieved this status.
“We have a hugely talented team with digital technology and business operations skills. There is a great working environment and the company offers employees exciting learning and development opportunities,” explains Chaudhari. “TCS is also one of the largest employers of women, with a 36.4 per cent ratio of female employees.” across 10 key industries including financial services, insurance, retail, hi tech and public sector. It helps customers deliver their business goals and drive technology-led transformations for their organisations.
The company’s offerings cover the length and breadth of business and technology services from consulting to transformation initiatives, cloud solutions, blockchain, cyber security and cognitive business operations.
Chaudhari adds: “TCS is also keen to ensure that there are health and wellbeing aspects associated with our business. We engage with our associates around health and wellness initiatives and the company is committed to promoting wellness and community development by leveraging technology across a number of sports sponsorships. This involves being technology partner for a number of city marathons including in London, Mumbai and New York.”
TCS established an office in Dublin in 2001, 20 years ago, largely serving global clients based in Ireland and a small number of Irish customers.
Among the key areas of focus in Ireland across industry sectors are digital technologies, IT portfolio optimisations, data analytics, business transformation, cloud operations and cyber security services.
Today the business employs over 1,700 people in Ireland and has 30 customers, including companies such as ESB, Aer Lingus, SSE Airtricity, New Ireland Insurance, Bank of Ireland and Primark.
Chaudhri explains that TCS has a track record of sustained investment in Ireland. In 2012, the company established a major cluster of its Supply Chain Centre of Excellence in Dublin, helping clients across the globe optimise their supply chains and invest in research on next generation supply chain frameworks.
TCS also serves a number of large multinationals based in Ireland. In November 2020, TCS acquired the assets and employees of Letterkennybased Pramerica Systems, the software and business support subsidiary of Prudential Financial. Around 1,500 Pramerica employees have been transferred to TCS and the business is now one of the leading employers in the North West region of Ireland.
“TCS is now building out its new Global Delivery Centre in Letterkenny. The new enlarged TCS business in Ireland will continue to provide business, digital and technology services, as a near-shore capability to service customers in Ireland, the UK, Europe and the US,” he says.
“TCS is a purpose-led business, building stakeholder value and we always do business with a purpose in mind. ‘Building on belief’ is our new brand statement. We have always been known for building certainty but now we are taking a leadership role in helping customers define their business problems, envisioning where they want to be and how we can help them get there,” adds Chaudhari.
“TCS also plays a role locally, as well as globally. For example, we might have an existing TCS framework that could be tailored to the Irish market. An example of this is the Healthy Ageing for a New Digital Society (HANDS) project, which is a planned collaboration with HSE, ESB, NUI Maynooth, Dublin City Council and others. The project will involve building a technology platform that can support and assist the care of vulnerable and elderly people living independently, improving services and quality of life for them. TCS will provide the suitable smart technology based around TCS’ Assisted Living Platform to enable the care to achieve that. We have implemented a similar concept in Singapore and we look forward to bringing the learnings from that project to Ireland.”
Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organisation that has been partnering with many of the world’s largest businesses in their transformation journeys for over 50 years. TCS operates in the UK and Ireland with over 18,000 employees.
A part of the Tata group, TCS has over 488,000 of the world’s best-trained consultants in 46 countries. TCS has grown to its current position as the ‘Fastest Growing Brand of the Decade in IT Services’ and ranked third most valued IT services brand globally.
TCS's proactive stance on climate change and award-winning work with communities across the world have earned it a place in leading sustainability indices such as the MSCI Global Sustainability Index and the FTSE4Good Emerging Index.
TCS operations
TCS operates as a strategic partner to its customers across 10 industries, helping them deliver their business goals and drive technology led transformations. Industry sectors engaged with include: g banking and financial services; g comms/media/hi-tech; g life sciences and healthcare; g public services; g travel, transportation and hospitality; g consumer goods and distribution; g energy, resources and utilities; g insurance; g manufacturing; and g retail.
Services provided cover
g consulting; g TCS interactive g analytics and insights; g Internet of Things; g Blockchain; and g cloud infrastructure g enterprise applications; g Microsoft Business Unit g cognitive business operation; g conversational experiences; g automation and AI; g engineering and industrial services; g cloud apps, APIs; g cyber security; and g quality engineering.
Future ambition
Chaudhari highlights that TCS has an ambitious plan for increasing its capacity in Ireland, explaining that the organisation is uniquely positioned as one of the largest and fastest growing IT brands in the world, now with a sizeable operation in Ireland.
“With our Letterkenny operations, Irish customers have a unique opportunity to leverage TCS's global expertise locally with a wide range of talent and capability available for them. Having achieved growing success in Ireland, we continue to invest into the Irish market and we are confident the business will deliver significant growth over the coming years.”
TCS: Delivering globally and locally
Andrea McBride, Head of Information Systems at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Ireland, outlines future plans to grow its digital and business operations in Letterkenny and build out a Global Delivery Centre serving customers in Ireland and internationally.
In November 2020, TCS acquired the assets and employees of Pramerica Systems Ireland, the software and business support subsidiary of US insurance company Prudential Financial. As part of the deal around 1,500 employees have transferred over to TCS.
McBride was one of the first eight employees that started with Pramerica in 2000 and prior to her current role was Vice President of Software Engineering in Pramerica Systems Ireland.
Explaining that the Letterkenny-based operation has always taken an entrepreneurial approach, McBride says: “We started with a project for three people and were told to go out and find work from the parent company in the US. The starting objective was to grow to 150 over two years by building relationships with Prudential operations in New Jersey.”
Over two decades on and the operation now has close to 1,500 employees. “Our approach was to recruit experienced leaders and to build teams around them. We looked world-wide, for example, taking in COBOL programmers from as far afield as South Africa. The company also worked closely with government agencies such as SOLAS, and its predecessor FÁS, and local universities to provide a supply of new graduates,” she explains. partnership with Queen’s University Belfast, Ulster University, Letterkenny IT, Sligo IT and NUI Galway. The organisation also hires staff with experience internationally, usually from Fortune 500 companies, and this is reflected in the 35 different nationalities it employs in its Letterkenny operations. For example, TCS’s head of data science came from Fidelity in Boston 10 years ago.
“We have always tried to keep relevant to the business needs of customers and moving towards higher-end roles such as full stack development, automation testing, business analysis, project management, data analytics, cloud, cyber security and the full range of backoffice services including legal, business support services and digital services,” states McBride.
“We have always had the philosophy of ‘own your own career’. We provide opportunities for people to move across disciplines and across business units.”
advantage in recruiting: “We have attended career fairs with surf boards and sand with the message ‘you can have a global career and live in the North West of Ireland’.”
The TCS acquisition is a big opportunity for the Letterkenny operation and McBride highlights the reduction in risk from relying on one client and emphasises the opportunity of moving to multiple clients across several industry segments.
“Our strategy is to keep the existing business going and build out from that, focusing on clients in Ireland, UK, EMEA and near shore USA,” she says. “We have already started working with some of TCS's big Irish clients and other UK and European clients. The aim is to provide multiple Irish clients with a world class capability locally from Letterkenny and grow this to other UK and European customers. We have an excellent track record of delivering services across digital skills, infrastructure services, analytics, cyber security, dev ops, enterprise agile services etc. We have state-of-the-art facilities including an innovation lab and are further building business units focused on supporting Microsoft, together with a centre of excellence in cyber security and a centre of excellence in cloud services.
“It is particularly exciting for staff to be able to work in different industries and to work in vertical centres of expertise.
“We have already plugged into the global experience of TCS across its 10 core industry segments. On one project in particular, I was able to access the expertise in digital transformation from the TCS group in Chicago.”
Challenges and opportunities
McBride explains that the biggest challenge continues to be talent: “We have been working with the universities over the years and we offer a lot of internships, which helps attract the right talent. We also have frequent recruitment campaigns targeting the right skills sets. On the positive side we can offer good renumeration packages in an attractive part of the island and can compete effectively with the big cities. The biggest selling point now is the opportunity any recruit has with the TCS global network.
“They have the opportunity to work anywhere in the world. The company has also a great framework for competency training and upskilling. You can work in different industry segments and still remain in TCS.
“We also want to get the TCS brand better known in Ireland and we will be working on that in the coming period. TCS is really well known in the UK but not so well known in Ireland. The company’s sports-related sponsorship activities fit well with our approach of community engagement in the past, which focused on sport and education.”
IDA Ireland celebrate links as partners in a global digital economy
Earlier this year, TCS Ireland participated in a webinar event, hosted by IDA Ireland, titled ‘Ireland & India – Partners in a Global Digital Economy’. Chaired by Martin Shanahan, CEO of IDA Ireland, the panel discussion involved some of the most prominent Indian businesses with operations in Ireland. An Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Leo Varadkar TD made a special address to participants and attendees at the webinar, which acknowledged and celebrated the special relationship and great partnership between Ireland and India.
Speaking at the event, Deepak Chaudhari, Country Head for TCS in Ireland outlined the ambitions for TCS in Ireland and expressed his gratitude for the ongoing support the business has received from IDA Ireland.
To view complete webinar, visit: https://on.tcs.com/35u8W8W
Local engagement
McBride explains that the Letterkenny operations have always had community involvement as a core principle from the outset. “We have done a lot of sponsorship of sport in local schools and within the community. We have an annual volunteer day and over 90 per cent of staff took a day and volunteered in the local community, cleaning up parks, repairing football pitches etc. We also work closely with Business in the Community on various education initiatives. Additionally, we have supported the local theatre. TCS is keen to build on these activities and the focus on sport and education will continue.”
Future
Concluding, McBride explains that TCS Ireland has an ambition to grow its Letterkenny operation in the next five years. “We are well used to getting on a plane to New Jersey in order to build relationships,” she explains.
“We have always had a client, or partner mindset. Your client is really the key to your success. The opportunity to develop that consulting mindset further afield now that we are part of TCS is such an opportunity for the Letterkenny operation. I am excited with the potential of serving multiple Irish and other multinational customers from this centre here.”
Minister Simon Coveney meeting with Palestine refugee students at the UNRWA School in Jabalia Refugee Camp, Gaza. Credit: UNRWA.
Ireland recognises Israeli annexations in historic vote
The latest round of Israeli expansion into Palestinian land has drawn condemnation from the Irish Government, which in doing so became the first EU government to recognise the actions of Israel as “de facto annexations”.
The Irish Government’s condemnation of Israeli actions came in May after an 11day bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and unrest elsewhere had killed 248 Palestinians, including 66 children, and wounded a further 1,900. The latest round of violence came amidst unrest stemming from the expulsion of Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem by Israeli settlers, the latest in a longrunning series of expansions into Palestinian territories that the Israeli state has backed since the Six-Day War of 1967.
Since the 1967 war, Israel has maintained its occupation of Palestinian territories and extended into further territories, leaving roughly 450,000 settlers in the occupied West Bank among the three million native Palestinians. Despite the repeated condemnations of international organisations such as the UN that these settlements are illegal, the Israeli Government has in recent years announced its intentions to permanently annex all occupied land, including the Syrian territory of the Golan Heights. Despite the recognition of the Golan Heights as part of the state of Israel by former US President Donald Trump, the EU has not recognised Israeli sovereignty in the region, or other occupied areas, citing the international law that land gained as part of offensive or defensive measures in war cannot be legally annexed.
The historic Dáil vote, in which Ireland became the first EU state to censure the actions of Israel as de facto annexation, was concluded after a motion tabled by Sinn Féin was unopposed. However, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney TD did add an amendment that condemned rocket attacks conducted by Hamas that had by then claimed the lives of 13 Israelis. A People Before Profit amendment to expel the Israeli Ambassador was rejected by the Dáil.
Coveney said that the coalition Government had backed the motion due to “manifestly unequal” treatment of Palestinians. He told the Dáil: “The scale, pace and strategic nature of Israel’s actions on settlement expansion and the intent behind it have brought us to a point where we need to be honest about what is actually happening on the ground... It is de facto annexation.” The use of the word annexation rather than occupation is a critical one, as Palestinians living on land annexed by Israel would technically reside within the Israeli state without any citizenship rights.
eolas Magazine staff travelled to Israel and Palestine in 2019, visiting both east and west Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and the West Bank. One illuminating experience was entry into H2, the section of the West Bank city Hebron that is under Israeli military control that contains roughly 30,000 Palestinians and 800 Israeli settlers. Following relatively effortless passage through the turnstiles at the entrance into the Old City of Hebron, in the shadow of the Cave of the Patriarchs, both our Palestinian driver and tour guide were subjected to body searches conducted by heavily armed IDF soldiers. A glimpse into the “manifestly unequal” treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and beyond.
The Dáil vote was conducted at a time when a ceasefire between the IDF and Hamas had been reached, a ceasefire that has now been broken upon the appointment of new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. How Ireland, and the international community at large, will respond to this renewed violence remains to be seen; it is likely that Ireland will experience continued wrangling over the implementation of the Occupied Territories Bill, which has been rendered unlikely by government opposition.
eolas Magazine reached out to both the Mission of the State of Palestine in Ireland and the Embassy of Israel, Ireland for comment on both the recent violence and the vote taken in the Dáil.
Ambassador, Mission of the State of PalestineIreland, Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid said:
“The Annexation Motion and unanimous support it garnered across the political spectrum in Ireland sent a strong message across Europe and the international community that Ireland will always stand up for international law. As we speak, Palestinians are being killed and injured for defending their lands and their rights against colonial expansion in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan and Beita are all being ethnically cleansed by a hostile occupation. This week, yet another bombardment broke the fragile truce in Gaza as Israel continues its colonial project, expanding illegal settlements resulting in the de facto annexation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
“Israel killed more innocent civilians and destroyed vital Gazan infrastructure, but these acts will not break our people, who believe in and will continue to defend their right to freedom and to live in peace. The international community have a responsibility to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law. The absence of accountability and justice will only lead to greater instability. There must be a renewed impetus to tackle Israel’s impunity and bring about a peaceful twostate solution, along the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the capital of a free, sovereign state of Palestine.”
On the Dáil vote, Lior Haiat, Spokesperson, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said:
“Israel outright rejects Ireland's outrageous and baseless position regarding Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. This position reflects a blatantly one-sided and simplistic policy and follows the unacceptable anti-Israel statements that were heard in Ireland, at a time when the citizens of Israel were being subject to terror attacks by the more than 4,000 rockets that were landed from the Gaza Strip by the Hamas terror organisation. The motion that was adopted by the Irish parliament constitutes a victory for the extremist Palestinian factions. The motion distances Ireland from its ambition to contribute and play a constructive role in the Israeli-Palestinian context.”
Israeli Ambassador to Ireland, Ophir Kariv, said of the broader conflict:
“Israel was not looking to start a military conflict with Hamas, a terrorist organisation in Gaza, and did everything possible to avoid conflict and confrontation. Initiating this conflict was a decision, made by Hamas, which had nothing to do with Israel. This decision was due to internal Palestinian politics and Hamas seeking to show their strength vis-à-vis the Palestinian Authority. Hamas thought that attacking Israel and Israeli citizens was the way to do so. Israel's main goal during the Operation “Guardian of the Walls” was to stop indiscriminate firing of rockets into civilian population. It is important to change the dynamics and curtail the capabilities of Hamas in order to ensure that in the future both Israeli and Palestinian civilians will not be taken hostage by terror organisations.”
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Ireland hosted a virtual round table discussion comprising the insight of experts from across third-level education and industry to explore the future of big data for research and development.
What support does industry, and third-level institutions, require to capitalise on data explosion?
Maeve Culloty
Industry needs a clear framework for data governance to enable long-term planning and investment; there are some data governance models in existence today – such as the Data Governance Act as announced by the European Commission – which could provide this certainty, however, there is a long way to go before researchers can have and truly utilise interoperable data across different platforms. It would be useful to understand government’s roadmap as it pertains to data. What we are seeing is that it is very difficult for researchers to access data because of the permissions required and the length of time it takes to get them. With the evolution of the Data Governance Act, we are hoping that Ireland interprets it and establishes a better roadmap for accessibility, portability and usability of data inside the country.
Eoin O’Reilly
From a Tyndall National Institute perspective, it is crucial for our research that we have access to usable open data. It is not only important that the data exists, but that it exists in a format that we can understand and trust. That ranges from materials research, where it is necessary to know the background to how the data was developed, through to work in biophotonics. A second important factor is the ability to analyse the data. The whole research community is on a journey to learn how to use the data. Right across the system, there is much more that we could do that we are not doing currently, if we knew how to do it.
Round table discussion hosted by
Ray Walshe
We need to concentrate on why we have this data explosion. Where is it coming from and what utility can we get out of it? The two areas within which the greatest strides forward will be made are data governance and standardisation in relation to data explosion. That is where the most progress will be made in attempting to shape the data economy or the digital single market for the future. As
a member of the EU, Ireland must align itself with the European Commission regulations, such as the Data Governance Act and the AI directives. Having our own national policy and our own data governance strategy will be key to the success of our indigenous industries in the future.
JC Desplat
I agree with my colleagues. The key factor here is the presence of a well thought out, long-term vision or a national strategy. What has been missing is strong political leadership across successive governments, alongside an absence of a sense of long-term purpose. The timeliness of decisions is increasingly important and there is a need to carefully align any national strategy with the European Commission which has demonstrated very strong leadership in this domain. This would allow Ireland to leverage European initiatives because, increasingly, funding is allocated on the basis of cofunding with other member states. The signals are very positive and now we must ensure that they are realised. For instance, the creation of the new Department for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science.
Which data storage and access innovations are you most looking forward to and why?
JC Desplat
Software innovations are often overlooked but in my opinion are of equal importance. The dominant POSIX I/O API used in the vast majority of scientific applications is becoming a bottleneck to performance at scale. The cloud industry has shown how applications can be ported to object-based user space APIs, such as S3, to enable far greater scalability but these APIs are not always suitable for scientific applications. Several research projects such as DAOS and SAGE2 are implementing high performance object stores which I hope will enable a break with the constraints of POSIX which we have been living with for the past 40 years.
Additionally, I see exciting innovations at application level in the form of the emergence of digital twins. These represent a major step change in the way 4
Roundtable Participants
Fred Clarke
Fred Clarke has worked in information technology for over 30 years. He is currently Head of Research IT, UCD IT Services, a service which provides IT services and infrastructure to the active research community in University College Dublin.
Maeve Culloty
Maeve Culloty is the Managing Director for HPE Ireland. As a qualified chartered accountant, she joined HP/HPE 12 years ago working in the HPE Financial Services business unit. Her career has spanned various roles including audit, customer operations, business development and Global Sales teams.
Jean-Christophe Desplat
Jean-Christophe ‘JC’ Desplat is a technology expert with over 25 years’ experience in high-performance computing (HPC). His particular interest lies in the innovative use of HPC technologies in emerging domains. He has served as advisor to several committees in Ireland and abroad, including the strategic advisory team of the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the ICT subcommittee of the Irish Medical Council and the Climate Change Research Coordination Committee of the Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). JC is also the national representative for Ireland on the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE) AISBL Council since 2010.
Eoin O’Reilly
Eoin O’Reilly is Chief Scientist at Tyndall National Institute, Ireland’s largest research centre, focused on deep-tech research based on photonics and electronics. He joined Tyndall in 2001, as one of the first research professors funded by Science Foundation Ireland. His research on photonic materials and devices is widely recognised, including the award in 2014 of the Rank Prize for Optoelectronics for his pioneering work on advanced semiconductor lasers.
Ray Walshe
Ray Walshe is a senior researcher in the ADAPT Research Centre at Dublin City University (DCU), Ireland. He began his career in industry as a software engineer, software consultant and project manager with LM Ericsson, Software and Systems Engineering Limited and Siemens. Joining the School of Computing at DCU in 1995, he delivers AI, IoT and Data Governance modules on undergraduate, master’s, and PhD programmes and currently (2021) chairs the Graduate Diploma in Web Technologies. Ray has been a digital leader with the World Economic Forum since 2016, was appointed to the IEEE European Public Policy Committee on ICT in 2019 and is currently the AI WG Lead for IEEE EPPC. Ray was also appointed in 2020 to the OECD Network of Experts (ONE AI).
Maeve Culloty, Managing Director, Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
in which high-performance computing [HPC] is utilised, and how HPC coalesces with sister technologies such AI, Big Data, IoT and Edge, etcetera. into a digital continuum. We are entering the era of the digital continuum, and this will have a drastic impact on how we build infrastructure and provide services.
Fred Clarke
There is so much data that there will never be enough disc space to store it all so how we train people to manage data is fundamental. We need to train the research community of the future on how they distil the data they require and how to curate it. Another major challenge for us is the time spent shunting data around to a location where it can be used. We are computationally bound so we move data in, use it and then we have to delete it.
Maeve Culloty
One innovation that HPE is working on at the moment is the swarm learning principle, where we move algorithms to where the dataset is hosted – as opposed to having to centralise data in one place before running analysis –enabling movement of the insights onto multiple platforms without the need to move the actual data. It is a development that is attracting a lot of interest, especially because we are talking to customers who remain unsure about whether their datasets should reside in on-premises cloud or the public cloud, often at a cost. Swarm learning is an exciting proposition. Another exciting initiative is the GAIA-X initiative in Europe, creating a platform that will enable interoperability in a secure and standardised way. There are different interpretations of the initiative across Europe, but I believe the principle of it is really important. There does need to be standardised platform that businesses, governments and citizens can operate their data on and then that the movement of that data is secure, refined, and understood.
Ray Walshe
I think two major shifts are ongoing in relation to data storage. The first is an architectural shift. More and more of the storage function behind our data processing capability is being provided by software and in particular, a software
Jean-Christophe Desplat Director, Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC). “The effectiveness of collaboration requires the striking of the right balance. The need for clarity on where the benefits to the industry lie are important because if the collaboration means just a sale or is about covert access to data then the true value of partnership will never be delivered and a race to the bottom will ensue.”
Fred Clarke Head of Research IT Service, University College Dublin. “I think the whole idea of standardsdriven data storage and management is great, however storage configurations based on standards are set at a very high bar, it is hard to get funding for a standards-driven approach; you need to significant infrastructure to do that.”
stack. The greater migration of software stacks to cloud-based storage or nonpremises-based storage is enabling potential cloud-based HPCs. The second shift is a geographical one. With edge computing and IoT at the edge we’re going to have a requirement for a large amount of fast storage at the edge. Flash storage and flash technology will be important in the future.
Eoin O’Reilly
I think a major challenge to data storage in the future will be the need for rapid access and there is a need for strong innovations in this area. So, the development of access to networks to be able to efficiently handle large data samples, both from a research computing side and more widely. Interestingly, some of the challenges in this space can be addressed by the capabilities of big data in terms of digital twins to support very agile networks and functionality.
What are the most significant obstacles to the adoption and implementation of new data innovations?
Ray Walshe
For most innovations to become global, interoperability is required. Interoperability requires standardisation. One of the limitations I see is the adoption of harmonised standards, whether they are European or are international. The lack of adoption of standardised approaches, tools, technologies, instruments, services, systems etcetera is a major limitation when it comes to data innovation. Standardisation is a normal and crucial part of the innovation lifecycle. The reality of the innovation lifecycle is beginning with a scenario in which graduates come up with a smart idea. That idea leads to disruption and new innovation. That disruption then leads to a scenario where many people compete to become dominant in a market. In order for that chaos to subside, standards are required. Once adopted, the standardised approach becomes survival of the fittest. After that has occurred, the chaos dies down, and a stable globalisation emerges whereby people worldwide begin adopting new technology. From university level to national level, there is a growing awareness that standardisation is becoming increasingly important and for industry and educational institutions.
Maeve Culloty
Firstly, when it comes to cookie consent banners, the understanding of the information that is being given away, from a user perspective right through to companies and public administrations, is really lacking. Secondly, within our standard curricula, digital skills should be more prevalent. Regardless of the course that is being undertaken, students should be equipped with a baseline of digital skills, an understanding of cybersecurity, data, and the repercussions. Thirdly, there needs to be national data infrastructure; the Government needs to start thinking about data infrastructure in the same way it does about physical infrastructure – with a long-term plan for investment.
JC Desplat
In HPC, data innovations are in AI, machine learning and quantum computing. For me, the real innovation is in the effective orchestration and blending of these technologies within the digital continuum. There are four main obstacles to this. Firstly, the excessive splitting of data resulting from chronic underinvestment in data infrastructure. Short-range vision leads to the targeting of opportunistic funding which itself leads to the organic growth and fragmentation of infrastructure. In the end, capability is greatly reduced, and issues of stability and interoperability become more commonplace. Secondly, the competitiveness of the Irish national HPC infrastructure has been in relative decline for over a decade now. This situation is of great concern to me, as we are moving science and research ever closer to needing exascale computing capability as standard. Across Europe, through the EuroHPC Competence Centre initiative [EuroCC], the advancement of academic research and industrial application at this level is underway. Ireland is part of this work but its competitiveness relative to other European countries is lower now than at any time since ICHEC was established. Thirdly, there is a silo mentality and resistance to change. There is a need for
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strong, long-range political leadership on technology. Maybe technology is now so intertwined with our society that the time has come to appoint a dedicated Chief Technology Officer [CTO] to advise government in the same way the Government CIO and the Chief Science Advisor advise government on their respective domains. A government CTO would provide reliable and timely advice to government on matters such as HPC and sister technologies.
Fred Clarke
Ray is talking about is standards and JC is talking about funding. I think the whole idea of standards-driven data storage and management is great, however storage configurations based on standards are set at a very high bar, it is hard to get funding for a standardsdriven approach; you need significant infrastructure to do that.
Ray Walshe
StandICT.eu is a Horizon 2020-funded project which supports engagement on international standardisation by European and Irish experts and we have a good success record in doing that. Standardisation is something that happens in the small, as well as in the large. I can cite many examples where companies such as Openet, have developed their technology in parallel with driving standard processes to become multibillion dollar companies by putting standards at the forefront of their technologies. Perhaps it is not suitable for all industries, but it is possible, and we can use those exemplars to illustrate that the coevolution of technology development and standards development can be very lucrative. Eoin O’Reilly
One of the major obstacles is the expertise capacity to take advantage of the data. There are some areas which are well positioned to rush ahead in this field while there are others where it would be very advantageous, but they do not have the expertise or the linkages to do so. This relates to Maeve’s emphasis on the value of having everyone having a baseline of digital skills. Digital experts must also be able to collaborate with people who have demands and applications. The evolution of ICHEC is an excellent example of this. In its initial years, ICHEC enabled a small section of the academic community to deliver very good research. Now the wider ecosystem has developed so that ICHEC is a much broader resource which serves not just academia, but also the public service, MNCs and SMEs. Another long-term challenge is resourcing; that is partly funding but it is also the scale of the computing that is required. As more and more adapt to utilise big data a challenge then emerges in terms of natural resource usage. In the long-term, we must look at how we undertake the same processes in a more efficient manner.
How can industry best assist third-level institutions in extracting the most value from their data?
Fred Clarke
Strong links with industry have already been formed and are evident in some of the initiatives already in place. I think there is a bigger role for industry on the ground within third-level institutions to demonstrate their latest initiatives. Successes have been achieved, for example, the skill levels of PhD students are rising because that is what industry is asking for.
Ray Walshe
Close collaboration is key to increasing the value associated with the analysis of data. It is important to point out that it is not just a sharing of expertise but also of the technology, the platforms, and the use cases.
Maeve Culloty
We have collaborated extensively with third-level institutions in the area of cybersecurity with that should be a reference point when focusing on data. For example, the funding of courses within universities has ensured we have some of the highest calibre students working with us today. Equally, the research we have done in R&D has enabled us to help develop out the curriculum, meaning it’s beneficial for all parties. We now need to turn that collaboration towards data.
Ray Walshe
Companies like Hewlett-Packard Enterprise have a high-level overview of worldwide trends in relation to ICT and they are well versed in knowing where the new technology opportunities and challenges are. It is important that they disseminate and outsource some of that vision to help build out the next tech leaders in Ireland.
Eoin O’Reilly
For me, it is through collaboration. We have come a long way in regard to collaboration between third-level
Ray Walshe, Director, EU Observatory for ICT Standards (EUOS).
institutions and industry in the last two decades and the model we have adopted is making a strong impact. There is a mutual benefit. Yes, access to skills is important but so too is the value of higher-education institutions getting access to relevant industry problems.
JC Desplat
There are clear benefits for highereducation institutions to access modern, finely tuned data services but it must not be done at any cost. The effectiveness of collaboration requires the striking of the right balance. The need for clarity on where the benefits to the industry lie are important because if the collaboration means just a sale or is about covert access to data then the true value of partnership will never be delivered and a race to the bottom will ensue. In particular, I am wary of arrangements where HEIs get locked into specific technologies or platforms, and/or hand over access to and control over their data. I would advise the adoption of open frameworks whenever possible. As we migrate towards a more connected and federated data environment, interoperability will be key.
How can today’s students be equipped to meet the research and development demands of Industry 4.0?
Eoin O’Reilly
Again, it comes back to close engagement between academia and industry, but I believe we need to think more broadly than Industry 4.0. It is important that across our academic environment we have engagement across the full spectrum, from the fundamental side through to the applied side. I also think it is important that we have different disciplines speaking to each other.
Fred Clarke
I’ve seen students really benefiting from training in practical examples and gain a better understanding of good practices in relation to data management. We’re working tightly with UCD library where there are some good resources for data management and archiving. They are very good at distilling what data people need and how long they are going to keep it. Those systems are being put in cost-effectively and offer practical examples of the incentives of good behavior when it comes to data management.
Ray Walshe
DCU’s tagline is “the university of enterprise” and we have very close relationships with industry. What that shows us is that there is quite a diverse skills requirement within the ICT sector. There is no silver bullet to solving the skills gap and what we are seeing is that it is no longer sufficient to have a niche expertise, you need to be able to communicate with other disciplines. That applies to not only the horizontal disciplines like AI, cloud, and big data but also the vertical disciplines like manufacturing, medical and agriculture. There isn’t one type of student who delivers all that, so we need to have a mix of deliveries at graduate, diploma, post-graduate and doctoral level to meet that need. There is going to be constant evolving change and you we can adapt to that change by being grounded in industry. JC Desplat
A McKinsey report published last July on Industry 4.0 and Covid-19 highlighted the value of digital solutions in facing the pandemic but it also demonstrated the value of a people-centered process and highlighted the need for new skills and training in key areas. A degree of reskilling is required if Industry 4.0 is to be successful. Similarly, a University of Cambridge Report from 2019 on the digitalisation of the manufacturing sector and the policy implications for Ireland identified the business benefits of digital adoption but suggested the need for a digital curricula and the creation of programmes for upskilling networks of SMEs, amongst other things. For Industry 4.0, many students need foundations in data-driven decisionmaking. We at ICHEC have an education and training role, in particular on the topic of HPC, and we have been involved in key programmes often in collaboration with other centres and institutions. I believe Ireland needs to be far more innovative than how it has addressed skills development in the past.
Maeve Culloty
There is a recognition needed across government and industry of the potential of the data economy. Much like the physical trade economy, there is a need to underpin the data economy with a structured strategy involving things like skills, funding and R&D. Data is going to be a huge part of our economy going forward and we need to have the mechanisms and structures to capitalise on that. Understanding the data economy and how to capitalise on data as a resource will be a fundamental skill for the next generation of graduates.
The Taoiseach made his pledge in the Dáil before TDs were due to vote on a Sinn Féin motion to grant the homeowners 100 per cent redress. The Dáil carried the motion, with Martin stating that what had happened to some 5,700 homes in the north-west was “scandalous and devastating”.
Grave defects caused by the presence of muscovite mica in the cement blocks that were used to build the homes has brought attention back to the issue, with many of the houses affected requiring demolition. According to the Mica Action Group and the Report of the Expert Panel on Concrete Blocks published in 2017, mica attracts moisture from the environment, with external walls especially affected, and weakens the strength of the blocks, causing them to eventually crumble.
In 2016, an expert panel was set up to investigate problems with homes affected by mica and another mineral, pyrite. In 2019, the Government approved a €20 million repair scheme that those affected now say is not fit for purpose. Under the scheme, eligible homeowners are required to pay 10 per cent of the repair costs and to continue paying their mortgages, while the Government covers 90 per cent of the cost. Dublin homeowners were granted 100 per cent redress in a similar situation, when their homes were affected by pyrite, and the same solution has now become the major demand of the homeowners affected in Donegal, Mayo and elsewhere.
A redress scheme being run by Donegal County Council has so far recommended that about a quarter of the houses be demolished, with engineers involved believed to be in favour of demolition of all the houses due to fears that mica could still be present in other blocks within the structure and surface in the years to come. Government reports have estimated the cost of a full redress scheme at €1 billion but were all affected houses to be demolished the cost would most likely exceed €2 billion with over 5,000 private homes thought to be affected. An estimate for the number of social houses and public buildings affected due to being built with blocks from the same supplier has not yet been made.
The EU’s Construction Products Regulation covers “a suite of harmonised standards covering most construction products including aggregates, and concrete blocks”, but the Department of Housing has stated: “It should be noted that primary responsibility for demonstrating a construction product’s compliance with the requirements of the Construction Products Regulation rests with the manufacturer of the product.” Estimates states that the number of homes affected could yet rise to 10,000, a development that would lend yet more voices to the campaign for full redress. In the meantime, Minister for Housing, Darragh O’Brien TD has stated that his department is working through submissions from the action group, “which we received five weeks ago and we are liaising with other departments and agencies to figure out how best to address some of the concerns raised”.
Micra Action Group members with Minister Joe McHugh TD, Michael Doherty and Bernard McGuinness.
