Ireland's Housing Magazine 2020

IRELAND’S HOUSING MAGAZINE

A holistic approach to housing Respond CEO Declan Dunne In association with

01 Dec

Date for your diary!

Housing Conference 2020 TUESDAY 1st DECEMBER 2020 Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, Dublin 3 Hear directly from leaders across the housing sector 3 Discuss the delivery of the Rebuilding Ireland plan 3 Look at issues around funding and financing 3 Meet with fellow professionals from across the sector 3 Debate the challenge of meeting housing needs

Sponsorship and exhibition opportunities There are a number of opportunities for interested organisations to become involved with this conference as sponsors or exhibitors.

This is an excellent way for

organisations to raise their profile with a key audience of senior decision-makers from across the housing sector in Ireland. For further information on how your organisation can benefit, contact Lynda Millar on 01 661 3755.

More information available soon Online www.housing.eolasmagazine.ie

By telephone 01 661 3755

By email registration@eolasmagazine.ie

IRELAND’S HOUSING MAGAZINE

Contents

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38

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112

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Foreword by Housing Agency CEO John O’Connor

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Comparative analysis: International local

04 10 14

New Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien TD

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National Vacant Housing Reuse Strategy

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Covid-19: Bursting the Airbnb bubble

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Opposition housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin TD

72

Private rental markets in comparison

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The constitutionality of a rent freeze

94

Who’s who in housing

104

Ireland’s Housing Magazine directory

112

Back page: Focus Ireland CEO

Cover Story: Respond CEO Declan Dunne Housing and the Programme for Government

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Technological University Dublin’s Lorcan Sirr

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Maynooth University assistant lecturer Rory Hearne

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Statistics: Last decade in review

Editorial Owen McQuade Fiona McCarthy Ciarán Galway Odrán Waldron Design Gareth Duffy Paul Rooney

Ireland’s housing magazine

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authority initiatives

update

Pat Dennigan

Advertising/Commercial Sam Tobin sam.tobin@eolasmagazine.ie Publishers eolas magazine www.eolasmagazine.ie info@eolasmagazine.ie @eolasmagazine

Dublin office: Clifton House Lower Fitzwilliam Street Dublin 2, D02 XT91 Tel: 01 661 3755 1

Public Services 2020 Innovation: Focusing on outcomes Friday 4 September • Online conference

eolas magazine is organising the Public Services Conference 2020 which will look at progress to date and the next phase of innovation and reform for Ireland’s public sector. Delivered virtually this year, the conference will provide a valuable opportunity to bring together key stakeholders to gain insight into the government’s objectives for public service reform and hear directly from those responsible for driving this forward. There has perhaps been no bigger challenge in recent times than what we are currently facing – the coronavirus pandemic – something that has sharply brought into focus the need for public service organisations to be responsive, resilient and agile.

Key topics covered:

Speakers include:

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Our Public Service 2020: Looking at progress and the next phase of innovation;

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Inclusive innovation: Involving the public in shaping innovation policy;

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Making it personal: Focusing on the user in service design;

Lucy Fallon-Byrne Assistant Secretary Department of Public Expenditure and Reform Andrew Brownlee Chief Executive SOLAS

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Large scale reform of policing in Ireland;

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The challenge of recruiting and retaining younger generation workers;

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Embracing innovation and technology to transform the delivery of services;

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Transforming local government to deliver better services;

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Best practice case studies.

Innovation in healthcare; The changing landscape of the Further Education and Training sector;

Madeleine Gabriel Head of Inclusive Innovation, Nesta Madeleine Clarke Founding Director Genio

Paul Reid Chief Executive Health Service Executive AnnMarie Farrelly Chief Executive Fingal County Council Professor Alma McCarthy Professor of Public Sector Management NUI Galway Claire Acton Senior Design Strategist, Deloitte

In association with

To book a place: By phone

Online

Email

+353 (0)1 661 3755

www.eolasmagazine.ie/events

registration@eolasmagazine.ie

Foreword Ireland’s housing magazine

Time for a long-term housing plan The 2020 edition of Ireland’s Housing Magazine comes at an unprecedented time. The Covid-19 pandemic is going to change how we live forever. One major change is to our housing. More people have begun working from home, a trend that may continue for the foreseeable future. We need to design our housing and communities so that they can facilitate this. Our approach to housing may need to change, potentially focusing more on the provision of shared facilities in communities that people can use to support this new way of working.

We need to grab this opportunity to rejuvenate our towns and villages and make them attractive places for people to live and work. Key to this is the national roll-out of high-speed broadband and building new homes in the right places, particularly in in-fill developments within the existing footprints of towns and villages. This will allow people to live, work, shop and socialise within walking distance, providing a greater quality of life for individuals, and reducing our national carbon footprint.

To achieve this vision, now is the time for us to put a long-term national housing plan in place. This can be done in a similar fashion to existing long-term plans we have for the climate and economy: the Climate Action Plan and, under Project Ireland 2040, the National Planning Framework and National Development Plan.

Countries that would be considered to have more stable and successful housing systems are characterised by having and implementing long-term policies. It takes time to plan, design and deliver housing. The housing that we provide will exist for many years to come, so we need a long-term plan to ensure we take the right actions.

Key points to consider when designing such a plan include: 1. Housing must be sustainable. When we talk about sustainability, in the first instance, this means being sustainable from a society and community perspective as well as being sustainable environmentally.

2. Housing must be affordable. Cost rental is the provision of homes, with secure tenancies, at an affordable rent. It is a long-term model which integrates well with long-term planning. Affordability comes from long-term sustainable funding and proper management and can have a moderating influence to achieve housing affordability more generally.

3. A long-term plan needs broad support at a societal and political level. Long-term plans require all-party consensus to survive changes in government. Housing measures take time to implement and bear fruit and it may take several years for the first results to become evident.

The advantages of such a plan are clear. It would give certainty to our citizens and all stakeholders in the housing sector. A well-planned, long-term housing policy would ensure that homes continue to be delivered throughout the economic cycle and that our communities are sustainable, affordable and attractive places to live.

John O’Connor Chief Executive Officer The Housing Agency 3

Credit: Fianna Fáil

Ireland’s housing magazine

New Housing Minister: Darragh O’Brien TD Fianna Fáil’s Darragh O’Brien TD entered The Custom House as the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage on 27 June 2020. The new Minister is faced with the challenge of delivering upon the myriad Programme for Government commitments aimed at resolving the housing and homelessness crises, a task which evaded the previous government.

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A core commitment of this mission is increasing social housing stock “by more than 50,000, with an emphasis on new builds”. Speaking on Newstalk, the new Housing Minister emphasised: “It’s a minimum of 50,000 units, we are ambitious for this.”

As Fianna Fáil’s leader in the Seanad, O’Brien worked to enhance his local and national visibility, building a strong base in his constituency. Later, he topped the poll in Dublin Fingal with 10,826 votes in the 2016 general election and was reelected with 10,111 first preference votes in 2020.

Discussing his ambition to “ramp up the delivery at local authority level… on public land”, he added: “What I need to make sure is that the delivery of social housing isn’t impacted as badly as private housing is this year. The lockdown has affected the construction chain. There’s no question about that.

It’s not only the shutdown itself but the change in work practices.

Prior to his entry into parliamentary politics, O’Brien worked in various roles with financial service provider Friends First. The Malahide native’s initial foray as an elected representative came in 2004 when he secured a seat on Fingal County Council to represent Portmarnock, Malahide and Kinsealy Ward.

Minister O’Brien was the main Opposition Spokesperson on Housing, Planning and Local Government in the 32nd Dáil and, following the 2020 General Election, was a member of the Fianna Fáil negotiation team in government formation talks.

‘Housing for all’ Within the ‘housing for all’ mission outlined in the Programme for Government, the new Government asserts its belief that “everybody should have access to good quality housing to purchase or rent at an affordable price, built to a high standard and located close to essential services offering a high quality of life”.

“From talking to the sector, it looks like our housing completion this year, where we were on track for 25,000 or more public and private [homes] will be less than 14,000.”

‘Affordability at the heart of housing’ On the delivery of an affordable purchase scheme, Minister O’Brien indicated that access to affordable housing and cost rentals would be priorities for this Government. Indeed, the PfG makes an explicit commitment to “put affordability at the heart of the housing system”.

Highlighting the difficult scenario facing many people “stuck in a rip-off rental trap or living with their folks into their late 20s and 30s”, O’Brien explains that the Government’s affordable housing scheme will be “on a shared equity basis where the State will take an equity in the house as well”.

“There will be a major focus on building affordable homes, firstly on state-owned land where the State will subsume the cost of that land so you would be looking at house prices in the region of €160,000, €180,000 to €230,000, €250,000 on a shared equity basis.”

Credit: Fianna Fáil

“There will be a major focus on building affordable homes, firstly on state-owned land where the State will subsume the cost of that land so you would be looking at house prices in the region of €160,000, €180,000 to €230,000, €250,000 on a shared equity basis. It’s been done before, very successfully, in Ireland,” the Minister said.

When asked who would be eligible for the proposed scheme, Minister O’Brien specified: “It’s to give hope to that generation [which] feels like, ‘when am I ever going to be able to get a home?’

[They] may be above the social housing limits but not earning enough to actually get a mortgage. Coupled with that is the cost rental or affordable rental model which we need to bring in as a national scheme. There isn’t one at the moment.”

Ireland’s housing magazine

Darragh O’Brien TD was first elected to the Dáil in 2007 but was a victim of Fianna Fáil’s electoral collapse in 2011, when he, along with 56 party colleagues lost their seats. However, he retained his Oireachtas presence when he secured a place on the Seanad Labour panel.

Challenge However, the major challenge for the incumbent Minister for Housing will be tangible delivery. At the same time, the Programme for Government has attracted significant criticism for its perceived continuity with Rebuilding Ireland.

Among others, O’Brien faces the challenge of being man marked by Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Broin TD, his successor as chief Opposition housing spokesperson.

Talking with the Housing Magazine, Ó Broin vowed that his party would be “the most effective and the most challenging opposition that any government has ever had in the history of this State”.

“We will hold [the Government] to account on every single one of the promises that [it has] put in this very verbose Programme for Government and exposing them every time they break their word or don’t deliver,” he added.

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Addressing the housing challenges of post-pandemic Ireland Ireland will face many challenges over the next 20 years. One is clear – a likely recession triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. As we know, recessions can have devastating effects on a country’s people, setting back key investment, often to the detriment of the most disadvantaged, writes John O’Connor, CEO of The Housing Agency.

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As well as this, the world faces a climate crisis that, much like this pandemic, requires us all to adapt to survive.

Ireland’s Climate Action Plan states that our carbon emissions need to fall by 24 per cent by 2030 from 1990 levels. This plan, along with international initiatives like the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the European Green Deal, give us some indication of the actions needed to address the climate crisis.

However, with each crisis there are opportunities. We can already see this on a local level. For example, local authorities making street spaces more pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly in response to the Covid-19 emergency.

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From an environmental, public health and societal perspective, the way we address our current challenges is crucial. Innovative thinking and actions are required. We need to have a mindset of curiosity and imagination. We must

take this chance to build a more sustainable society.

As mentioned in the foreword to this publication, The Housing Agency believes that a new long-term housing plan, which has broad societal and political support, is critical to effectively deliver a more sustainable and affordable housing system. Any new long-term policy must take into account both current and future challenges. The way we build housing can have a huge bearing on community, environmental and economic sustainability.

homes remains and Ireland must do all it can to meet this need through the building of public housing on a large scale while supporting broad delivery by the private sector.

The economic downturn of 2008 was largely fuelled by a property bubble. This time, that is not the case. Continuing construction creates jobs and helps address the social housing needs felt by our most vulnerable people, who in the past have unfairly felt the brunt of economic crises.

2. Promote the cost rental model

Priorities With these challenges in mind, The Housing Agency believes that future housing policy in Ireland must:

1. Learn from the last recession We must continue and increase the delivery of housing. The urgent need for

Cost rental homes, where the rent covers the cost of construction and ongoing maintenance, should be a key part of housing sector activity.

This model can provide stable rents that are affordable, secure tenancies through proper long-term management, and a sustainable funding model. It can also

be a moderating influence to create broader housing affordability.

By targeting cost-rental homes at moderate-income households that experience financial difficulty in accessing housing or meeting the ongoing cost of accommodation, these developments would complement ongoing social housing supply to ensure no-one gets left behind when it comes to having a secure and stable home.

Ireland’s housing magazine

3. Act fast to help people in mortgage arrears The psychological toll felt by many who went through mortgage arrears in the last recession is still with us. Stories of households struggling with mortgage payments on negative-equity properties were widespread across our newspapers and TV screens. The devastating effects caused by this acute struggle cannot be repeated.

With many currently finding it difficult to pay their mortgage, prompt and concerted action must be taken to provide immediate assistance, rather than a delayed response that only leads to increasing anxiety and fear over the loss of a home.

4. Prioritise energy efficient and climate friendly housing We must double-down in our approach to addressing the climate crisis from a housing perspective. Cost-effective measures can and must be found to make homes climate friendly. There are three elements to this; where we build housing, having appropriate housing density and building the right types of homes. Sustainable quality standards, such as the Irish Green Building

Clúid Housing, Broome Lodge, Dublin 7: Older person housing scheme. 43 apartments designed for independent living, under the Universal Design Principles.

Council’s Home Performance Index, must be implemented for all Statefunded residential projects.

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us the impact major traffic reductions can have on our environment. Through sustainably placing housing in cities and towns, we can substantially reduce our country’s carbon footprint. Reducing our reliance on private cars by locating homes close to public transport and essential amenities will improve quality of life while contributing to a sustainable future.

High-density, sustainable homes, coupled with the facilities and infrastructure residents require in their daily lives, can lead to the regeneration of existing towns and cities to places with a better, more climate-friendly quality of life.

5. Adapt to new and existing technologies

adapt to new technologies that may emerge in the coming years. New technology may speed up housing construction and allow us to meet climate targets with greater ease and efficiency. Keeping an open mind on future developments will be crucial in developing quality homes in sustainable communities.

Ireland’s Climate Action Plan has set an ambitious target of retrofitting 500,000 existing homes and improving their performance so they have a Building Energy Rating (BER) of B2. This involves banning the installation of oil-fired boilers from 2022 and gas boilers from 2025. The plan has also committed to design a new delivery model for retrofitting, which will examine grouping large numbers of houses together to achieve economies of scale. The coordination and cooperation of local authorities, approved housing bodies and other important stakeholders will be crucial to achieving these goals.

Future plans must also be ready to

6. Be mindful of biodiversity

“A national long-term housing plan will give housing sector and to citizens as they plan their future. Such a plan will facilitate implementation of the objectives of the National Planning Framework, which is hoped will run concurrently.”

Future housing must take into account the need to preserve and promote biodiversity. Open green areas that are allowed to grow wild, and landscapes that enable the growth of diverse plant and wildlife species are some of the ways in which construction projects can incorporate biodiversity into their projects.

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greater certainty to all stakeholders in the

needs

These are just some of the factors which need to be included in any future housing policy in order for us to plan for a fair and sustainable future.

Key elements The Housing Agency has contributed to both the Rebuilding Ireland Plan for

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the rationalization of construction through larger scale planning, design and operation of housing schemes.

In Vienna, the city administration has pursued a consistent model of public owned housing since the end of the First World War which has resulted in State ownership of over 25 per cent of housing stock and the development of a limited profit sector which benefits from

Ireland’s housing magazine

state subsidies which provides housing on a similar basis. This Vienna model of public housing provides almost 45 per cent of housing in the city and has kept housing affordable for the majority of Vienna’s citizens.

Conclusion Ireland faces many challenges in the years ahead. How we respond to the economic difficulties imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic now will have longterm effects.

Housing and Homelessness and the preceding Social Housing Strategy 2020.

Based on this experience, the Agency would identify four key elements of a new long-term national housing policy: 1. Delivery of housing by the public sector including social housing, cost rental and affordable purchase.

2. Development of a cost rental sector (to provide affordable rental housing).

3. Utilisation of State lands for housing.

4. Delivery of housing by the development sector including rental housing and home ownership.

By actively using State land to deliver public housing, the public sector must start building homes on a large scale, using a mix of social housing, cost rental and, where appropriate, affordable purchase housing.

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To do this, the master planning of development will be crucial. This would involve developing roads and infrastructure to allow parcels of land to be released and developed in turn, similar to the master planning for Adamstown and the Dublin Docklands.

Delivering infrastructure ahead of development facilitates more sustainable growth, better communities, and greater certainty for all stakeholders.

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A national long-term housing plan will give greater certainty to all stakeholders in the housing sector and to citizens as they plan their future. Such a plan will facilitate implementation of the

objectives of the National Planning Framework, which is hoped will run concurrently.

Decisions made now can show promise

However, it needs to be acknowledged that any housing policy of long duration will need all-party consensus to succeed. The policy, while setting out clear policy objectives, will have to allow for some flexibility in any given period to take account of economic, demographic or variable other factors.

can provide many years of sustainability

Such long-term planning can work.

We’ve seen this in the housing policies in countries such as Austria, Sweden and Denmark.

E: info@housingagency.ie

for a sustainable future. Through an ambitious long-term housing policy, we for our housing sector, while meeting the housing needs of our citizens in a way that is both affordable and sustainable for future generations.

T: 01 656 4100 W: www.housingagency.ie

In Sweden, a national ‘housing for all’ policy, which began in the 1940s, favoured public and cooperative housing companies instead of private ones. With such a policy, the central government promoted the construction of larger housing developments while facilitating

The Housing Agency recommendations A National Housing Policy and Plan agreed with a 20-year implementation period.

Build public housing on a large scale. The inclusion of cost rental alongside social housing will allow for development at scale while ensuring sustainable communities, with affordable purchase housing also included where appropriate.

Following the formation of the grand coalition three-party government of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party, Fine Ireland’s housing magazine

Gael TD Peter Burke has been appointed Minister of State for Local Government and Planning. The Housing Magazine profiles the first-time portfolio holder.

Burke first won his seat in the LongfordWestmeath constituency in 2016, elected on the 15th count as the only Fine Gael TD in the four-seater constituency. Having secured 10.3 per cent of first preference votes in 2016, a total of 5,683, Burke increased his standing in the 2020 general election by collecting 11.7 per cent of first preference votes, a total of 6,617 votes in the first count. Burke was elected on the 10th count along with his now-fellow government TDs, Fianna Fáil’s Robert Troy and Joe Flaherty.

A native of Mullingar in Westmeath, Burke has previously served as a member of Westmeath County Council from 2009 until his election to the Dáil.

Burke was educated in St Mary’s CBS in Mullingar at both primary and secondary level before attending NUI Galway and graduating in 2004 with a degree in commerce. He then joined Stephens Cooke and Co Chartered Accountants

and Registered Auditors in Mullingar and is a qualified Chartered Accountant with 10 years of practice behind him.

Burke’s profile on the Fine Gael website describes him as a man that “represents a new generation of public representatives eager to work for their community and country and to ensure honesty and integrity in politics”. Burke says that he is “proud to represent a party which encourages change, equality and empowerment of those who genuinely want to make a difference within their local communities”.

In the lead up to the government formation, Burke commented that “it is absolutely critical that its focus is exclusively on economic recovery and renewal from day one with no distractions”. The areas in which he called for focus included the July Stimulus and Recovery Fund, the Credit Guarantee Scheme, the Business

Restart Grant, scaling up MicroFinance Ireland and the setting out of commercial rates for the remainder of 2020.

In assuming a brief similar to that of former Minister of State for Housing and Urban Development Damien English TD, Burke says that the new government must meet people’s expectations and solve the housing crisis.

“We have to be honest: it’s an issue that hasn’t been solved over a number of years. There is a huge challenge and we have to respond to try and do our very best to get it right. There is huge expectation from society to politicians to sort this. I will try my best to play my part in that,” he told his local paper, the Westmeath Examiner. While saying that there must be a significant increase in the number of social houses delivered, Burke also emphasised the need for “middle ground” affordable housing.

Minister of State: Malcolm Noonan TD Also appointed to the newly renamed Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is Green Party TD Malcolm Noonan, named as Minister of State for Heritage and Electoral Reform.

Noonan is a new TD, having won his seat in the Carlow-Kilkenny constituency in the 2020 general election, becoming his party’s

first TD there since Mary White lost her seat in 2011. Having sat on Kilkenny County Council from 2004 until his election to the Dáil, Noonan unsuccessfully stood for party leadership in 2011 and Dáil election in a 2015 by-election and the 2016 general election.

He previously served as Mayor of Kilkenny from 2009–2010.

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Ireland’s housing magazine

A holistic approach to housing Against a backdrop of the ongoing housing crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic and a new government, Respond housing association and service provider is firmly committed to its dual strategy of ‘building homes, improving lives’. Ciarán Galway engages with CEO Declan Dunne to discuss priorities, passion and progress.

As one of Ireland’s largest Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs), Respond is unique in that it also provides a wide range of services alongside their housing work. These include Daycare for Older People Services, Early Childhood Care and Education Services, Homeless Services for Families, Family Support and Refugee Resettlement Services.

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Launched in February 2019, Respond’s Strategic Plan for 2019 to 2023 commits to increasing its social housing stock by over 50 per cent, building 2,500 social housing units over the next five years, while simultaneously maintaining its existing housing stock and providing more homeless and support services where needed.

Priorities

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As Ireland moves to ease many public health restrictions necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic, a priority for Respond is progressing construction to

complete various housing projects. In late April, construction resumed at 35 social housing projects deemed to be ‘essential’. Eight of these were Respond sites with work resuming on remaining sites on the 18 May with the lifting of restrictions. “We’re active on a total of 27 sites around the country and have over 1,640 homes in construction and onsite since May 2018. The priority is that these homes come on stream as quickly as possible for the many thousands of people who are depending on us to move into these homes,” Dunne indicates.

Simultaneously, the Respond CEO emphasises the importance of an affordable rental model for individuals whose income is above the social housing threshold but below the level required to secure a mortgage. “In the context of the ongoing housing crisis, that is a significant number of people.

Consequently, Respond, along with our partners Tuath Housing, Dún Laoghaire-

Rathdown County Council, the Housing Agency, the Housing Finance Agency and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is building Ireland’s first pilot cost rental housing scheme at Enniskerry Road, Stepaside in Dublin. This began in September 2019 and will provide 50 two-bedroom cost rental homes alongside 100 social homes. The rent for those will be €1,200 per month,” he outlines.

In many cases, when Respond commences a project to build social housing, the Approved Housing Body is also propositioned to provide a similar number of affordable rental units.

However, there isn’t a model to facilitate this, Dunne recounts. “It is possible to double our output by building the same number of affordable rental homes as social homes, in the same timescale, with the same architect and on the same site. Essentially, the number of homes could be doubled if we had a national affordable rental model to do it.

“However, it’s dreaming to suggest that this can be done with no money. That is not possible,” he says.

Rationale

“While some politicians and commentators, including Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Broin TD, might contend that cost rental should be closer to €800 per month, currently it’s not possible,” Dunne states.

However, he does concur that a soft loan, similar to the Capital Advance Leasing Facility (CALF) for social housing, as suggested by Deputy Ó Broin, should be made available in a new affordable rental scheme.

“If government makes that commitment, we can then borrow the remainder and we can start producing affordable homes based on the actual costs at more reasonable prices. People need homes to rent for as long as they want and at a price they can afford. Having a new national affordable rental model is one of Respond’s seven goals in our Strategic Plan 2019-2023 and is an absolute priority. We need to be undertaking hundreds of schemes, similar to the one at Stepaside, at the best rents possible,” he asserts.

We are driven by the needs of the people that we serve and the fact that Respond is a not-for-profit organisation just reinforces our pursuit of excellence and commitment to continuous improvement.

Holistic Central to Respond’s considerations when developing each social housing site is the experience of those who will live there. There are two components to this; the first is the quality of the homes and the second is quality of life.

“For Respond, the mission is not simply defined by building new houses. It has obligations to the 10,000 people already living in its homes. This is exemplified by the fact that our annual maintenance bill for our homes is €9 million. Likewise, over the last four years, we have spent €20 million on deep energy retrofitting across our older stock. Respond is holistic in its approach to housing provision, cognisant of design and proximity to services, as well as housing quality and maintenance,” its CEO indicates.

Crucially, unlike most other AHBs, Respond has a range of services to which they apply the principle of unintended consequences to ensure that these are evidence informed as well as helpful and empowering.

“From a landlord perspective, this is relatively straightforward, but from the perspective of childcare services or homeless services, it is important to deliver high quality services to people who want them. Our service users are guiding us, providing an evidence base for what we do,” Dunne explains.

In total, Respond employs 300 people, half of whom are care staff. For instance, it directly employs 80 people in 17 crèches around the country because “we understand the importance of early intervention for the social and emotional development of children”. In addition, the AHB has three day-care centres for older people with significant needs. These services are dually beneficial to those people requiring care as well as their carers at home.

“Respond also has 70 staff working across six homeless services who provide 24/7 wraparound support to families there. The people in our services in the last three years have moved into their own homes within six months on average and benefited from its wrap around service model of care. We know

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The Respond CEO contends that having a new government-approved affordable rental model is an economic development imperative that goes far beyond housing. “It’s fundamentally unfair that a whole section of society is being excluded from access to affordable housing and it is poor planning by the State. We are going to lose the very people who are the engine of our public services and businesses as they emigrate to other countries where they can buy a home or access more affordable rents,” he stresses, adding: “Young people need an opportunity to buy a home. We all understand the Central Bank rules and context, but if the loan-to-income limit in London is fourand-a-half times your gross income, why is it only three-and-a-half in Ireland?”

Ireland’s housing magazine

At €1,200, the Enniskerry Road cost rental pilot is significantly less than the rent that might otherwise be charged by the private sector in the Dún Laoghaire– Rathdown area. “We hope that some of the people who move there might save the money they would otherwise be paying, build up a deposit and buy a home if they so wish. Affordability gives people options and choice. I remember a time when anyone with a moderate income could buy a house.

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required to undertake a major risk assessment considering the pandemic, assessing six different scenarios and developed a plan for each. Even in the most severe scenario, we could manage it.

Ireland’s housing magazine

“Respond has the same calibre of board as a publicly quoted company and as such, it has a sophisticated approach to risk. It’s a continuous learning organisation with an emphasis on doing things professionally. We are driven by the needs of the people that we serve and the fact that Respond is a not-forprofit organisation reinforces our pursuit of excellence and commitment to continuous improvement,” Dunne states.

Progress

People need secure homes to rent for as long as they want and at a price they can afford. Having a new national affordable rental model is one of Respond’s seven goals in our Strategic Plan 2019-2023 and is an absolute priority. from experience that the longer people remain in emergency accommodation the greater the impact on their overall health and wellbeing.

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“It is critical, therefore, that there is a concerted focus on preventing homelessness in the first place and ensuring that when people do experience homelessness, they are quickly supported to access a home of their own, with ongoing support if they need it. We are very clear that all families and individuals want, need and deserve a secure home of their own and that all efforts must be redoubled to achieve this.

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“Respond’s primary passion is impact and outcomes. I’m certainly not saying we’re perfect, there are many areas in which we could improve, but an independent annual survey of our tenants in 2019 revealed that 86 per cent are happy to have Respond as a landlord and are pleased with the services they receive. I’d like that figure to be much higher because our focus is

not on what Respond thinks about itself, but on what our tenants and service users think,” Dunne insists.

Covid-19 As with any organisation, the Covid-19 pandemic posed challenges for Respond. One immediate impact was an overnight cessation in housing developments, Daycare for Older People Services, Early Childhood Care and Education Services. However, Respond’s Homeless Services remained operational throughout, working closely with the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE), Limerick City and County Council (LCCC) and the Health Service Executive (HSE) and did not record a single case of Covid-19.

“We received great support from the HSE, including from Dr Austin Carroll, HSE Clinical Lead for Homeless Services in Dublin. Meanwhile, the figure for houses that we have in the pipeline is €1 billion. With that comes much responsibility. The organisation was

Almost four years into his role as CEO, Dunne’s tenure has resulted in significant change and growth in Respond.

Restructuring of the organisation alongside the development of a new strategic plan injected fresh impetus and a renewed focus on delivery. Crucial to this was Respond’s development agreement.

To cut the cost of construction and therefore ensure delivery, Respond consulted its solicitors and developed its own fixed price agreement as an alternative to a public works contract.

Currently, only three of Respond’s 27 contracts are public works contracts and even in the context of Covid-19, the AHB has no extra costs across 24 sites.

“The development agreement sets all the rules in our favour. Through that contract, those who want to provide houses for us must accept our terms.

That has been revolutionary for Respond,” Dunne emphasises.

Having come from a compliance background, previously chairing the audit committees of two state bodies, Dunne also fostered a focus on compliance.

“We have embraced regulation in this sector. The legislation has been passed, the regulator is being recruited as we speak, and we await the ministerial direction for implementation. Having come from highly regulated regimes, it seemed to me that there was a significant opportunity for this to occur.

We have invested in that from the beginning, undertaking four programmes simultaneously: compliance; risk management; GDPR; and quality assurance,” he details.

Literally every aspect of the organisational structure has been touched by these changes. For instance,

previously its management team was almost exclusively male, whereas now it has achieved gender parity. “We have encouraged greater female participation in the organisation, changing its tone for the better. Likewise, the diversity of backgrounds within Respond today has enriched the organisation. There is a great energy and enthusiasm.

Opportunities Dunne advocates for social housing construction as a potential countercyclical economic stimulus amid the fiscal fallout of Covid-19. “In relation to the Programme for Government, we have argued that this is the time to invest in housing. Heading into a recession, many jurisdictions will prioritise investment in housing because of its high labour content, its significant revenue generation for the State and the provision of much needed homes.

Likewise, when we lose our valued construction workers, it takes them years to come back,” he remarks.

Through the Housing Alliance, which Dunne also chairs, Respond lobbied for a plan and timeline to move AHBs back off the State balance sheet. “There is an opportunity in the Programme for Government’s commitment that the incoming government will ‘work on a package of reforms’ to enable Approved Housing Bodies to move off the State’s balance sheet.

Ambitions Looking ahead, Respond is eager to continue enhancing its partnership with local authorities and other statutory partners in order to deliver the social housing and community development required in their jurisdictions. “It’s an important relationship and there are many colleagues across those organisations that we hold in high regard,” Dunne responds.

In terms of developing his organisation’s repertoire of services, the CEO reveals a willingness to explore the future as the Government commits to the ending of Direct Provision. “We have many qualified social care graduates and care workers on our staff, so we are not frightened by this kind of task. It’s a challenge but that’s what we enjoy and we are happy to explore new areas of work where there is a need identified. I’m not saying that Respond is a panacea,

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“Whether people have been with Respond for 25 years or only joined this year, they all share a strong sense of purpose in striving to assist people in difficulty. This is the driver for all of us and is aligned with professionalism, efficiency and cost-effectiveness in what we do. People want to work in a place they can be proud of and we are very proud of the people we work alongside,” the CEO reflects.

I may be an administrator, but it’s very fulfilling to work with people coming from very different perspectives and backgrounds including some in very difficult scenarios, ranging from poor mental health and addiction to the trauma of homelessness. but when a large housing provider gets involved in homeless services, we are not dependent on others to provide the housing component of the service,” he says.

“I may be an administrator, but it’s very fulfilling to work with people coming from very different perspectives and backgrounds including some in very difficult scenarios, ranging from poor mental health and addiction to the trauma of homelessness. When a person subsequently approaches me and my colleagues to tell us that they are moving on to a home, it creates an excitement for both them and us.

“Overall, it’s not just about the houses, which are a great achievement in themselves, rather it’s about people’s lives. The houses are built because people need them, they’re not an endpoint. Supporting the community development aspect is very important,” Dunne concludes.

Profile: Declan Dunne Declan joined Respond as Chief Executive Officer in August 2016.

Respond, established 38 years ago, is an Approved Housing Body (AHB) with approximately 10,000 tenants and a service provider with a range of services including Daycare for Older People, Early Childhood Care and

“The risk with Approved Housing Bodies being on the government balance sheet means we will be competing with other government priorities including health, education, etcetera. This presents a significant threat to AHB social housing output where expectations are that the sector will deliver more than one-third of social housing targets.

Education, Homeless Services for Families, Family Support and Refugee

“Until this point, money spent on housing through Approved Housing Bodies was not allocated from the Government’s capital budget because we’re borrowing and repaying it. We would like a return to that status and believe it’s in everyone’s interest.”

Housing Association. He was also a non-executive director of the

Resettlement Services. Declan is currently the chair of the Housing Alliance which is a collaboration of six of Ireland’s largest AHBs.

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Declan is an experienced General Manager who built a business over many years and sold to an American multi-national and went on to work as their General Manager for Ireland.

In his previous role, Declan was Chief Executive Officer with Sophia Ballymun Regeneration Board for 10 years and chair of the audit committee which oversaw the Ballymun Regeneration Masterplan.

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Programme for Government: Outlook for housing

While some have criticised what they perceive to be vague commitments, scant detail and broad continuity with Rebuilding Ireland, others within the housing sector have cautiously welcomed the Programme for Government (PfG) agreed between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party. Does the document mark a new departure for housing policy or is it more of the same?

Housing was a defining policy area of

infrastructure delivery, building

mission makes eight specific objectives

General Election 2020. This has filtered

standards, quality and regulation, as well

for the next five years. However, the

into the PfG and the words ‘housing’,

as sufficient skilled labour capacity. “We

detail of some of these, such as “an

‘home’ and ‘homes’ are mentioned 68,

will work with the construction sector to

emphasis” on new builds, remains

35 and 29 times respectively.

ensure that the number of new build

ambiguous. Likewise, a major criticism

homes continues to grow in the years

of the document is the frequent

Emphasising the role of the private housing stock, the PfG avows to

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ahead,” it says.

reference to consideration, examination

address the challenges of viability,

Across a total of seven dedicated pages

and review in policy areas rather than

access to finance, land availability,

within the PfG, the ‘Housing for all’

explicit commitment to action.

Five-year housing objectives in the Programme for Government: Put affordability at the heart of the housing system.

2.

Prioritise the increased supply of public, social and affordable homes.

3.

Progress a State-backed affordable home purchase scheme to promote home ownership.

4.

Increase the social housing stock by more than 50,000, with an emphasis on new builds.

5.

Tackle homelessness.

6.

Ensure local authorities are central to delivering housing.

7.

Work with the private sector to ensure an appropriate mix and type of housing is provided nationally.

8.

Improve the supply and affordability of rental accommodation and the security of tenure for renters.

“On housing we have ensured that home ownership will now be central to the new government’s housing strategy… This housing plan is radical and bold and has the capacity to transform our country for the greater good.

It will be the largest state investment in housing in generations, led by Fianna Fáil.”

Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien TD

1. Homelessness Rather than ‘ending’ homelessness, a “major priority” for the incoming government is “reducing and preventing homelessness”. The PfG commits to collaboration with local authorities and housing agencies to provide long-term accommodation for homeless individuals and families. Specific commitments include: an increase in funding and work with all stakeholders “on a suite of measures” to get rough sleepers off the street; expansion of Housing First with a focus on construction/acquisition of one-bed properties; adequate Rent Supplement and Housing Assistance Payment; the development of a National Youth Homelessness Strategy; the delivery of mental health supports via a HSE funding line; a move away from dormitory accommodation; drug free hostels; continued support for the Housing Agency’s Acquisition Fund; and continued funding of Abhaile.

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1.

There are eight pillars within the ‘Homes for all’ mission.

2. Affordable home ownership The PfG has a particular emphasis on affordability and states: “We believe that home ownership should be within reach of all our citizens… An overriding objective of our housing policy is to make homes more affordable.”

The Government has pledged to: promote home ownership through an affordable home purchase scheme; introduce a target for the delivery of affordable homes “as a matter of urgency”; enhance the Serviced Sites Fund; provide local authorities with seed capital to deliver serviced sites at cost; extend the Help to Buy scheme for new properties and self-builds; expand the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan; consider the expansion of Part V to include affordable purchase/cost rental properties; and augment the Mortgage to Rent scheme.

3. Public and social housing Crucially, the PfG indicates an apparent ideological shift from the previous government “to push forward the role of the State to play a greater part in directly providing affordable public and social homes”. Investment in housing and mixed tenure communities is a socio-economic imperative the document contends.

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“The Programme for Government commits to affordable, high quality housing and promises to develop a cost rental model to create affordable, sustainable options for those living in rented accommodation on a long-term basis. The Housing Alliance very much welcomes this commitment.” Declan Dunne, Chair of the Housing Alliance The Government outlines its intention to: increase social housing stock by 50,000 through local authorities, AHBs and state agencies over five years; deliver an appropriate mix of unit variations which can accommodate elderly and disabled people among others; enable local authority discretionary funding to increase by €4 million to €6 million for social housing projects; enhance the role of local authorities’ vacant homes officers; work with AHBs to move off the balance sheet and ease access to finance; introduce social housing reforms meaning that households can move between local authority social housing lists, make it easier for local authorities to retain social housing, standardise the differential rents regime and construct a website for national choice-based letting; as well as ensuring that procurement policy delivers valuefor-public-money, has robust social clauses and adheres to new Green Public Procurement policy.

4. Rental A further priority specified by the Government is standards, security and affordability for renters. Some of the measures it will introduce to achieve this objective include: developing a cost rental model informed by international

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experience, including the ‘Vienna model’; considering the introduction of a system to hold rental deposits; transforming the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) into “an independent and strong” regulator, mandating it to hear deposit dispute cases and increasing RTB inspections and enforcement for short-term and long-term lettings; legislating for tenancies of indefinite duration; incentivising the letting of vacant properties; supporting adequate supply “by ensuring equity and fairness for landlords and tenants”; instructing local authorities to publish a rental needs assessment; and extending the moratorium on evictions in line with the Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (Covid-19) Act 2020.

5. Land Development Agency On paper, the Land Development Agency (LDA) model, as envisaged in the PfG appears to be entirely different from that proposed in Land Development Agency Bill 2019. The Government has undertaken a promise to legislate for the creation of the LDA to manage and utilise State land, working with stakeholders to establish strategic urban sites for the sustainable development of social and affordable

rent and purchase. All LDA procurement will be subject to oversight and the core objective will be the development of sustainable communities.

The LDA board is set to comprise a cross-section of housing, financial, governance and other independent experts. Crucially, it will be provided with compulsory purchase order (CPO) powers, which are reserved for state bodies (placing it firmly on the balance sheet) and will not be exempt from Freedom of Information requests.

The agency will be mandated to complete an audit of State lands and collaborate with stakeholders to develop masterplans for strategic sites, while ensuring modern methods of construction using local supply chains and being required to report to the Oireachtas with regular updates.

After three years, the Government will review the legislation underpinning the LDA, while, in the meantime, the LDA will automatically retain first refusal on any state lands offered for sale.

6. Defects and Management Companies In light of the Safe as Houses report, within the first 12 months of its lifetime, the new Government will “examine the issue of defective housing”, enhance the legal remedies for affected homeowners, fulfil the remediation fund for Pyrite and Mica and assist owners of latent defect properties to access low-cost and longterm finance. Meanwhile, the PfG also promises a review of existing management company legislation to ensure it reflects the best interest of residents.

7. Planning and reform The PfG contains a significant number of proposals in relation to planning.

Initiatives include introducing “a ‘use it or lose it’ condition” for planning applications exceeding nine units, the examining the creation of a Building Standards Regulator, alignment with the Housing Options for our Ageing Population policy; reforming CPO laws; improving construction skills capacity; robustly enforcing the Vacant Site Levy; and allowing the Strategic Housing Developments planning process to expire at the end of 2021.

“Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have had years to come up with an affordable yet in today’s document there are no targets, there are no costings; in fact, there is no plan.”

8. Commission on Housing According to the draft document, a Commission on Housing will be established to review elements of housing provision, including tenure, standards, sustainability and quality of life.

Interestingly, under the heading Constitutional Reform, the PfG states: “We will hold referendums on housing and the extensions of the franchise at presidential elections.” While conspicuously ambiguous, this may allude to a proposed referendum to enshrine the right to housing in the Irish Constitution.

Town Centre First, Retrofit and Age Friendly Aspects of housing also fall under several other missions contained with the PfG, including ‘A better quality of life for all’, ‘A green new deal’ and ‘Universal healthcare’.

Committing to developing a Town Centre First policy, modelled on a similar scheme in Scotland, the Government will promote residential occupancy in rural towns and villages by regenerating centres though the utilisation of existing properties and unused land. Core to this is the proposed provision of seed capital to local authorities to provide serviced sites at cost, enabling home building.

Eoin Ó Broin TD At the same time, the built environment will contribute to overall climate action.

The Government is committed to “an ambitious retrofitting programme” to increase energy efficiency and reduce emissions. This National Retrofitting Plan is intended to act as a component of economic stimulus within the National Economic Plan. It aims to upgrade 500,000 homes to a B2 energy rating by 2030, utilising economies of scale through single area-based schemes and financed by a loan guarantee scheme and “easy pay back mechanisms”.

Finally, the commitment to “An age friendly Ireland” includes a recognition of the relationship between healthcare and housing options. The PfG recognises that a choice of living in appropriate housing, where possible, enables elderly people to remain in close proximity to their families and community while accessing health and social care.

Committing to an increase in choice of housing options and community supports, the Government pledges to: embed ‘ageing in place’ options in the planning system; achieve a better understanding of housing options for older people; provide an increased number of smaller homes in developments; retain the Housing Adaptation Grant Scheme; prioritise the elderly in climate action plans; and promote greater social interaction to mitigate social isolation.

Sinn Féin’s housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin TD is scathing in his analysis of the housing element of the PfG. “Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have had years to come up with an affordable housing plan, and yet in today’s document there are no targets, there are no costings; in fact, there is no plan.

Equally, there’s no additional social housing provided for above the existing commitments of the National Development Plan.

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housing plan, and

Reaction

“That means homelessness and housing need are set to continue. And on that crucial issue of homelessness, while there is talk of more action, there are no specifics, there is no extra funding and there is no real commitment to bringing homelessness to an end. It gives me great regret to say that if this is the basis for the future government, then the housing crisis is set to continue into the future,” Ó Broin asserts.

Meanwhile, the Housing Alliance, a partnership between six of Ireland’s largest AHBs (Circle Voluntary Housing, Clúid Housing, Co-operative Housing Ireland, Oaklee Housing, Respond and Tuath Housing), welcomed the document’s commitment to delivering an increase in affordable rental housing stock and facilitating an ease of access to private finance for AHBs. Declan Dunne, Chair of the Housing Alliance stated: “The Programme for Government commits to affordable, high quality housing and promises to develop a cost rental model to create affordable, sustainable options for those living in rented accommodation on a long-term basis. The Housing Alliance very much welcomes this commitment.

“AHBs have a key role to play in the development and delivery of such a scheme, drawing on our decades of experience in delivering quality and tailored social housing. We have the proven track record, expertise and capacity to build and manage social and affordable homes. We are extremely encouraged by the commitment to ensuring AHBs will be moved off the State’s balance sheet… Off-balance sheet status means AHBs will be able to access private finance without it being classified as public borrowing, thereby securing best value for the State.”

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Placemaking for community under Dublin City’s Housing Strategy Dublin City’s housing programme across all schemes in our supply pipeline scales to over 11,400 units and represents an estimated investment of €3.4 billion. A key challenge is to ensure we make places where communities thrive, Head of Housing Policy, Research and Strategy Dáithí Downey writes.

Place Quality

The Carmona (2019) systematic evidence review of over 13,700 academic studies establishes the current baseline of knowledge on the topics of place quality and place value and has produced a summary of ‘place qualities’ where there is evidence of positive and negative outcomes for communities and residents.

The following are selected examples of the place qualities that have very strong or good evidence of positive outcomes for residents and users:

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a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a

greenness; mix of uses; low levels of traffic, speed and noise; walkability and bikeability; compact and coherent pattern of development; public transport connectivity; attractive and comfortable public spaces; visual permeability and natural surveillance; sense of place; pedestrian scale; street-level activity and denser street networks; good street lighting; social public/private threshold features; integration of built heritage, natural features and ecosystem; and architectural quality and façade continuity.

Source: Carmona, M (2019) ‘Place value: place quality and its impacts on health, social and economic and environmental outcomes’, Journal of Urban Design, Vol. 21 (1)

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How well we live together as households and neighbours and how we form and sustain ourselves as communities is an important measure of the success of our local housing strategies. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, recent dramatic changes in how we live, work and play bring a renewed focus on the importance of 'place' to our quality of life and to community cohesion and resilience.

In order to bring forward new and innovative proposals for social and affordable housing, Dublin City Council remains committed to active knowledge exchange and learning. This helps maintain our focus on making quality places to live and on developing sustainable communities.

For example, this emphasis has ranged across our delivery of the Rapid Build Housing Programme from initiation using new construction technologies to its current expansion into ‘volumetric’ provision of higher density housing typologies. It includes our emphasis on deep renovation and renewal of the quality of our existing housing stock and on conserving the heritage of Dublin’s older neighbourhoods. It is reflected in the development of new cost-rental public housing as the driver of our estate regeneration across key strategic sites where housing market renewal opportunities accompany increased demand for quality, affordable city living and greater tenure choice.

Over the period, our engagement with stakeholders, including all our elected local representatives, members of our Public Participation Network, Local and Community Development Committee, Regeneration Forums and Project Implementation Board, among many others, has produced a refined understanding of the importance of high standards of place quality and community

infrastructure to our housing strategy and programme.

This evidence reflects the knowledge arising from our everyday engagement in the design, production, management and maintenance of places to live, work and play. As we proceed, Dublin City’s emphasis will continue to focus on the delivery of high-quality places to live that return the greatest value to new and existing communities with regard to meeting and sustaining them in healthy, socially rich and economically productive lifestyles that touch lightly on the environment.

In Our Shared Future, its June 2020 Programme for Government, Ireland’s newly formed coalition government recognises how the Covid-19 pandemic has created a new “terrible set of challenges” adding to the ongoing climate and biodiversity emergency. In response to this “defining moment for our country” Ireland’s new government is committed to actions that “can deliver a better quality of life for all, equality within society and a deeper sense of connection to the natural world around us, and each other”.

Notably, to ensure economies of scale and employment generation, social homes owned by local authorities and approved housing bodies (AHBs) will be combined with privately owned homes in the wider community to deliver retrofitting on an area-basis. Elsewhere, Our

Cork and Chamber Street, Liberties, Dublin 8 Located within the historic Liberties area, this scheme occupies previously vacant sites to create an attractive new boundary edge to Weaver Park, a new city park off Cork Street. Construction began on site in February 2020 to provide 55 homes arranged in two blocks of apartments with associated communal courtyards and a small commercial space. The buildings range from three- to seven-storeys in height with the tallest element facing onto Cork Street.

Working in collaboration with our consultants Levitt Bernstein and ABK Architects, Dublin City Council is reinterpreting historical façades typical for the Liberties into this modern elevation as a means of retaining a historical continuity with the area’s past. The park elevations reflect the narrow plot widths of the historic residential development pattern.

In contrast, the elevations along Cork Street will have larger openings, and a more robust and simpler character to address the urban scale of the area. Due to its proximity to a busy city park, the design of the rear courtyards of the apartment blocks are intended as sanctuaries where the residents can experience quiet in an enclosed external area. The development consists of: •

32 one-bed apartments;

•

eight two-bed apartments;

•

two accessible two-bed apartments that are ‘universal design plus’ standard;

•

13 three-bed apartments;

•

one commercial space; and

•

two landscaped courtyards.

Shared Future commits to provide seed capital to local authorities to provide serviced sites at cost in towns and villages to allow individuals and families to build homes.

The centrality of local authorities to delivering housing is recognised in Our Shared Future and, among other priorities, the emphasis is on developing sustainable, mixed tenure communities.

More so than before therefore, the new

housing strategies of local authorities, now being established under the policy objectives of the National Planning Framework, will be relied upon as the key development planning mechanism for delivery of this new affordable housing and sustainable communities.

Dublin City aims to continue to be at the forefront of the delivery of this new housing agenda. The case studies given here illustrate how we have already

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Primary among these actions are the new government’s commitments to prioritise the increased supply of public, social and affordable homes by more than 50,000 units with an emphasis on new builds that puts affordability at the heart of the housing system and tackles homelessness. This is combined with commitments to delivery of a National Aggregated Model of Retrofitting capable of reaching over 500,000 homes by 2030 and driving improvements in the energy efficiency of our homes, reducing carbon emissions and tackling energy poverty.

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In addition, we have taken a ‘what works’ evidence-informed approach to better understand how place quality is associated with the quality of design in the built environment but also how this goes beyond this by incorporating the processes and outcomes of development, regeneration and the longterm management of places.

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begun to address this enormous and inspiring challenge by placing an emphasis on how place quality works to influence the lives we lead, the opportunities available to us, our personal and communal happiness, identity and our sense of belonging as

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community.

T: +353 1 222 6803 E: daithi.downey@dublincity.ie

Ballybough House, Poplar Row, Dublin 1 Springvale, Chapelizod, Dublin 10 Located on the northern side of Chapelizod Road, on the eastern outskirts of Chapelizod village, the development at Springvale started on site in January 2020.

The scheme comprises 71 apartments arranged in six blocks with associated parking and amenity spaces, as well as a new scout and community hall. The design concept for the scheme will maintain and enhance the location’s connection with the Phoenix Park, drawing the park in through the residential space and creating views back to Phoenix Park from the Chapelizod Road. Also, the buildings along Chapelizod Road will work to create a defined street edge, related to the scale and urban character of the village of Chapelizod, so the scheme appears as an extension of the village.

An intimate, internal street will be created running through the length of the site.

Projecting balconies, apartment entrances, front doors and pedestrian and vehicle movement will help to create activity along this street. The buildings range from three- to five-storeys in height and include landscaped communal spaces at ground level. The scout and community hall will be designed to be adaptable and engaging as a ‘marker’ building, sitting comfortably within the existing tree-filled eastern end of the site. In order to reflect its unique use and community focus, the design and materials are purposely different from the residential buildings. The building will include a double height multi-purpose hall, storage and associated ancillary accommodation.

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The landscaping and central open spaces for the scheme provide a balance of amenity and play space, referencing both the village and Phoenix Park in material and planting. It also provides a visual link from Phoenix Park to the Gothic Revival Catholic church over high crypt built circa 1845 and creating a generous planted buffer to private front gardens. In summary the development consists of:

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•

21 one-bed apartments;

•

27 two-bed apartments;

•

three accessible two-bed apartments that are ‘universal design plus’ standard;

•

20 three-bed apartments;

•

one scout/community hall;

•

communal amenity spaces and private courtyards; and

•

play trail.

Dublin Corporation, is a Herbert Simm’s designed four-storey building constructed under the city’s ambitious housing programme to address the chronic housing problems of the time. In use since, and occupied now for 80 years, the building is an established element of the urban fabric and social history of the city.

The scheme is an exceptional example of early 20th century modernist architecture with its arched entrances, curved corners with windows and facades of mixed brickwork and render. Nonetheless, today the building is failing the quality standard required by Dublin City Council and is now part of a pilot project that seeks to address the issues of size, energy efficiency and dampness in the scheme by amalgamating two flats into one.

The historic fabric will be insulated with breathable materials to prevent the growth of mould and a new heat pump will replace the gas boiler.

The project brings many challenges in its execution particularly in successfully reconciling the demands of continuity, change and improvement in quality of lived experience for its residents. As such, the project acts as a template for other such housing complexes and aims to offer future generations the enjoyment of ‘habitable heritage’ in quality social housing.

Bonham Street, Dublin 8 This scheme of 57 homes started in October 2019 and is located on Bonham Street on an infill site in close proximity to the Digital Hub. The scheme comprises three six- to eight-storey perimeter blocks surrounding an enclosed courtyard area for residents’ use and is adjacent to a new public park at Bridgefoot Street also currently under construction by Dublin City Council.

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The modern and contemporary architecture respects and integrates positively with the surrounding context, adding to the rich industrial design legacy and urban quality of this area. This development provides homes for individuals and families in a small community setting. The human scale, sense of ownership and personal space is therefore extremely important and will be most evident in the courtyard and private side of the development.

The scheme’s objective is to provide a dynamic mix of uses which interact with each other, help create a sense of community and sustain the vitality of this historic place in Dublin’s inner city. In summary this high-quality residential development consists of: •

26 one-bed apartments;

•

five three-bed apartments;

•

23 two-bed apartments;

•

one commercial space;

•

three accessible two-bed apartments that are ‘universal design plus’ standard;

•

one live/work unit; and

•

a landscaped courtyard.

St Bricins, Arbour Hill, Dublin 1 Dublin City Council’s Bedsit Amalgamation Programme consists of the refurbishment and amalgamation of existing bedsit units to bring them up to appropriate size standards, improve overall energy efficiency and extend the life of existing housing blocks. The programme achieves this by reconfiguring two original bedsits into one new, larger unit.

Many of these bedsits were built in the 60’s and 70’s and were designed to house one person.

Dublin City Council has successfully completed the reconfiguration and redevelopment of over 280 bedsits to provide 140 completed high quality one-bed apartments with the work at St Bricin’s Park at Arbour Hill being the culmination of the city-wide Bedsit Amalgamation Programme.

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This newly configured apartment block is for senior citizens and has been renovated to the Passive House Standard.

Renovation has ensured residents remain in their communities in comfortable, healthy and affordable homes.

The standard of energy-efficient construction ensures these homes are exceptionally comfortable, healthy and affordable to occupy. The project achieves the Passive House EnerPHit standard of a minimum 80 per cent reduction in energy use and minimum 80 per cent reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. As well as providing energy efficient buildings, this approach also avoids further embodied carbon by prolonging the life of existing housing stock.

In recognition of its innovation, the project has won numerous awards including the Irish Building and Design Awards 2019 ‘Renovation Project of the Year’ and the Isover Awards 2019 ‘Excellence in Residential Renovation’ award, both for low energy design. The project also included refurbishing a community kitchen within the scheme that prepares ‘meals on wheels’ for the wider community.

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Opposition: Home for now More than any other policy area, housing dominated discourse during General Election 2020. As the new Government sets its course, many within the housing sector have cautiously welcomed its rhetoric, though it has not escaped criticism. Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin engages with Ciarán Galway to outline his critique of the Programme for Government (PfG) and discuss alternative policy proposals.

Fresh after publishing a ‘Draft Affordable Housing Circular’, Eoin Ó Broin TD was fiercely critical in his analysis of the Programme for Government’s housing components. Reacting via social media, where his message has found fertile ground among young renters and prospective first time buyers, Sinn Féin’s housing spokesperson said: “It gives me great regret to say that if this is the basis for the future government, then the housing crisis is set to continue into the future.” Latterly, in an apparent statement of intent as the chief Opposition, Sinn Féin utilised its first Private Members’ time in the 33rd Dáil to present a motion on affordable housing, which was subsequently voted down by the Government.

What does the Programme for Government get wrong in your opinion?

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The crucial thing about these documents is not the rhetoric. You can write ‘housing for all’ as much as you want, but what really matters are the key commitments. It’s a continuation of the Rebuilding Ireland programme and almost all of what is in the Programme for Government is either existing policy or policy that [former Housing Minister] Eoghan Murphy had announced in the last 12 months.

Social housing Take social housing. The Programme commits to 50,000 social houses over the next five years, or 10,000 social houses per year. That had already been announced as part of the National Development Plan [NDP]. The clear understanding was that Rebuilding Ireland would take us to 10,000 units per year and continue from there for the NDP. It’s also important to remember that not all 10,000 are real social houses owned by local authorities and approved housing bodies.

Affordable housing On affordable housing, there are no new targets, no new commitments and a vague promise ‘as a matter of urgency’ to deliver cost rental and affordable purchase. Government has been saying this since Alan Kelly’s Social Housing Strategy 2020, published in 2014.

Rebuilding Ireland also had a commitment for an affordable cost rental pilot. We’ve been led to believe that a departmental working group has been working on an affordable purchase scheme for the last two years. While we’ve had bits of money and bits of policy announced, such as the Serviced Sites Fund, it is not clear from this Programme how many affordable homes will be delivered year-on-year, how much those homes will cost to rent or buy, or indeed whether they’ll be genuinely affordable. Therefore, I’m very

sceptical about whether we are seeing any departure in policy terms.

Private rental sector The private rental sector stuff is abysmal. It speaks volumes that one of the first commitments in the private rental sector section is ‘examine the creation of a system of holding rental deposits informed by international experience’. I don’t know if the party negotiators knew this or not, but Jan O’Sullivan, when she was Minister for Housing [2011-2014] in the Fine GaelLabour Government [2011-2016], passed this legislation through the Oireachtas already. The President has signed it. The problem is that the last Fine Gael Government didn’t want to enact it because it didn’t like the idea.

So, why would you ‘examine the creation of a system’ to do something when the legislation has already been passed by one of the parties which is now party to this Programme for Government? It’s one of those classic cases of putting something in the Programme to say ‘oh, well, we’ll think about doing this’ not anticipating that any of us would remember that the legislation has already passed.

To what extent is the Land Development Agency (LDA) as proposed in the PfG

different from that envisaged in the Land Development Agency Bill 2019?

My understanding is that the LDA became a key battleground in the Programme for Government negotiations. You would had to have sat through the five [Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government] hearings, long and detailed as they were, to fully understand that what’s in the Programme for Government is almost identical to what was proposed in the Land Development Agency Bill 2019.

The Programme for Government tells us is that it will have some compulsory purchase order powers, but we knew that anyway because it was said clearly in the Oireachtas Committee. The real question is not ‘will it have some powers’, rather it is ‘will it have full CPO powers or ransom strip powers’?

We won’t know until we see the legislation. But everything I read in the Programme for Government tells me that it is the same as what we saw in the committee. It will have ransom strip limited powers. The reason for that is, if the LDA is to be involved in commercial residential development, and it’s my understanding that this is still the intention, it will be in competition with commercial residential developers.

Therefore, it cannot, under EU state aid

There is also a sentence in the Programme saying that [the LDA] will be subject to FOI. It was always going to be subject to FOI for its non-commercial operations. We teased this out at great length with LDA Chief Executive John Coleman and his team at committee.

The problem is, just like NAMA, if it’s a commercial semi-state, a designated activities company, then its commercial activity will not be subject to the lobby register or FOI. If you want to know the kind of model the LDA is likely to deliver, take a look at O’Devaney Gardens. An affordable twobedroom apartment there will cost you €310,000, plus the €50,000 state equity stake which you will also have to pay back over the lifetime of the ownership of the property. So, the affordable twobedroom in O’Devaney is really costing €360,000 with a mortgage split between a principal mortgage and a secondary loan.

That Fianna Fáil has let Fine Gael dictate the frame of social and affordable housing through the LDA is bad news for everyone.

The PfG claims to place affordability at the heart of housing policy. How do you define affordability?

To the layperson, who’s not entrenched in the detail, this sounds good. But then you might ask, ‘how much is it going to cost?’ From every bit of evidence we have of government policy now, it’s going to cost you €1,300 minimum in rent or it’s going to cost you €310,000 minimum for a two- or three-bed apartment.

housing policy must begin with asking who it’s for and how much they can afford.

We know the answer the first question.

It’s all the households above the threshold for social housing and below €50,000 gross income for a single person or below €70,000 gross income for a couple. So, what can they afford?

They can afford, depending on where they sit on this spectrum, rents of between €700 and €900. Affordable purchase must come in at €250,000 or below.

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The general scheme of the legislation was published last year. There were very significant concerns about the LDA as it was being proposed by Fine Gael. The primary concern was that it would be a designated activities company [DAC], albeit owned by the ministers for finance and for housing. By virtue of being a DAC, it would operate like a commercial entity and a large portion of its output would be unaffordable, open market price properties, rather than social or affordable.

rules, have full blown CPO powers.

What the LDA is doing, is it is taking this spectrum of households, from €35,000 gross to below €75,000 and it is picking the midway point, or the high point, to determine its pricing. Instead, it must start at the bottom end because it has to be accessible for the people with a gross annual income of €35,000, €45,000 or €55,000.

The Government will say, ‘but there’s a Rebuilding Ireland home loan, it can offer a loan of €280,000, add on a €30,000 deposit and that gives you €310,000.’ Here’s the difficulty: most Rebuilding Ireland home loans are €200,000 or less. If the loans these households have been offered by the Government’s own affordable mortgage is €200,000 and you add on a 10 per cent deposit of €20,000, then units need to be available at about €220,000 or €230,000.That’s what affordable is and we’ve set it out very clearly in our scheme.

When I’m asked the question, what does government affordable housing policy really look like, it looks like O’Devaney Gardens. If this is the model that gets developed then, unless there is a hidden plan that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have kept under wraps and will announce come Budget 2021 in October, all of those working people who are desperate

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There is a real frustration among local authorities and approved housing bodies that the Government will not define what affordability is. A coherent affordable

“That Fianna Fáil has let Fine Gael dictate the frame of social and affordable housing through the LDA is bad news for everyone.”

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to rent or buy at affordable prices are going to be excluded and their needs will not be met.

From your perspective, what does the commitment to a ‘referendum on housing’ within the PfG mean?

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I understand that three attempts were made to insert the words ‘a referendum on the right to housing’ and three times these were removed. The question I ask is why would this be the case? The answer is because that is not what [the Government] intends to do. What does it intend to do? I have no idea.

Go back to the previous Programme for Government. Fine Gael wasn’t going to put a right to housing in the programme.

That also means, if the Government clearly breaches that right, and one would hope that it does not, then it is judicable in court. The way in which a government may vindicate such rights is completely a matter for the political process.

What are the core objectives of SF’s ‘Draft Affordable Housing Circular’?

There is enormous frustration out there that government is yet to produce an affordable housing scheme. It’s been talked about for years, but people need to know what the rules of the game are.

There are a couple components of our circular which are unique to Sinn Féin’s policy position. Take, for example,

Some people doubt whether individuals would buy a house knowing that they could never sell it into the market. What I would ask is, what do a young working couple want? They want a good quality home that is theirs at an affordable price. We want to give them that. The caveat is that they should never be able to gain from a windfall on selling land they never owned. The model is, therefore, more equitable for both market and the non-market purchasers.

The second thing that is different about Sinn Féin’s affordable housing model is affordable rental. The model is a very simple one. There is a loan facility that approved housing bodies can avail of today to build social housing called the Capital Advanced Loan Facility [CALF].

It’s a soft loan from the State to put up 30 per cent of the development cost.

Sinn Féin would amend that to say CALF

“The Government will say, ‘but there’s a Rebuilding Ireland home loan, it can offer a loan of €280,000, add on a €30,000 deposit and that gives you €310,000.’ Here’s the difficulty: most Rebuilding Ireland home loans are €200,000 or less.”

Instead, in recognition of the constitutional convention deliberations on this matter, they included ambiguous language about asking the Oireachtas Housing Committee to consider whether or not to recommend holding a referendum. We were just about to start that work when Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael took that responsibility off [the Committee] through a motion in the Dáil and passed consideration of this to the Finance Committee.

I’ve sat through four years of this stuff and I am deeply cynical about the willingness of Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael to enshrine a socio-economic right in the Constitution. Twice in the last Dáil, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil voted against draft legislation to enshrine the right to housing in the Constitution. I balance what I’m reading here with their voting record.

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Obviously, we need the Attorney General to provide us with the best wording, but what we want in the Constitution is a right to secure adequate and affordable accommodation. While that doesn’t guarantee people the right to a home, it means that when governments are framing policy, budgets and legislation, they must have due regard for how these vindicate that right progressively and in accordance with the resources that are available at any one time.

affordable purchase. The model that Sinn Féin has come up with is affordable purchase lease hold whereby an individual may buy a house and own the bricks and mortar but doesn’t own the land.

is available for all affordable

When bought, there would be a covenant governing the use of that land which says that the purchaser can live in it indefinitely, with intergenerational security of tenure and make whichever desired improvements, but that it can never be sold into the private market.

Instead, it must be sold back into the affordable housing scheme, index linked for inflation and improvements.

70 per cent is low interest, long-term

That means the State can control the use of that land for affordable housing in perpetuity. It means that whoever owns the house at a future point in time is gaining an affordable home. This will build up the stock of affordable homes in the system. It also reduces the price for the purchaser, which is the real advantage to them.

month. That’s how we make it

Sinn Féin is also advocating the removal of land value from the transaction so that when someone buys the home, they are not paying that €20,000. Instead of buying at €250,000, they are buying at €230,000. The reason why that is crucial is because, going back to what I said before, the average Rebuilding Ireland home loan is €200,000.

Ultimately, if there was enough of that

developments. What that would mean is that the all-in development cost is €230,000 and the State provides the 30 per cent CALF. It’s zero interest, repayable from year 41. The remaining European Investment Bank/Housing Finance Agency finance for 40 years.

The mortgage payments on that are around €400 per month for the 40 years, then you add on a very generous management maintenance fee plus a sinking fund for structural maintenance of €400, giving a total rent of €800 per affordable. The great value of our scheme is that at the end of the 40 years, the EIB loan is paid off, the CALF loan is paid off in another 10 years and after 50 years, the local authorities or approved housing body now has a revenue surplus into the long-term.

stock, the affordable housing would cross subsidise the long-term maintenance of the social housing stock which always has to be subsidised. It puts public housing on a much more sustainable financial footing into the long-term.

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PPP Bundles: Update Comhar Housing launches Social Housing Bundle 1.

With the beginning of construction on Social Housing Public Private Partnership (PPP) Bundle 1 in March 2019, the PPP programme began its long road to the delivery of around 1,500 social housing units spread across three bundles.

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PPPs play a notable role in the delivery of new build social housing as envisioned in Rebuilding Ireland, although the three bundles currently being progressed date back to before the publication of the plan, having been announced by then Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin TD in 2015.

Envisioned as a social housing investment of â‚Ź300 million, the bundles involve the partnering of government and private enterprises.

Contracts put out to tender are for the design, build, finance and operation of the social homes, the first Irish ones to be provided under the PPP model, which has previously been utilised to deliver the construction of public projects such as schools. The contract also includes the provision of tenancy management services, which must be provided by an approved housing body (AHB), meaning that every consortium bidding for tender must have an AHB in its midst.

The developments, when complete, will comprise services and maintenance for the first 25 years following construction, after which they will return the assets to the Government, who will hand them over to local authorities, in prime condition. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage acts as the sanctioning authority over the project, with the National Development Finance Agency (NDFA) acting as financial advisor, procuring authority and project manager.

The PPP contract is a fixed price contract, meaning that the traditional construction standard of upfront instalments is avoided. Payments under the PPP structure are made monthly over the 25-year post-construction period and are contingent on the availability of homes and the service performance of the tendered consortium, meaning that deductions will be made from the payment if predefined standards are not met. After the 25 years, the local authority retains ownership of the

homes, which are to be returned in accordance with hand back requirements set out in the contract.

Bundle 1 Bundle 1 of the PPP bundles features the building of 534 homes on six sites in Coolock, Corkagh Grange, Finglas (all in Dublin), Dunleer (Louth), Wicklow Town and Naas (Kildare). The Contract Notice for the bundle was published in May 2017, with expressions of interest submitted by five candidates. After evaluation, three of these were invited to tender. Meet the Buyer events targeted at SMEs were held in March and November 2018 in order to allow suppliers to meet with those tendering for the contract to discuss subcontracting opportunities.

After tenders were received in July 2018, the Comhar Housing consortium was awarded the contract in March 2019. The consortium is made up of Macquarie

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Social Housing Bundle 2’s housing provision.

Capital, John Sisk and Sons, Choice Housing Ireland Ltd and Oaklee Housing serves as the consortium’s required AHB. The consortium is supported by the European Investment Bank, Bank of Ireland and Korea Development Bank.

The bundle has progressed into the construction stage, with sod turnings taking place at Ayrfield in Coolock and Corkagh Grange in March and April 2019 respectively. Upon the announcement of the tender award, then Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy TD said that the PPP model was “an important and innovative delivery mechanism within Rebuilding Ireland”. The houses are expected to be complete for 2021, although like all construction projects, it is unclear how the Covid-19 slowdown has affected this delivery date thus far.

Bundle 2 Bundle 2 features the building of 465 homes in Roscommon, Waterford, Galway, Clare, Kildare and across three sites in Cork. The Contract Notice for the project was published in February 2018, with four candidates eventually shortlisted and invited to tender. A Meet the Buyer event similar to that of Bundle 1’s was held in July 2019, allowing for the tendering parties to connect with suppliers to discuss sub-contracting opportunities.

With tenders received in February 2019, the contract was awarded to the Torc Housing Partnership in November 2019.

The Torc Housing Partnership is a

consortium comprised of Equitix, Kajima Partnerships, JJ Rhatigan, Orbascón Huarte Lain (OHL), Derwert FM and Tuath Housing Association. Construction will be undertaken by a partnership of JJ Rhatigan and OHL, the Spanish developer currently building the National Forensic Mental Health Hospital in Portrane. Construction began immediately upon announcement of the tender award and is scheduled to take between 14-18 months depending on the site, although these estimates do also come with the Covid-19 caveats for now.

The German bank Nord/LB is providing the debt funding for Bundle 2.

Tim Lucey, Chief Executive of Cork County Council, said that the Council’s collaboration with Torc for their three sites “will have a real and meaningful impact in social housing provision” in both the Cork area and nationwide.

Bundle 3 Bundle 3 will deliver circa 441 homes across sites in Sligo, Wicklow, Kildare and three sites in north Dublin. As this is the least developed of the three bundles thus far, numbers of homes are given as indicative rather than definite.

Of the six sites outlined, the largest is currently projected to be on the Shangan Road in Ballymun, Dublin. The site’s projected 100 homes are all currently designated as senior citizen homes, as are 50 of the 150 homes being built in Coolock as part of Bundle 1.

Bundle 3 is currently in the stage of initial

planning for the procurement of advisory services. The NDFA’s website says that it is “intended to utilise a multi-party framework which was established for the programme for a number of the required advisory services” as was done with the first two bundles. It is said to be anticipated that the required advisors will be appointed to the project in quarter three of 2020.

Cost The cost of the PPP programme was revealed to break down to “availability” payments of €1 million per month for the 25-year post-construction period, which breaks down to €1,900 per month per unit. These costs came under scrutiny from the opposition within the last Dáil, with Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin TD saying they were “exorbitant” and six times the cost of standard social housing.

It has been stressed by those in support of the model that value for money is intrinsic to the work of the NDFA, who use the public sector benchmark (PSB) framework to calculate the cost of the project as if it was delivered through traditional procurement method.

The PPP model has nonetheless been referred to as “high risk” by housing experts such as University College Dublin’s Orla Hegarty. For Fine Gael, the model and the greater Rebuilding Ireland strategy presents the chance for its approach to be vindicated as it enters government once again.

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Castlehaven Finance: Financing development delivery

(L-R) David Moriarty; a CH client; and Mark Davenport discuss development plans on site.

Castlehaven Finance provides bridging facilities for site purchases, enabling developers to move more quickly on-site acquisitions, as well as working capital finance for development.

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Castlehaven Finance was founded by Clark McCann and Will Aylmer in 2014, in response to the need for alternative development financing in the Irish marketplace, given the reduction in available bank debt for the sector at that time. Since then, the company has advanced property development and bridging finance to the industry in excess of €785 million and is now one of the top alternative finance lenders in Ireland.

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Alternative lender The role of so-called ‘alternative lenders’ in the Irish marketplace has evolved over the past number of years, with much of the standard lending criteria aligning with that of mainstream lenders. Some important differences remain, namely accessibility, speed of decision-making, flexibility and a more bespoke approach to matching lending criteria with the characteristics of the proposed development project.

Castlehaven Finance provides senior development loans on both private and social residential developments, as well as commercial developments throughout Ireland from €1 million, covering up to 90 per cent loan-to-cost. Asset refinance and equity release is also available for sites in ownership. All senior development loans are secured by way of registering a first legal charge on the property. The company also provides 80 per cent loan-to-value corporate bridging

finance from €1 million for periods up to 36 months.

The collective experience of the Castlehaven team ensures a speedy turnaround time on lending decisions.

Initial due diligence is conducted in a thorough and timely manner in order to provide clients with the fast, flexible, and reliable service we know to be critical.

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Ethos in action The Castlehaven ethos is to redefine development lending, with the needs of the client at the core. We know that a strong relationship of mutual understanding and trust between lender and client is fundamental to successful delivery of any development project. For this reason, our team works closely with clients, taking the time to truly understand not only the project, but the organisation and its objectives.

We do this by making borrowing as simple and straight-forward as possible.

While every project requires a customised solution, Castlehaven is consistently transparent in setting out our underwriting approach, our cost of funding, and our lending process.

Social housing As an alternative lender, Castlehaven has greater flexibility in terms of location for social housing projects and, over the past number of years, our team has worked with developers all over the country on these projects. We understand the wider funding ecosystem for social housing in Ireland, which helps us to work well in partnership to deliver vital homes and site works.

Bollarney Woods, Wicklow town: 33 social homes supported by Castlehaven Finance.

“As a key member of the development delivery team, Castlehaven Finance prioritises the needs of our clients, while helping them to achieve their development goals. We endeavour to keep the loan process quick and easy to understand. For us, the success of the overall development is enhanced by the relationships we build, the transparency we insist upon, the reliability we know clients need, and the flexibility that only Ireland-based experience can offer.” require the developer to have a social housing contract in advance of closing.

In urban areas where there is a strong private market operating concurrently with the social housing market, we can underwrite the transaction based on open market values and would not

We are proud to have played our part in helping to deliver almost 1,100 social homes, which contributes positively to the national social housing targets, as set out under Rebuilding Ireland.

Established in 2014, Castlehaven Finance has provided development finance for social and private homes to developers, builders and project owners across Ireland in excess of €785 million.

With offices in Dublin and Cork, the company currently employs close to 20 people.

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Our assessment of social housing projects is broadly similar to private residential projects, however, proposed projects with joint approved housing body and local authority contracts in place are preferred in areas of population below 5,000. Such proposed projects will be assessed as a matter of priority. We can offer a higher level of funding in provincial areas on social contracts versus private housing schemes.

The team at Castlehaven Finance has supported in excess of 30 social housing developments across Ireland to date, delivering projects most recently in counties Dublin, Galway, Kildare, Louth, Meath, Roscommon, Wexford and Wicklow for a number of local authorities directly and through leading approved housing bodies, including Túath, Clúid, Respond, Circle, Oaklee, Clanmil and Co-Operative Housing Ireland.

Castlehaven Finance is currently supporting 15 live social housing developments.

Castlehaven Finance

The team at Castlehaven Finance have been involved in the delivery of more than 3,500 new homes, both private and social, across the State.

To discuss your project requirements, contact the team.

W: www.castlehavenfinance.com

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Housing at the county level Two research reports produced by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) illustrate a county-level analysis of housing affordability and house price sustainability, with the revelation that first time buyers in the Greater Dublin Area spend more than 30 per cent of their income per month on mortgages among the most striking findings.

One of the reports, titled ‘A county-level perspective on housing affordability in Ireland’, performed an assessment of affordability for first time buyers at the county level, finding that the mortgageto-income ratio for potential first time buyers increased across the 26 counties of the State between 2016 and 2018. In 2018, the ratio “would have been more than 30 per cent” in Dublin, Wicklow, Kildare and Meath, while 11 of the 26 counties had a ratio at or below 20 per cent.

With regard to residual income, the report found that a first-time buyer couple “should have sufficient income left over after paying their mortgage instalments to attain at least a minimum level of consumption in all counties”. An analysis of the national trend in first time buyer prices from 2010-2018 show prices bottoming out in 2013, but then rising year-on-year every year, with 2010 levels surpassed in 2016.

However, the national picture does not give heed to the disparities that exist at the county level. Unsurprisingly, Dublin had the highest mean first time buyer price every year surveyed, with 2010

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levels passed in 2014, the county’s recovery having started in 2012, earlier than other counties. By 2018, Dublin’s first-time buyer mean of €375,000 was more than three times that of Longford’s €116,000. Longford was one of only two counties to rank lowest for mean first time buyer price in the years assessed, the other being Leitrim.

Only three counties – Dublin, Wicklow and Kildare – have first time buyer means that exceed the national average of €283,000. 18 of the 26 counties have means below €200,000. Outside of the Dublin area counties, the counties with the highest means are those with cities in their own right: Cork (€255,780), Galway (€226,889) and Limerick (€213,252). The lowest means are to the north-west, in Longford, Leitrim (€119,725), Roscommon (€133,498) and Donegal (€134,344). The most notable year-on-year mean growth occurred in Laois (17.5 per cent), Sligo, Clare (both 15 per cent), Limerick (14.7 per cent) and Wexford (12.5 per cent).

Using the maximum loan-to-value ratio of 90 per cent that first time buyers face, the average new business rate for

household loans (3.02 per cent in 2018) and the standard 30-year term for first time mortgages, the ESRI calculated a mortgage repayment-to-income ratio per county in order to reveal affordability at the local level. The highest of these ratios occurs in Wicklow, where first time buyers are spending 36 per cent of their incomes on mortgages; second is Dublin with 35 per cent. The only other counties above 30 per cent are the Dublin commuter belt counties of Kildare, 32 per cent, and Meath, 31 per cent.

The lowest ratios arrived at are those of Leitrim, 13 per cent, and Longford, 14 per cent. In a non-major city, non-Dublin commuter county, the ratio typically lies between 17 per cent (Roscommon, Sligo and Tipperary) and 22 per cent (Clare, Kilkenny, Laois and Waterford). The major city counties of Cork, Galway and Limerick had ratios of 27 per cent, 28 per cent and 23 per cent respectively, while Dublin-commuting Louth had a ratio of 25 per cent.

What is most notable in this research is the pace of growth in the ratio in each county, despite income levels increasing and interest rates decreasing across

Percentage of net monthly income needed for mortgage repayments At least 30%

25% to 30%

2016

every county. This is said to be a result of house price growth vastly outstripping the pace of income growth.

The research does come with the caveat that the ESRI “have not explored the feasibility of borrowing by the illustrative households” and that in the higher ratio area “the implied loan-to-income ratio would likely be above the limit allowable without exemption from the current regulations” which would mean that these households would have to purchase homes at lower than the average price to comply with current borrowing limits.

Less than 20%

2017

House price sustainability Using what is termed a Heat Index, the ESRI have also analysed the sustainability of house prices at the county in another research paper titled ‘Irish house price sustainability: a county-level analysis’. The Heat Index is arrived at via underlying finance theory and the user cost of capital method, giving it a “considerable advantage of having a particular theoretical structure and allows us to decompose investors’ attitudes to the housing market”. The higher a county’s Heat Index, the more unstable its market.

The research shows that rent yields are “greater than the current borrowing rate and above the rate they were during the tail end of the housing boom”. It finds that, in general, the market is well explained by fundamentals but notes that the relationship between prices and fundamentals “can change rapidly” and sharp deviations in prices and/or a change in a factor of the use cost model “could lead to prices moving out of line with the underlying value of housing”.

It is reported that there is “considerable variation” in the Heat Index across the counties, with more rural counties least likely to be at risk of overheating due in part to the failure of their house prices to recover fully from the slump that followed

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2018

20% to 25%

the 2008 economic crash. Counties in the south and south-east have the highest value on the Heat Index, but the ESRI says that “this is not be read as evidence that these markets are experiencing unsustainable inflation in prices or that the market is out of sync with fundamentals”.

The highest rental yields are reported to be in the midlands and border regions, where the steep housing price decline at the start of the decade and failure to recover have paired with recent rent increases and resulted in yields of 6.7 per cent, 6.2 per cent and 6 per cent for Roscommon, Offaly and Monaghan respectively. The lowest yields were Wexford (3.4 per cent), Kilkenny and Wicklow (both 3.4 per cent).

The Heat Index, which was above 2 in late 2009/early 2010, was found to range between -4.65 (Roscommon) and -1.36 (Wexford), indicating that house prices are recovering more rapidly than rents in Wexford. The biggest increases in the Heat Index occurred in Wexford, Kilkenny, Mayo and Sligo, while the index declined in counties such as Offaly, Meath, Cavan, Monaghan, Clare and Limerick.

Concluding, the report finds that the “Irish market does not currently display significant evidence of unsustainable house prices” and that the ESRI “do not find major difference across counties which would suggest any specific geographic areas are becoming unsustainable”.

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Myriad of different housing solutions required to meet needs of Ireland’s demographics

There has been much focus in recent months on what the ‘new normal’ will look like for Ireland once we are through the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic. This is particularly pertinent in the housing sector of the economy, where prior to the outbreak of Covid-19, a severe supply demand imbalance in the housing market was the single biggest issue facing the Irish economy, writes Shane Cahir, Director, Residential Capital Markets, CBRE Ireland.

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Housing was one of the main issues exercising the electorate in the lead up to Ireland’s General Election in February and has been one of the core issues discussed in Government formation talks since. Regardless of the sudden severe shock that the Covid-19 pandemic has thrust upon the economy, the supply demand imbalance in the housing sector remains, and housing issues will become even more acute due to the significant increase in unemployment and change in personal financial circumstances that has materialised since March.

Despite the best efforts of Government to ramp up supply over the last few years, Ireland produced approximately only 21,000 housing units in 2019

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despite the Central Bank suggesting that 34,000 housing units are required annually to satisfy demand. With construction halted for more than two months in 2020 as a result of lockdown and construction capacity now significantly constrained due to social distancing measures that have been in place since sites were allowed to reopen on 18 May, we could be looking at total delivery of no more than 15,000 housing units this year – less than 45 per cent of what is actually required.

Government now need to prioritise the timely delivery of affordable housing to cater for all tenures and life stages. We need a myriad of different types and tenures of housing to cater for Ireland’s unique demographic profile including those who exclusively want to rent, those who are looking for a shared living experience and those who aspire to homeownership. It is clear that the issue of affordability is key, and in this regard, we expect to see greater focus from the new administration on the delivery of affordable housing solutions including

adoption of the cost rental model. We also expect to see more incidences of long-term leasing as local authorities throughout the country attempt to reduce housing lists. However, third parties (public and private) can only acquire or lease stock that has been developed or is in the process of being delivered, so the focus has to be on ramping up delivery in the first instance.

We need greater collaboration between the public and private sector to ensure timely delivery of supply of all types of housing. It is clear that the design, size and composition of housing units will have to change radically as we attempt to meet the needs of Ireland’s unique demographics.

For too long, we have been not building enough, not building in the right locations and not building the right type of housing. This now needs to change.

CBRE are Ireland’s leading property advisors with unrivalled expertise in all aspects of the residential investment market, having access to international expertise through their global network.

The company’s Residential Capital Markets & Commercial Capital Markets teams operate as a fully integrated single entity within the business. This unquestionably creates the largest property investment advisory team in the country. From structuring forward funding & forward commit transactions in the multifamily space, to advising on design and management of co-living, purpose-built student accommodation and build-to-rent schemes, to the acquisition and sale of residential investments to navigating the affordable leasing model, CBRE are a one-stopshop.

T: 01 618 5500 W: www.cbre.ie E: shane.cahir@cbre.com

Ireland’s housing magazine

Reclassifying approved housing bodies In 2018, Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, and the Central Statistics Office (CSO) deemed 14 of Ireland’s largest approved housing bodies (AHBs) to be part of the general government sector, a decision that has caused frustration in the realm of AHBs ever since but there is new hope that frustration could be coming to an end.

The decision to reclassify the status of AHBs, which were previously regarded as “non-profit institutions serving households”, was taken due to the fact that the bodies use public money to provide public housing at a price lower than the market average. Functionally, what this reclassification means is that all money received by AHBs is currently regarded as government spending and is included on all government balance sheets.

This came despite an estimate by Circle Housing Association CEO John Hannigan that only 25 per cent of AHB funding has come from government funds since 2010, with the remaining 75

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per cent borrowed by the AHBs themselves. Reclassification means that this 75 per cent, typically borrowed from banks by the bodies, now counts as government spending on balance sheets, which must be balanced in compliance with EU rules.

Halligan saying in 2019 that the bodies were “beginning to see a small slowdown in the delivery of housing” as outside investors began to step away due to a lack of potential return on investments and the rumoured possibility of more controls being introduced.

Practically, this has meant that funding for AHBs has been left to compete in government budgets with high profile projects such as the National Children’s Hospital, the MetroLink and the National Broadband Plan, even when the prospective funding has not been government sourced. It has become the single most pressing issue for the delivery of housing by AHBs, with

Around one-third of the 50,000 homes scheduled to be delivered by Rebuilding Ireland are expected to come from the AHB sector, but the sector has been warning that this aim will not be achieved on time unless the topic of classification is tackled head on. In July 2019, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing was told by Declan Dunne that the AHBs will “inevitably” provide less social

housing in the coming years because of the decision to classify their funding as purely governmental.

Dunne also said that then Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy TD was supportive of efforts to return the AHBs to their non-profit status, but that little progress had been made politically against the EU ruling since it had been made in March 2018. In 2018, the AHBs delivered 3,219 homes that were either built, bought or leased, representing 40 per cent of the State’s social housing output.

Further, Dunne told the committee: “The urgency is very real and very immediate but I think it would be fair to say when this judgement came down initially, many of us would have been of the view that we did have time because there was significant funding in place. We are in the position where that window is closing.”

Donal McManus, Chief Executive of the Irish Council for Social Housing also told the Housing Committee that most EU member states have their housing associations off balance sheet and the Departments of Housing and Finance would ned to change legislation, regulation and financing to deal with the issue. He also recommended the foundation of a dedicated working group between government and affected parties to deal with the issues.

By May 2020, little progress had been seen on the front of classification and the issue was central to an online briefing of Oireachtas members presented by the Housing Alliance. In the briefing, open to all Oireachtas members, the Alliance set out four priorities to “ensure social and affordable housing is delivered” while the Covid-19 crisis continues, the fourth of which was “a commitment from government to a time-lined action plan to ensure the classification of AHBs as being on the

for the funding of Approved Housing Bodies in the medium to long term, limiting the capacity of Housing Alliance members to source funds from Ireland’s housing magazine

Dunne, the Chairman of the Housing Alliance (a conglomerate of six of Ireland’s largest AHBs: Circle, Clúid Housing, Co-operative Housing Ireland, Oaklee Housing, Respond and Tuath Housing) said to the committee: “This will have negative consequences for the funding of Approved Housing Bodies in the medium to long term, limiting the capacity of Housing Alliance members to source funds from government or external sources. This will inevitably, over the next couple of years result in a reduction in social housing output provided by Approved Housing Bodies.”

“This will have negative consequences

Government or external sources. This will inevitably, over the next couple of years result in a reduction in social housing output provided by Approved Housing Bodies.”

Declan Dunne, Housing Alliance Chairman Government’s balance sheet is reversed”.

Speaking after the briefing, Dunne repeated the arguments he had made in the summer of the year previous, saying that “failure to secure this reclassification will restrict funding available to AHBs, and impact on the output of more social and affordable homes” and that the plan was “urgently needed to restore AHBs to their former classification”.

Partly to blame for the reclassification of the AHBs is the lack of existing government legislation regulating the sector; while only 14 AHBs have been reclassified by the decision of Eurostat and the CSO thus far, government figures show that there are 552 registered AHBs in Ireland, only 260 of which signed up to a voluntary code of conduct that was introduced in anticipation of statutory regulation. Paul Lemass, Assistant Secretary at the Department of Housing, said that the Department believed that a great deal of those who had not signed up were inactive and that the Department was in the midst of carrying out a de-listing exercise.

These figures were released as part of the Oireachtas joint committee meetings, with it also being revealed that the AHB sector had received €2 billion in

government funding between 2009 and September 2019, all while being unregulated.

This anomaly was ended in December 2019, when the Housing (Regulation of Approved Housing Bodies) Act 2019 was passed in order to “provide for the regulation of Approved Housing Bodies for the purposes of protecting certain housing assets provided or managed by such bodies”. The Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority will also be established in order to oversee the regulation of the sector.

Given that the authority will also play a role in AHB financial management, it could be reasonably hoped that this will be the vehicle through which the classification issue. The Programme for Government arrived at by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party has led to renewed hope for reclassification in the AHB sector, with an explicit commitment from the new Government to work with AHBs “to ensure they can access finance and move off balance sheet” contained therein. The Housing Alliance said in a statement that they were “extremely encouraged” by this and that they “look forward to working with Government, on a time-lined action plan to restore AHBs to our former off balance sheet classification”.

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Delivering on our promise

Clúid communities in Dublin.

As one of Ireland’s leading Approved Housing Bodies (AHB), Clúid Housing is proud to continue delivering quality housing and services in these challenging times. The organisation remains focused on supporting residents across the country and committed to delivering more social housing. Clúid identifies its robust, established partnerships as the key to being able to continue planning and delivering sustainable, high-quality homes.

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Brian O’Gorman is Chief Executive of the housing provider. Commenting on the road ahead he says: “The AHB sector is now facing unique challenges and the Covid-19 restrictions have had a deep effect on us all. Despite this, Clúid is committed to supporting the Government’s programme of housing delivery. We are a resilient and innovative organisation that has weathered many storms over the course of our 25-year history. Our construction sites are back up and running and complying with all relevant protocols.

Clúid’s New Business team are working hard to ensure the impact of the Covid-

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19 restrictions have a minimal impact on our planned programme for delivery whilst ensuring the safety and wellbeing of all parties.”

Clúid firmly believes that having your own front door, your own place to call home, opens the door to opportunities like seeking out employment, accessing education and other services that enable people to contribute to and enrich communities. The AHB rounded out 2019 with the delivery of over 720 new homes, a figure the organisation says is the beginning of its commitment to deliver 3,000 new homes before the end of 2022.

There are pressing issues to consider first, comments O’Gorman: “The impact of Covid-19 is not the only challenge ahead for the AHB sector. The CSO’s decision to reclassify AHB debt as government debt coupled with the economic uncertainty following the Covid-19 crisis will place unprecedented demand on government resources.

Together with our Housing Alliance partners, Clúid continues to advocate for a reversal of this classification so that we can continue delivering up to 40 per cent of new social housing. We welcome the new Government’s commitment to resolving this issue.

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“Affordability has been and will continue to be a serious concern for many households across the country. In particular, key workers, who have given so much over the past few months, need to be provided with affordable homes within easy reach of their jobs. The introduction of an affordable rental scheme, providing quality, secure housing, can, and will, address this need. Such a scheme will also aid post Covid-19 economic recovery through construction projects and create long term stability in the Irish housing market.”

Clúid's latest high quality Part V housing scheme, The Grove in North Dublin.

Clúid recently launched its Annual Report 2019, the backdrop of which was its 25th anniversary. O’Gorman knows the organisation’s achievements over the past 25 years would not have been possible without the support of partners along the way: “Together with local authorities, developers, funders, government departments, and agencies, Clúid has become one of the leading AHBs in Ireland.”

Over the past year, Clúid had the opportunity to come together and reflect on the organisation’s journey so far. This pause for thought also served to remind the team of their commitment to the future housing needs of the many people still waiting for a place to call home.

Furthermore, O’Gorman says: “The past few months have also given us pause for thought as we do our part to keep each other safe. The importance of home is clearer than ever right now and this acknowledgement will continue to be a driving force behind our mission to deliver quality housing into the future.”

Clúid is the Irish word for ‘the seat beside the fire’, vacated for the guest or venerable elderly family member.

Perhaps now more than ever the significance of this can be directly linked to Clúid’s work. O’Gorman is hopeful for the future: “Now, we look to the road ahead of us and renew our commitment to achieve our vision of a society where everyone has a great place to live. We

“Affordability has been and will continue to be a serious concern for many households across the country. In particular, key workers, who have given so much over the past few months, need to be provided with affordable homes within easy reach of their jobs. The introduction of an affordable rental scheme, providing quality, secure housing, can, and will, address this need.” have ambitious growth targets and we are committed to achieving these.

Together with our partners, the entire Clúid team look forward to the next chapter with renewed confidence and an acknowledgement that we are having a real impact through our work.”

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Continuing to deliver on its mission during the Covid-19 restrictions, Clúid’s team has shown itself to be resilient and innovative. “We’re now looking to the future and our professional team are continuing to find innovative solutions to both the immediate and longer term challenges ahead. I would like to acknowledge the great work being done by all our stakeholders, including our inhouse teams, during this time.

Together, we have continued to deliver on our promise.” adds O’Gorman.

Clúid Housing residents and employees were invited to a reception hosted by the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins in recognition of the organisation's contribution to Irish society.

James Harold Communications Manager Clúid Housing 159-161 Sheriff Street Upper Dublin D01 R8N0 T: +353 1 707 2088 W: www.cluid.ie

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Ireland’s housing magazine

The ‘new build’ numbers game For both the public and the media, meaningful metrics are needed so we can see how society is changing, it is why we do a census every five years, but also to evaluate the performance of politicians and policymakers. Senior lecturer in housing at The Technological University Dublin, Lorcan Sirr writes.

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Academics, analysts, strategists, businesspeople and even politicians all agree that good data is important for making good decisions. Those in business in particular know that cash is king, but data is the kingmaker.

Good data, particularly around issues concerning public expenditure, is only of real benefit if it is both available publicly and in a format that people can understand.

numbers had always been calculated in

Politicians, and those who serve them, are frequently wary of useful data being put in the public realm. I have experienced politicians deny the existence of better data, refuse to release meaningful data, defend incomprehensible data and deliberately use wrong data to justify their actions.

When confronted with such approaches it is reasonable to ask: what are they hiding? Intransigence, obstruction and obfuscation is typically confirmation that something is statistically amiss.

House completion

counting new dwelling completions to

In 2016, myself and architect Mel Reynolds queried annual new build housing completion numbers. After rigorous research across multiple databases we could prove beyond reasonable doubt that the annual completion numbers for new housing were grossly overreported. We received equally rigorous pushback from both the then minister and his officials insisting their methodology was impeccable: the

2017 the Department of Housing had

this way and would continue to be, apparently.

To his credit, the subsequent housing minister Eoghan Murphy gave the job of the CSO, and it found that from 2011overestimated new completion statistics by some 30,000 units. More than onethird of the 85,154 houses supposedly built in the period simply did not exist.

Such a significant correction to official figures raised important questions, particularly about the need to have independent collation and monitoring of politically important public data.

“The common thread linking words and statistics is that housing policy since the introduction of Rebuilding Ireland has increasingly become a numbers game based on the imperative of reaching targets for political gain.” Lorcan Sirr

In other areas of housing there are also issues with the way the data is calculated and presented. For example, Section 10 of the Housing Act 1988 has a definition of homelessness which means it does not count people ‘couch surfing’, homeless people in hospitals and prisons, those in direct provision centres or households in domestic violence refuges. Rather bizarrely, nor do homeless statistics include those sleeping rough, the most homeless of the homeless.

Housing delivery streams The calculation of social housing new build output is another area of contention. The way in which social housing output is presented via Rebuilding Ireland progress reports, with a use of cumulative figures to maximise purported progress towards targets, is distinctly unhelpful. It takes effort and know-how to work out annual totals.

The definition of what constitutes ‘new build’ is itself an issue, encompassing, as it does, the world, its mother and the kitchen sink. The term does not just include social housing newly built by local authorities but is bundled with social housing newly built by approved housing bodies (AHBs). The wideranging definition also includes new houses built by others and bought by local authorities and AHBs, known as turnkeys.

This is where the concept of ‘new build’ gets stretched somewhat, from meaning newly built by the state or its agents, to a ‘new house’, no matter who built it.

(Yes, this matters for being able to measure state activity and progress, as well as measuring value for money.)

The heading ‘new build’ also includes houses brought back into use by regeneration, and until 2017, included

Part V housing which was delivered by developers. We can also throw in ‘voids’, which are existing social housing units that have been made ready for reletting at a cost more than is normal for a ‘casual re-let’ and given to new tenants. They are most certainly not ‘new build’ housing. There is also a small number of leased Part V housing included.

Obfuscation Overall, there are nine different streams of housing delivery. For analysts this makes life hard, and the way housing statistics they are presented means only the most determined will be able to analyse them. For 2019, more than 1,900 individual entries are listed over 100 pages of a pdf document which must be studied line-by-line in order to categorise each one as turnkey, local authority build, and so on. What is most disingenuous about this presentation is the Department of Housing has these numbers easily available in a most accessible format but refused to release them until two complaints were made to the Ceann Comhairle.

This is blatant obfuscation. And when the numbers are finally de-constructed it becomes apparent why.

Turnkeys In the 2019 figures, of the total ‘new build’ figure of 6,074 a mere 19 per cent were built by local authorities. AHBs built under 5 per cent of the total, meaning less than one quarter of all new social housing was led by councils or AHBs. Over 50 per cent were ‘turnkeys’, bought from developers or builders.

In the four Dublin local authorities, the use of direct build has declined 20172019, but the use of turnkey has increased by almost 60 per cent. AHB construction is up 20 per cent over the

Ireland’s housing magazine

Homelessness

same period, and AHB use of turnkeys is up almost 75 per cent.

State involvement This follows a pattern since the Rebuilding Ireland policy programme of declining state involvement and increasing reliance on outside sources for social housing (the logical conclusion of which will be privatised mass social housing provided by investment funds and leased at considerable cost to the State).

Whereas the policy principles of using others to do for the State what it used to do so well, and cheaper, for itself are perhaps discussions for another day, the issue of presentation and wording are crucial. The common thread linking words and statistics is that housing policy since the introduction of Rebuilding Ireland has increasingly become a numbers game based on the imperative of reaching targets for political gain.

Obscuring and withholding information that should be open data not only raises suspicions that something is being hidden (which it invariably is), but also thwarts democracy and builds mistrust.

‘Democratic societies do not function properly without a solid basis of reliable and objective statistics’, according to Eurostat, the statistical body of the EU. It should also be noted that poor data is also the biggest cause of market collapse and inappropriate policy decisions.

If we are to be able to accurately measure progress and hold ministers to account, then we need data that is intelligible, accessible and capable of being interpreted (and not just in housing). Most importantly, we need data that is independently collated.

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Will the Programme for Government really deliver on Housing?

Fidelma McManus

Over the last few months, the focus of the Government and public bodies has rightly been on the global pandemic and health concerns caused by Covid-19.

We are only starting to see the impact of the pandemic on both the building sector and the ability of purchasers to obtain mortgages, but the consequences will clearly be far reaching. The housing crisis is further compounded by the uncertainty facing the economy as a result of the pandemic, and whilst there are still significant volumes of people requiring social housing assistance, if there are further job losses these numbers will likely rise.

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The recently approved Programme for Government (PfG), entitled Our Shared Future, sets out housing as a priority and includes a number of measures which will be considered to increase supply to both private and social housing, as well as increase affordability of housing for all. The newly appointed Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O'Brien of Fianna Fáil, described the PfG as “probably the largest state intervention in the housing market or the most significant state intervention in generations”. But will the PfG really deliver on its ambitious targets where others have failed?

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Amidst the tragedy of the Covid-19 pandemic, the ongoing housing crisis facing Ireland has been further highlighted, as those left on housing waiting lists and/or living in unsuitable accommodation were even more vulnerable to the risks of the disease. Beauchamps Partner and Head of Housing, Fidelma McManus writes.

Additional housing The PfG includes an ambitious commitment to increase the social housing stock by an additional 50,000 units. The aim of the PfG is that the provision of these additional housing units will be local authority led, with assistance from approved housing bodies (AHBs) and other state agencies.

AHBs supplied over 40 per cent of social housing in 2019, comprising over 4,000 homes across the country and, in recent years, have played an even more significant role in attempting to meet our social housing needs. One of the aims of the PfG is to look at moving AHBs off balance sheet, which should assist AHBs to access alternative funding and speed up the process of procuring completed homes.

Some AHBs feel that whilst affordable housing schemes are welcome, focus should also be on affordable rental to allow affordability for households in perpetuity, as there will always be those persons who will never be in a position to own their own home. In this regard, it is imperative that the stock of social housing across the country is maintained to ensure that we do not find ourselves

back in a similar position to the start of the housing crisis.

The Land Development Agency (LDA) is expected to play a pivotal role in this regard as the Government will legislate to establish the LDA on a statutory basis and task it to work with government departments, local authorities, state agencies and other stakeholders to assemble strategic sites in urban areas and ensure the sustainable development of social and affordable homes for rent and purchase.

Rental market The problems continue for those who are not eligible for social housing, and do not, for whatever reason, qualify for a mortgage. Long-term rental is not something that is traditional in the Irish housing market, however security of tenure is much needed for significant numbers of people and the PfG refers to developing a cost rental model.

Again, it is intended this would be local authority led and reference is made to looking at international rental markets for inspiration, including the highly successful Vienna model.

Assistance to homeowners

The PfG includes plans to retain and expand the Help to Buy scheme for new properties and self-build properties, which helps first-time buyers claim back a maximum of 5 per cent of the value of the property or €20,000 – whichever is lower. The Help to Buy scheme is scheduled to run until 31 December 2021 and it is likely this will be extended.

However, the PfG but does not give any detail as to what other ways the scheme might be expanded, whether it would include second-hand properties, whether the upper limit of the value of the property of €500,000 will be increased, or whether the tax requirement qualification will be reduced. These are all important considerations. One other option is that the scheme could be expanded to those who already own properties, which would be of great assistance to persons who may wish to upsize or downsize.

The future

The PfG sets out a commitment to a referendum on the right to housing, but there have not yet been any indications as to when this might occur, or what exact right would be included, and consideration must be given as to what difference a constitutional right to housing would have in circumstances where the stock of housing is simply not available.

However, it is important to be mindful

It is welcome that there are several references to the importance of agefriendly housing for older people, however in the absence of concrete details on how this will be delivered, the concern is that it may an empty promise.

governments have all made various

The PfG further states that the Government will establish a Commission on Housing to examine issues such as tenure, standards, sustainability, and quality of life issues in the provision of housing. Whereas all of this is most welcome, the question it raises is will this just be another quango, or will this Government actually take heed of recommendations and take steps to implement same?

any, impact they will have on the

that the PfG is merely indicative and one of the problems in even getting the PfG agreed and approved by all three political parties was the difference in how each of the parties viewed it. As the PfG is an aspirational document, there is little detail as to how the various aims will be implemented in practice. Previous promises to solve the housing crisis and set out ideals which were not followed through, and it remains to be seen how much of the PfG's aspirations will actually be implemented and what, if ongoing housing crisis.

Contact T: +353 01 418 0600 E: f.mcmanus@beauchamps.ie

Profile

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The PfG also includes a commitment to examine the issue of defective housing in the first 12 months, having regard to the recommendations of the Joint Oireachtas Committees on Housing report Safe as Houses, issued in December 2017. The recommendations in this report aim to “further improve building standards and to increase confidence in both the construction sector and the regulatory framework and to strengthen the protection of the consumer” and it seems that the PfG has only focused on one small item, rather than the broad changes recommended in the report.

Other proposals

Ireland’s housing magazine

One of the biggest challenges in Ireland is the cost of housing, which if anything is likely to rise further when delays caused by the pandemic are taken into account. Irish Institutional Property released a report in March 2020 which found that the final build cost in Dublin is over €330,000 for a two-bedroom house, and over €460,000 for an apartment. Whereas the PfG sets out a number of ways to assist homeowners purchase houses, it does not set out ways to reduce the cost of housing and many commentators would argue that therein lies the underlying issue with our dysfunctional housing market.

Fidelma McManus is a Commercial Property Partner who heads up Beauchamps’ specialist housing team. She is an acknowledged market leader in the acquisition and management of social housing projects and her practice extends to the acquisition, structuring, financing, disposal and leasing of all types of property, including distressed and partially complete residential developments, shopping centres, retail parks and offices. She also advises on all aspects of landlord and tenant law. Working with clients ranging from Approved Housing Bodies and public bodies to receivers, developers, institutional and private investors, Fidelma has unique insights into all issues relating to the provision of affordable and social housing.

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Housing Shock Speakers at the virtual launch of Rory Hearne’s Housing Shock included: Leilani Farha, former UN Special Rapporteur and Director of the Shift Global Right to Housing; Peter McVerry, Homelessness campaigner; Michelle Norris, School of Social Policy, UCD; Mary Murphy, Maynooth University; and Vincent Browne, retired broadcaster.

The unprecedented housing and homelessness crisis in Ireland is having a profound impact on ‘Generation Rent’, the wellbeing of children, homelessness, worsening wider inequality and threatening the economy. Rory Hearne, assistant professor in social policy with Maynooth University synopsises his recently published book, Housing Shock: The Irish housing crisis and how to solve it. neoliberalism and financialisation. It also details the way in which the financialisation of housing has unfolded in Ireland through NAMA and real estate investment trusts (REITs).

It brings to the fore the perspectives of those most affected by the crisis, new housing activists and protesters whilst providing innovative global solutions for a new vision for affordable, sustainable homes for all. And it points to hopeful aspects in the new civil society housing protest movements in Ireland. It also details a role for academics and policymakers in social change around housing.

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My new book, Housing Shock, explains the origins of the current crisis and macro-level changes in Irish housing policy, from strong state support for social and affordable housing to

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown the central importance of secure, affordable, decent standard homes and housing to our lives. The message to prevent the spread has been to ‘stay at home’. But Covid-19 has also laid bare the structural

problems, inequalities and dysfunctions of our housing system. Home is not a place of safety or prevention for the tens of thousands who are homeless, in emergency accommodation, direct provision, or the ‘hidden homeless’ living in overcrowded and substandard housing. The importance of housing as a social determinant of health has never been clearer.

The pandemic shows us the failings of the dominant housing policy paradigm that has treated housing as an investment asset rather than its vital role as a home that can ensure the health and dignity of those living in it. We have seen hundreds of homes, previously used as short term tourist lets, become available to rent and used to house those homeless. It begs the question why these were not properly regulated before now?

The Covid-19 downturn could still cause a tsunami of evictions if the temporary ban on evictions is not extended for at least three years and supports for tenants and homeowners including rent and mortgage write-downs are provided.

It will be crisis heaped upon crisis.

Ireland’s housing magazine

In Housing Shock, I have identified such structural problems in our housing system, including the overreliance on the private market and global investors to provide housing.

Housing was a key issue in the general election and there was a clear demand for change around policy. Unfortunately, the Programme for Government, while containing some positive elements, is generally inadequate in terms of trying to address the crisis, because it does not make a major shift in housing policy.

Indeed, it appears to be following the previous government’s failed Rebuilding Ireland housing plan.

At the heart of that, essentially, it was trying to incentivise the private market, subsidising private developers, and attempting to incentivise real estate funds to build housing. But the private market doesn’t work to provide affordable housing. And the public aspect of it, the building of housing by government, by local authorities, by housing associations was very minor.

In the new Programme for Government, the incoming government has set out to provide 50,000 social homes, but it is not clear how many of those will be built or will come from the private rental market.

Broadly, the major failure of housing policy in Ireland is that we have relied on the private market. We must shift to the idea of building public housing, not simply social housing but also cost rental housing and affordable housing, for mixed income families as well as people who are renters.

The new Government must develop a new housing plan to replace Rebuilding Ireland. At the heart of this should be “a green new deal for housing that provides affordable sustainable homes and communities for all”. This would be a new national housing plan, setting out how the State will guarantee a sufficient supply of affordable, secure, high quality sustainable housing.

At its core would be the aim to bring Ireland’s public housing stock (currently just 9 per cent of all housing is social housing) up to levels similar to countries with the most successful housing systems such as the Netherlands (where

30 per cent of housing is social housing) and Austria (where 43 per cent of housing in Vienna is public housing).

This would be based on the gamechanger of a new form of public housing that is available to both lowand middle-income households. A dedicated Affordable Sustainable Homes Building Agency should be created as a public enterprise body to deliver this model and ensuring the building of between 20,000 and 30,000 new public affordable and sustainable homes every year, for the next decade, alongside a major retrofitting programme.

This would provide a major employment and economic stimulus and deliver climate targets. Borrowing to build public housing and retro-fitting is a long term economic and social investment – not a cost – and better value for money than social rent payments to private landlords. Planning and housing design will also need to change incorporate new living requirements such as sufficient indoor and outdoor space in homes, green spaces, and community spaces.

We must do something radical to end Ireland’s housing dysfunction and repeated housing crashes and crises.

The new housing model should be underpinned, as I set out in Housing Shock, by the right to housing as the foundation of housing policy and law.

This means the right to adequate, affordable, secure housing must be

enshrined in our constitution and law in order to ensure the State, and whatever government is in place, is obliged to ensure every citizen has access to a home.

A referendum is clearly required to insert the right to housing into the Constitution. This would balance property rights and provide the framework to provide protections for tenants such as removing clauses on evictions, also enable taxing vacant land, compulsory purchase orders (CPOs), taxing REITs, and provide an obligation on the State and local authorities to house homeless families and individuals within a short time frame. This is essential for eliminating (not merely reducing) homelessness.

There needs to a plan and steps to end homelessness. This must be an immediate ambition.

The failure to address persistent housing issues has made society even more vulnerable to pandemics and economic crisis. Housing is fundamental to our wellbeing and a housing system that ensures everyone has an affordable secure home is beneficial for all – rich and poor – as it better protects the whole of society and economy. Achieving this is a political and societal choice. We are in a time that necessitates paradigm shifts in policy and action. Political vision and bravery on housing is required. Housing Shock asserts that we can and that we must do it.

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Ireland’s housing magazine

The Housing Alliance: Placing AHBs at the centre of social and affordable housing delivery Since the election, the Housing Alliance has been engaging with members of the new Oireachtas to ensure the need to invest in social and affordable housing remains a key issue for all politicians. In May, the Alliance held an online political briefing for Oireachtas members, highlighting the key role Approved Housing Bodies play in addressing the challenges facing the housing sector and in delivering social and affordable homes for families and individuals who urgently need them.

During the briefing, the Housing Alliance focused on four priority issues which the new Oireachtas needs to address to ensure social and affordable housing is delivered: 1. a quick return to construction following the Covid-19 crisis;

The Housing Alliance is a collaboration of six of Ireland’s largest Approved Housing Bodies: Circle Voluntary Housing; Clúid Housing; Co-operative Housing Ireland; Oaklee Housing; Respond; and Tuath Housing.

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Approved housing bodies are not-forprofit organisations with a social purpose to provide for people’s housing needs.

Working closely with government, local authorities and relevant agencies, Approved Housing Bodies are central, in partnership with local authorities, to addressing Ireland’s social and affordable housing needs. They also provide additional supports to tenants in housing to help sustain tenancies, improve the quality of life of tenants, and create communities.

The Housing Alliance was formed in 2016 to promote the delivery of social and affordable housing by larger Approved Housing Bodies, to address barriers and

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challenges to delivery, and to promote strong professional approaches to housing management. Collectively, the members of the Alliance are responsible for over 22,000 social homes nationwide, representing two-thirds of total Approved Housing Body housing stock in Ireland.

Housing priorities for the new government As was so clearly evident in the 2020 general election campaign, the supply of social and affordable housing will be a major issue for the new Government and for all political parties over the lifetime of the 33rd Dáil.

2. maintaining and increasing capital budgets; 3. the introduction of a National Intermediate (Affordable) Rental scheme; and 4. a commitment from government to a time-lined action plan to ensure the classification of Approved Housing Bodies as being on the government’s balance sheet is reversed.

Increasing the supply of affordable rental housing The Housing Alliance urged those involved in negotiating a programme for government involved in the briefing to pursue the establishment of an affordable rental scheme. Such a scheme will increase the supply of much-needed rental housing for those who cannot afford to purchase a home but do not qualify for social housing. In other European countries, affordable rental housing acts to counter the ‘boom and bust’ cycles that have plagued the Irish housing market in recent decades.

New Appointments at the Housing Alliance In addition to having a new Programme for Government and a new Oireachtas to work with this year, the Housing Alliance itself has made some new appointments in recent months.

Sharon Cosgrove, vice-Chairperson, the Housing Alliance.

Anne Marie McNally, Executive Director, the Housing Alliance.

In April 2020, Declan Dunne was re-elected for a second term as Chairperson of the Housing Alliance.

Declan is the Chief Executive Officer of Respond. He has decades of experience working in the housing and community sector, having previously served as Chief Executive Officer with Sophia Housing Association, Director of the North Dublin Development Coalition, and Director of Ballymun Whitehall Enterprise Centre. He is actively interested in education and family services, and is an invited speaker at OECD and other international conferences.

Sharon Cosgrove was elected as viceChairperson of the Housing Alliance in April 2020. Sharon has extensive experience in the housing and NGO sector. She is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Oaklee Housing.

Previously, she served as the Chief Executive Officer of the Asthma Society of Ireland and the Sonas housing association. She is also a member of the Group Senior Management Team at Choice Housing Ireland.

In June, the Alliance was delighted to announce the appointment of AnneMarie McNally as Executive Director.

Anne-Marie joins the Housing Alliance from her role as Political Communications Director for the Social Democrats. She is a former journalist, inner-city project worker and strategic political advisor. She has been to the forefront of social and economic policy issues in Ireland throughout her career.

commits to making it easier for Approved Housing Bodies to access private finance to develop and manage housing schemes; and to increasing social housing stock by over 50,000 over the next five years.

The lack of a sufficient supply of social

Programme for Government commitments The new Programme for Government contains a commitment to increase the supply of affordable housing, and specifically to “develop a cost rental model for the delivery of housing that creates affordability for tenants and a sustainable model for the construction and management of homes”.

In addition to this commitment to increasing the supply of affordable housing, the Programme for Government

and affordable housing is arguably the biggest challenge facing our society.

Never has the centrality of home been more acute and more poignant than during this Covid-19 crisis, with the call

The Housing Alliance looks forward to working with government on a time-lined action plan to restore Approved Housing Bodies to their former off-balance sheet classification, common to the majority of housing associations across Europe.

Off-balance sheet status will mean approved housing bodies can access private finance without it being classified as public borrowing, thereby securing best value for the State.

to action to ‘stay at home’. However, with the right polices and correct approach this challenge can be overcome.

In the months ahead, the Housing Alliance will continue to engage with the new Government and members of the

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The Housing Alliances looks forward to working with the new Government in developing this affordable rental model, whereby Approved Housing Bodies and local authorities will acquire and construct housing developments specifically for long-term affordable rental purposes. The housing, with longterm security of tenure, will be allocated to renters based on defined minimum and maximum household income eligibility limits.

Ireland’s housing magazine

Declan Dunne, Chairperson of the Housing Alliance.

opposition to keep important housing issues firmly on the political agenda. The Housing Alliance is committed to

Approved Housing Bodies ready to play their part The Housing Alliance’s members are ready, willing, and able to play their part in helping to ensure Ireland meets its social and affordable housing needs.

working with key stakeholders in the statutory sector to provide homes for people who need them.

E: info@housingalliance.ie W: www.housingalliance.ie

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Ireland’s housing magazine

The 2010s were something of a lost decade for housing in Ireland. The recession and the austere recovery from it saw the housing market’s complexion completely change, while record numbers for homelessness, house prices and rents were all recorded.

Rent prices “Still a renter’s market, as supply outpaces demand”; the headline accompanying Daft.ie’s rental price report for quarter one of 2010 can feel like reading about a different world when the decade that followed is taken into account. By Q1 2010, the large rent falls of 2009 (at least 4 per cent per quarter) had tapered off, but rents still fell 0.4 per cent year-on-year for the quarter, bringing the average nationwide rent to just under €760 per month.

As these falls eased, rent levels were roughly 25 per cent below their peak in 2007. The number of properties available to rent at any time was also reported to be increasing. By the time of Daft’s last rental price report for the decade, the first quarterly decrease in over seven

46

years was being reported. Q4 2019 rents fell 0.1 per cent from the previous quarter, leaving the nationwide average rent at €1,402, almost double that of the average at the beginning of the decade.

This was the first quarterly fall recorded since April 2012, 30 quarters previous.

However, while the average fell, rents continued to rise in urban areas, such as Dublin (0.4 per cent), Cork (1 per cent) and Galway (0.8 per cent). Availability had begun to improve in 2019, with all but one month showing an increase of the numbers of properties available to rent.

The decade was one of unprecedented growth in rental prices as monthly increases were recorded every month from November 2014 to June 2019, except for December 2016, when the

index remained static from the previous month. Record rents were consistently set during this time, peaking in Q3 2019 with a quarterly average rent of €1,403 per month, almost double the decade’s low in Q4 2011.

Rent prices in Dublin doubled in the decade, with South County Dublin ending the decade with an average rental price of €2,227.

House prices The decade in house process was much like the decade of rental prices in that it began with prices rapidly falling and ended with a slight comedown from the significant inflation that had occurred over the course of the decade. The Daft house price report records 2010 Q1’s average national sale price at just above

€234,000, 17.4 per cent lower than it had been in Q1 of 2009. This fall made it one of 16 consecutive quarters where double figure percentage drops year-onyear occurred around this time. It was also the 10th in a line of 24 consecutive quarters where prices fell.

New Dwelling Completions (Number)

by Type of House and Year 25000 20000

December 2019’s average list price was some 52.8 per cent higher than the decade’s lowest monthly average, November 2012. In Daft’s report, the average house price is lower year-onyear for Q4 2019, a first in six years after a fall of 1.2 per cent, although 18 of the 54 markets surveyed were still showing increases.

The CSO’s Residential Property Price Index, which uses June 2015 as its base, records a 21 per cent rise in national average house price from January 2010 to December 2019. The index peaks in October 2019, with a score of 136. The index’s low point for the decade occurred in March 2013, with an index score of 73.4.

15000 10000 5000 0 2011

2012

2013

All house types

2014

2015

Single house

2016

2017

Scheme house

2018

Ireland’s housing magazine

The next 24 quarters – from 2013 to 2019 – saw year-on-year rises in every quarter. Prices hit their peak for the decade in early 2019, with Q1 recording an average list price of €261,000 and then Q2 increasing to €263,000. A slight decrease occurred in the second half of the year, first to an average of €257,000 in Q3 and to €251,000 in Q4, still some €16,000 on average higher than the decade’s starting point.

2019

Apartment

(Source: CSO)

House and rent prices indexes, 2010-2019 200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Nov-10

Apr-12

Aug-13

Dec-14

Rent price index

May-16

Sep-17

Feb-19

House price index

(Source: Daft.ie)

Housing completions New dwelling completions were a central aspect to arguments regarding Ireland’s housing market as they fell to bare levels and were slow to recover in the first half of the decade. The lack of supply in the market has been largely blamed for the twin crises of skyrocketing rents and ever-increasing homelessness.

CSO data for new dwelling completions begin in 2011, itself an indicator of the lax attitude taken toward the number of houses delivered by previous governments who had entrusted delivery to private construction. The most notable change in dwelling completions during the decade is the role reversal of single houses and scheme houses. With the former starting the decade making up the vast majority of new builds, but with the latter now being built at more than double the rate at the end of the decade.

In 2011, only 6,994 new dwellings were completed; 4,814 of those were single

homes, with only 1,358 scheme homes.

By 2019, the overall number had increased to 21,138; 5,065 of these being single house and 12,521 being scheme houses. Apartments have also seen a major uptick in the second half of the decade. Having completed only 822 in 2011, this figure fell below 500 for the years 2012 and 2013 and stayed below four figures until 2016. By 2019, 3,552 were completed within the year.

of home dwellings in Ireland, but industry

The nadir for completions came in the years 2012-2014 when each year recorded a number of completions lower than 2011, the lowest being just 4,575 in 2013. Even as things began to improve in the mid-decade, five-digit figures (i.e. over 10,000 completions) were only recorded in the last three years of the decade.

had delivered 84,147 homes since the

The uptick has been partly due to Rebuilding Ireland, the Fine Gael minority government’s plan to boost construction

and social housing so badly needed in

analysis says that Ireland is still failing to meet the demand within the country. The Central Bank has estimated that the country should be building 32,000 homes per year in order to meet demand, almost 11,000 more than were completed in 2019.

The Rebuilding Ireland progress report for Q2 2019 claimed that the government launch of the plan in 2016. However, 60,379 of those have come through the private rental market, the vast majority through the Housing Assistance Payment, the rest through the Rent Accommodation Scheme, meaning that new builds – specifically the affordable Ireland – are still to be delivered to the required level.

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Housing, development and the future: ‘Providing quality homes for those in housing need’ Ireland’s housing magazine

What? Activity within the department The development team are actively sourcing and securing turnkey developments throughout the country many on a forward contract basis. For instance, in 2019, Circle drew down funds to acquire 40 three-bed homes in Fairfield Park, Waterford. This is a first outside the Leinster region for the organisation. This scheme was acquired through Frisby Construction and the relationship subsequently established is a key aspect for continued business.

Turnkey new housing developments

Circle Voluntary Housing Association (VHA) is a general need approved housing body (AHB) providing quality housing for those on local authority housing waiting lists and have been providing homes for families in Ireland since 2003.

Originally a Dublin based AHB, with a niche specialism in owners' management companies (OMC) and block management-leasing from local authorities, in the past 24 months the organisation has gone through significant change in strategy to facilitate an expansion of its geographical reach.

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The appointment of new CEO John Hannigan has seen the organisation expand its activities beyond Dublin and into the Greater Dublin Area, south eastern, south and mid-west regions in particular. Investment in the development team of Circle VHA has seen a two-member team unit to a current standing of five. Development is one of four key strands within the organisation. The organisation is one of the first in the county to split its housing section into ‘property services’ and ‘housing management’ to match individual skills more closely with their

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chosen area i.e. tenancy management, OMC/block management, service charges, property maintenance.

Who? Meet the development team •

The team is led by Head of Development Pat Costelloe, who has significant experience in the not-forprofit sector, including Rehab Group.

•

Senior Team Administrator Elaine Keogh is a vital member of the team and ensures that processes are implemented and projects progress smoothly.

•

Senior Development Officer/Business Development David Linehan sources and secures new business and pursues relationship management.

•

Development officers Martin Hartnett and Áine Ní Mhearáin undertake project management and delivery.

Circle VHA have also acquired our first tranche of 20 homes from the Housing Agency at the time of writing, with another 15 set to be acquired imminently. These are located throughout the country, building on relationships with various Local Authorities and the Housing Agency.

These homes were all secured through the Capital Advance Leasing Facility (CALF)/ Payment and Availability (P&A)/private finance funding arrangements In the past, Circle VHA has also acquired Capital Assistance Scheme (CAS) units for specific needs, including for the elderly and the homeless, on a case-by case-basis and previous delivery has focused heavily on this element.

In total, 2019 saw the delivery of 160 homes, with a target for 2020 to acquire over 200 homes. Primarily, this delivery will be achieved through the acquisition of homes through CALF and private finance or our recent term loan of €51 million was secured through AIB. The first 20 homes from the Housing Agency were recently delivered through this facility.

The organisation is currently in the following county regions and has delivered or is contracted to homes in this locality.

Dublin, Cork (first homes in 2019), Wicklow, Waterford (first homes in 2019), Tipperary, Wexford, Meath, Kildare. 2020 will ultimately see the organisations first turnkey in Laois. With the expansion of the organisation, employment opportunities have spread from same with a region office now located in Fermoy, Co Cork with three members of staff now located here.

Construction Specifically focusing on employer-led construction or the direct design and build procurement model, the development team has recently acquired a site with full planning permission for 28 apartments in Old Coolock Lane, Santry with the support of Fingal County Council. Circle VHA have also secured planning permission on Railway Street, Dublin 1 to construct 47 apartments through employer-led construction scheme. In strategic partnership with Dublin City Council, this scheme will be funded through a Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government CALF loan and private finance.

Full planning has been granted on former St Michael’s Estate in Inchicore beside Thornton Heights, which Circle presently provides management services to. A 52-home older person scheme as well as a multi-agency strategic partnership, this will be CAS grant aid funded. This is the first in the county and will provide a step-down service for older people with supports in place. This is a pathfinder project under the Rebuilding Ireland programme.

Typically Circle VHA runs four key stage tests to determine viability of a project which is typically turnkey or portfolio.

1. Local authority support: Is the local authority willing to support housing in this particular locality to meet prevailing demand and maintain a sustainable community profile?

2. Fit for purpose: Are the new turnkey

John Hannigan, CEO Circle Voluntary Housing Association homes Building Control (Amendment) Regulations 2014 (BCAR) certified and warrantied?

3. Value for money: Does the project represent value for money within open market value confines?

4. Geographic proximity: Is the project within our geographical reach?

Collaborative links and relationship building To deliver on pipeline objectives relationship building and sustainability is a vital aspect of what we do. With the heavy emphasis under the draft programme for government, developers are keen to establish links with Tier 3 AHBs such as Circle VHA. Circle VHA is actively engaging with a number of key developers and smaller construction firms in achieving its turnkey output objectives. The development team emphasis is to make and build on strategic developer relationships.

Funding A recently agreed term loan of €51 million of private finance from AIB has been agreed and is one of the biggest in the sector. On this significant achievement, John Hannigan stated: “With our 30-year agreement and our existing structures, we estimate we will be able to bring approximately 300 social houses to the market each year.

to expand and provide additional homes on an ongoing basis.”

Circle is also an approved borrower on the Housing Finance Agency (HFA) and many schemes in the past and into the future have and will be funded by it.

The AIB credit facility is a unique selling point when attracting developers to Circle and combined with a revolving credit facility can give access to funds in a short timeframe providing certainty around funding and drawdown elements making circle VHA a partner of choice, with a scheme delivery exit strategy for developers.

The benchmark for Circle VHA pipeline ambitions from 2020 onwards is approximately 300 homes per annum.

Accelerated delivery will benefit those on the fringes of society to give a stable home and a key to the door which is such a powerful and meaningful moment in anyone’s life: a second chance.

Together with our key stakeholders, including the local authorities and the Department for Housing, we are ready to deliver much needed homes.

T: 01 407 2110 (Pat Costelloe) E: Development@circlevha.ie W: www.circlevha.ie

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How? Determining Viability of scheme

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Due for Drawdown at the time of writing are two stand-alone apartments block of 24 apartments in An Muileann, Swords, Co Dublin, constructed by leading Home Builder, Ardstone. Alongside nine homes in south Dublin, Clondalkin Dublin 22 and a 40-home scheme nearing completion in Dunlavin, Co Wicklow are in the pipeline also for delivery also in the coming weeks.

“With our 30-year agreement and our existing structures, we estimate we will be able to bring approximately 300 social houses to the market each year. What we have achieved is a modern approach to financing that has never been accomplished in this sector before.”

“What we have achieved is a modern approach to financing that has never been accomplished in this sector before.

It is a sustainable model which will benefit thousands of families over the course of many years due to the revolving nature of the credit, allowing us

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Local authority housing provision is an area of vast opportunity in responding to Ireland’s housing crisis. The Housing Magazine surveys international examples of what has been achieved at the local level across social housing provision, land use initiatives and rent control measures.

Salford In England, October 2019 saw Salford City Council hand over the keys to the first homes owned by its housing arm, Dérive. Dérive had purchased homes in the Riverbank View development in the Charlestown area of Salford, where 86 of the 430 homes were classified as affordable. The council-owned homes in the development are split evenly between affordable and socially rented.

‘Affordable’ is defined as “rent capped at the local housing allowance” meaning that “if a family are on housing benefit, they will still be able to live in these homes that are classed as affordable rent”. Socially rented homes within the

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development are priced at £89.94 per week for two-bedroom properties and £100.27 per week for three bedrooms.

Affordable two beds are priced at £122.58 per week, with three-bedroom properties prices at £137 per week. In comparison, the housing website home.co.uk reports that the average rent for two bedrooms in Salford is £1,060 per month, with a median of £975 per month, and three-bedroom properties average at £1,363 per month, with a median of £1,170.

Dérive was founded in 2017 by the Salford City Council as a wholly owned subsidiary using £2 million of what is known as Section 106 money in England.

A Section 106 agreement is an

agreement between a planning permission applicant and the local planning authority whereby the impact of a new build on communities and local infrastructure is mitigated, typically in the form of a financial contribution. Speaking at the time of the launch of the Riverbank View homes, Salford Councillor John Merry said that the Council “had to do this in the absence of any government support so we could meet the needs of local people”.

Salford is experiencing its own housing crisis, with over 6,000 people on its housing lists, 52 bids on every home advertised (as of October 2019) and an estimated shortfall of 613 affordable homes per year. This has led to a multi-

pronged approach which has seen the Council also reintroduce truly councilmanaged housing alongside the Dérive stock. Having had almost 20,000 council homes in the 1960s and ‘70s, the last of the area’s public housing was transferred to Salix Homes (who manage the Dérive stock on the Council’s behalf) and the City West housing association in 2014.

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However, a £7.7 million grant from Homes England has allowed the Council to pursue the construction of new builds on vacant council land. The properties are expected to be ready in 2021 and will come in a range of between one and four bedrooms, with one-bedroom properties to rent starting at £74 per week.

New South Wales Local governments in Australia have typically had a limited role in housing policy, having been largely relegated to land use planning for the facilitation of private development, with the federal government handling the provision of social housing. Recent reforms have focused on an effort to improve strategic land use and pair it with long-term regional strategic plans.

Many councils in the state of New South Wales (NSW) have completed their Local Housing Strategy as part of these strategic plans. When the NSW Government released its Greater Sydney Region Plan in 2018, local authorities in Sydney’s metropolitan area were required to prepare a Local Housing Strategy. NSW’s Department of Planning, Industry and Environment issued guidelines that advised local governments to include social and affordable housing policy and to include a housing component in their economic development strategies.

Responses have been varied, with City of Canada Bay outlining in detail where developments would be built within its locale and the planning control changes needed to adapt to the strategy, while other councils such as Inner West Council have identified types of developments and reforms needed without the concrete recommendations of Canada Bay. The types of plans outlined by the City of Canada Bay Council are notable steps forward in the provision of social housing in NSW, where previously the federal government had been in charge with little planning involved at the local level.

Instead of simply focusing on land use

Wohnstadt Carl Legien housing estate in Berlin.

to open space for development to occur, the Council is now playing a role in pinpointing when development should happen, where it should happen and what type of development should be constructed. Using this framework, Canada Bay has set targets of 43,700 new dwellings by 2026 (a growth of 5,600 homes from 2018 to 2026 or 3,800 from 2021 to 2026) and 52,400 by 2036.

The Council says that its five-year target (starting in 2018) has “effectively already been met”.

Berlin Rent freezes and controls are of particular interest in Ireland, where rents have been successively reaching record levels in recent years. Berlin is often noted as an international example of what can be done to achieve a rent freeze and rent controls due to recent measures taken by its House of Representatives to tackle the rental crisis ballooning in the city.

Introduced in January, Berlin’s rent freeze is time capped, similar to the Sinn Féin Bill that passed the first stage of a Dáil vote in December 2019 prior to the dissolution of the Dáil, and is estimated to impact about 1.5 million homes by putting a cap of €9.80 per square metre on rents. Two unique elements of the law are that landlords now cannot charge a

rent higher than what the previous tenant paid and if rents charged exceed the limits in the “rent table”, a tenant can sue in order to have their rent lowered.

The Berlin rent freeze is not a complete freeze; in order to encourage continued construction, buildings built after 2014 were exempted from the measures and from 2022 onwards, landlords will be permitted to raise rents in line with inflation of 1.3 per cent per year. Berlin, despite being heralded as a unique example worldwide, does seem to have simply caught up with similar rent control initiatives already present in places like New York, Vienna and Barcelona.

After the rent freeze came into force in February, a Berlin district court ruled it to be unconstitutional in March, referring it to Germany’s Federal Court of Justice (supreme court). Despite the fact that landlords have already failed in challenging the law’s fine mechanisms at the federal level, the district court ruled that it does not believe the House of Representatives to have the power to institute such a law. The case is currently waiting to be examined, but as an example of what can achieved and the strength of opposition to such a measure, it remains one of particular interest in Ireland.

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Oaklee Housing: Looking to the future

Cromwellfort Road, Dublin 12.

2019 marked the completion of the Oaklee Housing’s last Corporate Plan for 2016-2019. Sharon Cosgrove, CEO of Oaklee Housing, reflects on the successes of this four-year plan and looks to the future.

Launched just a few months ahead of the previous government’s Rebuilding Ireland action plan for housing and homelessness, Oaklee’s last Corporate Plan set six ambitious goals, alongside a target to double the number of homes under Oaklee management by the end of its term. These were:

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1. business growth; 2. long-term viability; 3. service excellence; 4. managing assets; 5. raising profile; and 6. good governance.

Over the four-year period of the last plan, Oaklee’s stock started with 625 homes and grew to just under 1,300 homes. This level of business growth, with a doubling of 52

housing stock, required drive, determination and energy from everyone involved, as well as the support of our partners and funders. In early 2016, the geographic coverage of these homes was across 14 counties and spread to a further four by 2019. With 1,300 families housed, Oaklee extended services to meet the needs of their customers. Like all plans, it didn’t foresee some of the challenges that would face, but neither did it foresee some of the exciting opportunities that would be seized.

Achieving the goal of doubling Oaklee’s housing stock meant that ensuring the long-term viability of the organisation was critical. Diversification of its funding base and protecting the assets of Oaklee necessitated the exploration and implementation of alternative finance mechanisms.

In December 2017, Oaklee reached financial close on a €50 million bank facility which was the first ever private finance Special Purpose Vehicle structure established by an approved housing body.

From December 2017 to June 2020, this SPV structure, Acorn Housing, involved 7 drawdowns from the facility and the acquisition of 217 homes, many of which were vacant second-hand homes requiring works to be completed prior to tenanting.

In March 2019, following an extensive tender process, Oaklee Housing reached contract close as part of the Comhar Housing consortium on Europe’s first ever European Investment Bank-financed PPP social housing project. Comhar Housing comprises Macquarie Capital, John Sisk & Son Ltd., Choice Housing Ireland in partnership with Oaklee.

This ground-breaking €120 million project involves the financing, design, construction and maintenance of six social housing development sites (543 social housing units) located in and around Dublin and Oaklee is contracted to provide tenancy management and community development services to the tenants in those communities.

The Project Acorn SPV structure and its participation in the PPP has enabled Oaklee to successfully meet the ambitions set out in its last corporate plan. It also served to demonstrate that an approved housing body can respond to opportunities, adapt quickly and continue to meet their business mission.

The impact of Covid-19 Due for release in March 2020, the publication of the Oaklee Housing Corporate Plan 2020-2023 was delayed due to the outbreak Covid-19 which. This plan has been reviewed and amended slightly in order to address the impact that the pandemic has had on the business, particularly in the current year. The approved housing body will shortly publish and launch the new plan.

Despite the interference of Covid-19, ensuring the continuance of services has been a business priority. The safety of tenants and continuity of critical services was paramount during this time.

Increased use of communication channels such as email, text alerts and the Oaklee website were vital tools in providing regular updates to tenants on changing levels of service.

Priorities for 2020 For 2020 onwards, Oaklee Housing has identified five priorities that will shape the next three-year journey. These are:

Millteog, Athboy, County Meath.

1. deliver homes; 2. invest wisely; 3. deliver exceptional services; 4. work closely with our stakeholders and partners; and 5. measure success.

The corporate plan, scheduled for publication in mid-July will detail how these five priorities will build on the organisation’s achievements to date, strengthen the business and enable growth for the future, for the mutual benefit of its team, tenants, communities and stakeholders.

Programme for Government With over 11,000 social housing units in the pipeline, according to the recently published Irish Council for Social Housing reports, 2020 looks set to be a busy year for the AHB sector as a whole. Indeed, with the programme for the new Government promising to deliver an additional 50,000 social housing units and the majority of these being built by local authorities, approved housing bodies, and state agencies, the next five years will be fruitful.

The role that AHBs are set to play in the Programme for Government is a positive move for the sector. One would hope that this is due to the contribution AHBs have made through the lifetime of Rebuilding Ireland. It can also be directly attributed to the efforts made by the Housing Alliance, of which Oaklee are members alongside Clúid Housing, Circle Voluntary Housing,

Co-operative Housing Ireland, Respond and Tuath Housing, to brief the Oireachtas on industry recommendations and opportunities that will assist the incoming government to address the challenges facing the housing sector. Having listened to these recommendations the result is a policy in which AHB’s are rooted.

Outlook for the future Now more than ever, homes are at the heart of staying safe. Despite huge efforts at the beginning of lockdown to provide as many people as possible with a safe and secure place to live and a fourth consecutive drop, the number of homeless people remains at 8,876. This is far too high.

In the coming three years, Oaklee Housing will deliver an additional 450 homes, bring a further 534 homes into management and invest €10 million in maintenance and improvements in existing properties. These are only three of the commitments documented in the Oaklee Housing 202023 Corporate Plan.

Driven by a passionate, dedicated and skilled team of professionals, Oaklee Housing is eager to continue the job it was established to do: Deliver homes, create communities and change lives.

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With the sudden shift from office to home working, the focus for a period was centred on the uninterrupted connectivity, access to equipment along with the health, safety and wellbeing of employees. Zoom, Teams, Docusign, Remote Working, are phrases and practices now likely to remain with the organisation long after the pandemic has subsided.

Ireland’s housing magazine

Heading into the next phase, Oaklee Housing will continue to forge strong partnerships and effective collaboration.

The approved housing body receives ongoing assistance and support in the day to day work from local authorities around the country. Capital Advance Leasing Facility (CALF) and Capital Assistance Scheme (CAS) funding assist its development programme and in relation to nominations into Oaklee schemes. Another group which Oaklee considers to be a key partner is its tenant group which, through feedback surveys and the tenant forum, contributes time and expertise to help Oaklee improve its services and share information to tenants.

Siobháin Bunni Head of Communications & PR T: 086 194 2397 E: communications@oaklee.ie W: www.oaklee.ie

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Ireland’s housing magazine

National Vacant Housing Reuse Strategy: Update The National Vacant Housing Reuse Strategy was developed as part of Pillar 5 of Rebuilding Ireland in an attempt to tackle one of the largest issues in the Irish housing market: the proliferation of empty houses throughout the country. May 2020 saw the release of the latest progress report on the Strategy’s implementation.

The Strategy “strives to provide a targeted, effective and coordinated approach to identifying and tackling vacancy across Ireland”. Drawing on work between the Department of Housing, local authorities and other stakeholders that began in 2016, the Strategy was published in 2018, intending to cover the period until 2021 and “draw together all of the strands of ongoing work in one document with a clear vision for moving forward”.

The Strategy is an overarching roadmap that outlines the processes by which initiatives will be co-ordinated and implemented to tackle residential vacancy across Government. The overall aim of the Strategy is to ensure the country is “utilising our existing housing stock to the fullest extent possible and aims, inter-alia, to return as many recoverable vacant properties back to viable use as possible, increasing the supply of sustainable housing available,

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while also revitalising the vibrancy of local communities”.

To go about achieving these aims, the Strategy outlines five key objectives.

1. Establish robust, accurate, consistent, and up-to-date data sets on vacancy.

2. Bring forward measures to ensure, to the greatest degree possible. That vacant and underused privately owned properties are brought back to use.

3. Bring forward measures to minimise vacancy in Social Housing Stock.

4. Continued engagement with and provision of support to key stakeholders to ensure suitable vacant properties held by banks, financial institutions and investors are acquired for social housing use.

5. Foster and develop cross-sector

relationships, collaborating in partnership to tackle vacant housing matters.

These objectives are broken down into a number of actions and goals per objectives, some falling under the responsibility of different authorities and departments and some of which had already commenced before the release of the Strategy. The progress report released in May 2020 provides a detailed breakdown of how the steps within each objective are progressing.

Objective 1 For the establishment of “robust” data sets on vacancy, three sub-objectives were outlined: the establishment of a Vacant Homes Unit within the Department of Housing and the appointment of a Vacant Homes Officer in local authorities; the establishment of a vacancy sub-group as part of the

Department’s Housing Data Analytics Group with members of the Department, the CSO, local authorities and the Housing Agency; and the conduction of a pilot survey to ensure the methodology is robust and reliable.

Objective 2 Four sub-objectives were outlined in order to ensure that privately owned vacant are brought back to use “to the greatest degree possible”: gaining a better understanding of the barriers to doing so; continuously reviewing and evaluating existing schemes; addressing vacancy in commercial/over shop premises, reducing regulatory barriers where possible; and examining the potential for the greater use of legislative powers available to local authorities.

The update says that as of February 2020, 161 homes have been delivered back into use under the Repair and Lease programme, which has also seen local authorities acquire and renovate 545 homes since its introduction. The Bringing Back Homes Manual was launched in April 2019 to advise on the reuse of existing buildings and a mail shot was issued to Licensed Property Service Providers in order to identify and assist with vacants, particularly apartments, in June 2019.

In terms of regulation, the Planning and Development (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2018 mean that compulsory purchase orders can now be undertaken by local authorities.

Objective 3 Four key action points were outlined in order to minimise vacancy in social housing: review of funding mechanisms on an ongoing basis; work with local authorities to introduce a preventative maintenance approach; ensure that choice based letting (CBL) is implemented as widely as possible; and

engage with the Housing Agency and approved housing bodies (AHBs) to support their “significant” role in bringing houses back into use.

Funding of €2.7 million was made available for the Vacant Homes Unit for 2020, with the unit starting an online and overseas advertising campaign in March.

Surveys undertaken by the Department of Housing across 2017 and 2018 revealed that the authorities who have implemented CBL have found it to have had a positive impact on allocation success rates.

The most recent survey found that 17 of the 31 local authorities are using CBL, with a further six examining its feasibility.

Cork City and County councils reported their refusal rates having dropped from 50 per cent to 16 per cent and 30 per cent to 7 per cent since utilising CBL.

Objective 4 The four objectives for engagement with financial institutions holding vacant properties in an attempt to acquire them for social housing use were: capital funding in place for the Housing Agency to purchase properties; ensure suitable portfolios are acquired; Housing Agency engagement with NAMA; and for the Department of Housing to engage with local authorities regarding unfinished estates.

As of quarter four of 2019. The Housing Agency-managed revolving acquisitions fund of €70 million has made a total of 784 properties available to AHBs, with another 93 in the process of being secured. The Housing Agency has also supported local authorities in acquiring 440 homes from financial institutions, with 62 currently proceeding through to sale.

Ireland’s housing magazine

The Vacant Homes Unit was established in August 2017, its establishment having been noted in the original strategy document. The updates provided in the progress report state that funding to support Vacant Home Office is continuing and was at €50,000 per annum in 2019/20. All 32 local authorities were said to have drawn down their funding for 2019/20 and submitted their Vacant Homes Action Plans. The vacancy sub-group has been established and the pilot survey concluded, with a full roll out at national level “being considered”.

“The Vacant Homes Unit was established in August 2017. The updates provided in the progress report state that funding to support Vacant Home Office is continuing and was at €50,000 per annum in 2019/20. All 32 local authorities were said to have drawn down their funding for 2019/20 and submitted their Vacant Homes Action Plans.”

Objective 5 The four goals outlined for the development of cross-sector relationships to address vacancies were: draw from the National Planning Framework (NPF); develop and roll out an Urban Regeneration Scheme; consider utilisation of the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund (URDF) and support the submission of proposals to the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund (RRDF); and work with other departments to address rural vacancies.

National Policy Objective 16 of the NPF concerns tackling rural decline through addressing rural vacancy, while Objective 25 concerns using the RRDF to co-ordinate this approach across various departments. In its first call for applications, the URDF supported 88 proposals out of 189 applications from public bodies in 2018. The second submission window was recently closed in May 2020.

The RRDF’s allocation for 2019-22 is €315 million. The Department of Housing and Housing Agency have recently submitted policy proposals to the Department of Health regarding the sale and/or renting of properties left vacant by owners who have entered long-term residential care. The Department of Health is currently considering the proposals, which would require changes to the Nursing Homes Support Scheme Act if approved. With an estimate 200,000 vacant homes in the country at the beginning of 2018 when the Strategy was published, the progress within the report will be welcomed, but much work remains to be done.

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Social housing: A socio-economic solution

Ireland’s housing magazine

The delivery of social and affordable housing contributes to many public policy objectives as well as people’s quality of life and well-being. This article outlines some important economic and social impacts, with a particular focus on the not-for-profit housing sector. CEO with the Irish Council for Social Housing (ICSH), Donal McManus writes.

Established in 1982, the Irish Council for Social Housing is the national federation of housing associations and currently has 270 members. Interchangeably known also as approved housing bodies (AHBs), ICSH housing association members, operating in urban and rural areas, collectively comprise a sector that will have up to 40,000 homes accommodating 100,000 people in 2020.

These homes, owned and managed by AHBs, accommodate families and children, older people, homeless households,people with disabilities and individuals, alongside support services for those people with mortgage problems. The sector comprises larger developing housing associations, local and regionally based AHBs, as well as those AHBs specifically focusing on special groups or new emerging housing problems.

Delivery, investment and timing

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In 2019, there were 10,007 homes provided by local authorities and approved housing bodies. Of these, 4,129 or 41 per cent were delivered by AHBs alone, representing the sector’s highest ever annual output of homes, as indicated at the launch of the recent ICSH 2019 Activity Report (see right).

There has been a significant increase in activity in the sector since 2013, and particularly since the introduction of the increased investment and targets for social housing included in Rebuilding Ireland.

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The new Programme for Government: Our Shared Future, contains many positive commitments for social and affordable housing, including a firm commitment to 50,000 social housing units as well as a range of programmes for affordable rental and ownership. This is one of the most significant continuous scales of investment in recent decades and should provide certainty for planning new projects.

It does appear that investment in housing is now going to break with long held tradition and is finally pointing to a counter cyclical investment approach, either by accident, design or for pragmatic reasons of housing need. In the late 1980s, and from 2009-14, Exchequer cutbacks resulted in social housing investment being heavily curtailed and consequently, caused major reductions in the supply of new social housing units. The housing sector is still feeling the impact and an estimated 30,000 social rented homes were not built during this latter period.

Economic impact The social housing sector has rebounded to a significant level in recent years and has created significant economic activity in the construction sector as well the property related services areas. The ICSH previously estimated that for every 10 construction jobs there were seven additional jobs created in other housing activities and services.

Gross value added (GVA) for social and indeed affordable investment would be significant. Joint ventures between housing associations and private construction companies, including design and build as well as turnkey projects, have sustained employment in the construction sector locally, regionally, and nationally.

This is important as it ensures a significant part of the investment is

recycled and redistributed within Ireland.

This is also supported by the European Commission, which in its most recent Semester Report on Ireland, recommended that a key priority be state investment in social and affordable housing. The Commission has emphasised the high labour intensity nature of employment activity both in residential construction as well its other key flagship of a Green Deal for EU Member states.

The new green renovation wave would include the upgrade and refurbishment of homes. In Ireland, within the housing association sector it is estimated that up to 10,000 homes (including very old properties) which would benefit from retrofitting, creating employment and training opportunities, reducing fuel poverty for tenants and ensuring continued long-term sustainability of the stock.

Capturing and responding to wider affordability Across the EU, there are over 24 million social rented homes provided by nonprofit housing associations, public housing authorities and cooperatives.

This then is added to various types of affordable rental and ownership options.

A growing trend has been the dearth of affordable housing in many major cities throughout the EU. Lack of affordable housing in EU cities is impacting on labour mobility and competitiveness.

Social housing eligibility in Ireland in income terms basically relates to the first four income deciles in CSO statistics, while ‘affordable housing’ points to between the fourth and seventh income decile of households and with housing costs overburden of 30 per cent or more.

The OECD has also highlighted the housing needs of intermediate income groups caught between social housing eligibility limits on one hand, and not

being able to access private ownership or pay market rents on the other.

The Government has a role here especially where there has been market failure to meet the housing need of these targeted households. EU member states can define for themselves the scope and parameters what is known as the Services for General Economic Interest (SGEI) for social and affordable rental housing, where the market has failed to meet a public policy objective.

Ireland’s housing magazine

Social impact Though it is often characterised as a single housing solution, social housing is not homogenous. Importantly, it now covers an increasing spread of housing options for families, older people, the homeless, people with disabilities, including mental ill-health, mortgage to rent and regeneration programmes.

Social housing, provided by both local authorities and housing associations, has proved to be remarkedly resilient and durable in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.

There are many positive and measurable social impacts that derive from the varied types of social housing delivered by housing associations. For instance, targeted housing solutions for homeless households, including the increased application of Housing First, have yielded successful tenancy outcomes of up 85 per cent. This is coupled with the allocations provided by mainstream housing associations to homeless households from the local authority waiting lists.

Supported housing options have had many socio-economic and health benefits, particularly where some older households may be over cared for and isolated in residential settings. There are around 10,000 homes incorporating services suitable for older people being managed by housing associations.

However, the projected increase of

people aged over 65, as indicated by the CSO, is to increase by almost 1 million between 2016 and 2051 and to over 25 per cent of the population. In housing terms, this means much more planning and housing delivery is required now we can see sight of the demographic shift.

For some people with disabilities, the transition from larger congregated settings can bring enhanced quality of life, although this needs to occur at a significantly greater scale.

lives and communities. The socioeconomic impact is considerable and farreaching and can have a key role in the national recovery.

T: +353 1 661 8334 E: donal@icsh.ie W: www.icsh.ie

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Additionally, a component of the housing solution for older people is the provision of supported accommodation, including the option of on-site supports. Supported housing for older people provided by housing associations, as part of the housing and care continuum, has prevented many older people moving into nursing and residential care settings prematurely. This has enabled older people to remain in their local communities, close to friends and families, while retaining independence.

More generally, good quality affordable housing has a positive impact on health outcomes, educational attainment levels as well as wider planning policies for contributing to reducing social segregation. Before we seek more investment, one key consideration is to imagine society without sufficient social and affordable housing with the subsequent negative impact on many 57

Ireland’s housing magazine

Covid-19 and homelessness The Covid-19 pandemic has posed unique threats and challenges to homeless services and people.

Clusters have been reported among homeless communities and there have been warnings of a “wave of homelessness” when restrictions are lifted.

The warning concerning the approaching “wave of homelessness” came from Mike Allen, Director of Advocacy for Focus Ireland. Allen told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that up to 100 families were entering homelessness per month in the Dublin area, but this had been reduced to 13 for April due to the Covid-19 restrictions barring evictions.

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Emphasising that the homeless are “one of the most vulnerable groups during the Covid crisis”, Allen said it was an “incredible achievement” that to that point Focus Ireland had only encountered 20 cases of the virus among the homeless population, with no deaths. Stressing that it was due to cooperation between homelessness services, government, local authorities and health authorities, Allen said that the measures keeping people in homes would have to be extended. “If there isn’t a second wave of Covid, there could be a wave of homelessness because of job losses and reduced Covid payments,” he said.

Clusters of infection were detected amongst homeless people and ethnic communities in April, when testing conducted on 215 people in Dublin’s north inner city revealed that 19 per cent of those tested were positive. At the time, the Peter McVerry Trust revealed that nine of its clients had tested positive for the virus, with a further 51 more isolating as a precaution. The charity secured 110 hotel rooms in conjunction with the Dublin Region Homeless Executive in order to allow homeless people to carry out their two-week isolation period if required. In April, the Department of Housing announced that it had secured 560 beds in Dublin and regional cities to allow homeless people to isolate.

The HSE has also been issuing guidance for vulnerable groups throughout the crisis. In April, it was estimated that around 450 people who had previously shared rooms in multi-occupancy homeless services had been given their own rooms as part of the measures rolled out by the DRHE and the HSE. By then,

33 cases had been reported in services, with no deaths.

In shared-living settings, guidelines were developed that allowed vulnerable people to cocoon and anyone showing symptoms to isolate. Room shares in hostels, which had previously gone up to as much as eight people per room, were capped at a maximum of four per room.

However, concerns have been raised about a lack of qualified homeless service workers across these new emergency locations as the capacity of the services has been stretched by the pandemic.

Difficulties still endure, with some sites not providing access to kitchens, leaving those who avail of them to rely on charities for food. The initial slow response from the Government has also been criticised, with one homeless man telling the Irish Times that “for 12 days we were exposed to the virus”.

The crisis and response to it has seen the total number of homeless in Ireland fall under 10,000 again, with 9,907 recorded in March and 9,375 in April.

Homeless services have sounded cautious optimism for the continuation of these decreases, but have stressed that this can only be achieved with a continuous effort to house people in a manner similar to that necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Housing as an economic stimulus costs remain as low as possible and for

Ireland’s housing magazine

as long as possible.

EU finance ministers have mobilised and funded the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) so that it might lend to struggling member states at concessional rates. However, it remains to be seen if this funding can be applied to nonhealthcare economic measures. The EU has also yet to agree on alternative sources of funding, including euro bonds.

In ‘The ECB’s Mandate and Legal Constraints’, a paper submitted to the European Parliament Think Tank, Karl Whelan explores the consequential challenges for the ECB in providing such a stimulus.

The ESRI report contends: “Clear and specific guidance from European Respond Housing, Chanel Manor, Coolock, Dublin 5: Chanel Manor is home to 16 families with 103 individuals, including 69 children, in their homes for life. All 16 families were previously on the social housing waiting list for Dublin City Council.

institutions concerning the fiscal strategies available to member state countries is essential over the coming

In its Quarterly Economic Commentary for Summer 2020, the ESRI suggests short-tomedium term investment in the provision of social and affordable housing in order to stimulate the domestic economy, alongside sustainable infrastructure projects.

months. The recent Franco-German proposal for the development of a recovery plan providing direct budgetary support to affected areas and regions is a step in the right direction and, by using grants rather than loan finance, would appear to be targeted correctly.”

A combination of a decline in house prices alongside increases in unemployment herald likely instances of mortgage arrears. Mortgage breaks and

The authors of the ESRI’s latest quarterly economic commentary, Kieran McQuinn, Conor O'Toole, Matthew Allen-Coghlan and Cathal Coffey, assert that by significantly increasing the social and affordable housing stock, it would be possible to stimulate economic activity, while simultaneously resolving a key socio-economic policy challenge.

Referencing a previous ESRI working paper, ‘Exploring affordability in the Irish housing market’, the report contends that supply has consistently fallen short of the structural demand for housing Ireland, exposing a dearth of affordable housing in the Greater Dublin Area.

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With construction likely to be disrupted

into 2021, McQuinn and Allen-Coghlan argue that the most significant impact of Covid-19 on the residential housing market, in the long-term, will be an exacerbation of this housing shortage.

Until the onset of the pandemic, there was a concern that ‘overheating’ might occur and the rapid pace of growth in the Irish economy would outrun the housing supply. This, however, is no longer relevant.

The ESRI projects that under its baseline scenario, the deficit is on track to increase by a minimum of 9 per cent of GDP (€27 billion) in the context of Covid19. As such, a sustainable, publicly financed housing stimulus requires that EU institutions ensure that borrowing

supports such as the Pandemic Unemployment Payment have cushioned borrowers from the economic fallout of Covid-19 so far.

However, the Quarterly Economic Commentary for Summer 2020 asserts: “If support payments are tapered and payment breaks expire, this will inevitably lead to higher arrears which will require some form of modification or management. Ensuring these dynamics do not hamper the bank lending channel will be important in any recovery phase.

Financial stability considerations will become increasingly important as the depth and duration of the Covid-19 crisis prolongs.”

Ireland’s housing magazine

Pan-European perspective on Ireland’s rental housing challenge Since 2018, Ritterwald has been developing its housing and real estate consultancy services across selected countries in Europe.

Since the launch of its Certified Sustainable Housing Label in Dublin last October, Ritterwald has made further steps in entering the Irish and UK markets, write Ritterwald’s Business Development Director Ad Hereijgers, and UK Director Austen Reid.

2020 turning point?

three strategic considerations. First, one should design a housing delivery system

Ad Hereijgers, Business Development Director.

Ritterwald already provides in-depth knowledge and expertise to social and affordable housing companies in Germany, the Netherlands and France; three countries with a rich history when it comes to sustainable rental housing, serving households with low, moderate, and middle incomes and tenants with special needs.

Housing affordability gap

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Today, Ireland is home to many successful and well-known technology, pharmaceutical and biotech companies worldwide. Prior to Covid-19, Ireland was the fastest growing economy in the EU for several consecutive years in a row. Despite Ireland’s economic redemption from the 2008 global financial crisis, the country remains confronted with a major housing crisis.

As urbanisation is growing, supply is not keeping up with housing demand.

Although household incomes have been on the rise, high demand is causing housing prices to explode, causing a severe affordability gap. Over the last decade, house prices in Dublin alone almost doubled.

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2020 marked an important year for the country as the General Election took place. Among different domestic issues, housing stood at the forefront of the election. The new coalition government has created a momentum that places social and affordable housing in the prominent position on the national policy and budget agenda it deserves. From a pan-European perspective, this could also result in the positive re-evaluation of the rental sector, not only as step to first time homeownership, but as a mature and affordable tenure. This re-evaluation could particularly support young singles and couples that prefer living in an urban environment where the employment is.

that can guarantee social housing in the long run; this implies introducing longterm patient financing covering debt capacity by rental income supplemented by subsidies, introducing and enforcing long-term leases with tenant protection, national rent level policies, and designing restricted future sales policies to individual tenants.

Second, we believe diversifying housing suppliers is much needed; council housing and Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) and for-profit providers (PRS).

That said, we would encourage further consolidation of AHBs to support greater reliance on private finance. And PRS can

Strategic perspective In each EU country, social and affordable housing is being delivered and operated in a regulatory environment. To accomplish its ambitious goals, the new Irish coalition cabinet will have to design an effective regulatory system, that accommodates both new constructions and renovations of social and affordable housing. For future economic prosperity of urban areas such as Dublin and Cork, the rental market becomes ever more important.

Given Ritterwald’s pan-European experience, we would like to suggest

contribute after compliance with the Regulation Office.

Lastly, identifying additional and robust public and private funding to accommodate availability (production levels), affordability (rent levels) and accessibility (transparent allocation); to avoid too much pressure on the national exchequer, one could consider tapping into the growing share of ESG investors, who look at social and affordable housing as a low risk asset class – assuming that proper regulatory policies are put in place and enforced by the Regulation Office.

Innovations in social housing

From our pan-European experience, we would like to suggest two important needs that have to be met simultaneously as well as the increase in private finance from banks and ESG investors (pension funds, insurance companies and family offices).

Ireland’s housing magazine

A new cabinet and new policies to recover from the Covid-19 crisis offer opportunities to address housing challenges in an innovative way. The Covid-19 crisis brought us at least one valuable lesson, the adoption of digital communication as the new normal in delivery of customer services. Of course, digitisation was already gaining in importance, but the lockdown has given it further impetus due to severe constrains in face to face communications.

Mathias Hain, Managing Director RITTERWALD hands over Certificate of Certified Sustainable Housing Label to Rob Lane, Group Commercial Director Clarion Housing Group.

First, the supply chain must be well managed; availability of (urban) land, planning procedures and permissions, development capacities and regulatory requirements. Moreover, the supply chain should be aligned with public investments in infrastructure to make new developments, both brownfields and greenfields, accessible by public transportation.

Secondly, an even greater challenge than new construction lies in greening the current existing housing stock to meet climate goals in a timely manner; this can only be done by identifying the balance among rent increase (to cover cost of capital) and smart grants. In return, household’s energy bills can be reduced, and affordability can be increased.

Certified Sustainable Housing Label

investors. For those social housing companies that will not consider private or public placements, the Label still provides an opportunity to diversify its lender base. Should a company merely want to demonstrate and enhance its sustainability performance, e.g. towards its stakeholders, the company can undergo a sustainability assessment.

Sustainable Business Models Council housing is funded almost entirely by capital grants which requires the government to pay the full costs of buying or building homes upfront in a lump sum, whereas in other countries the cost of social housing delivery are spread out over the long term by using debt financing (often supported by public loan guarantees). This can make a reliance on Council housing vulnerable in good and bad times; in better times the high cost of land and construction reduces supply while in downturn there tends to be less availability of Government funding. This is not regarded as a sustainable model.

The larger Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) have built a valuable track record over the years. If the AHBs do consolidate, for reasons for: regulatory and governance requirements, upskilling, economies of scale and better access to funding, they could make a crucial contribution to the growth of the rental housing sector. Because localism and community services are rooted in the DNA of housing companies, one should think of intelligent consolidation to introduce economies of scale taking the ‘human scale’ into account. Money can talk, AHBs can invest and their current and future tenants can benefit.

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Late 2019, the Certified Sustainable Housing Label was launched by Ritterwald in Dublin during the Conference of the European Federation for Living (EFL), co-hosted by Clúid Housing and well attended by other members of the Housing Alliance. It is the first certified methodology to measure the positive impact of social housing companies. Moreover, it provides housing companies with the opportunity to monitor and be aware of their own sustainability performances.

The Label, therefore, highlights the significant sustainability impact undertaken by social housing companies to the capital markets and helps them gain access to a wide range of ESG

RITTERWALD’s Ad Hereijgers, Sebastian Redder and Lutz Rittig in Frankfurt at 2019 Annual Conference ICMA Green Bond and Social Bond Principles.

Ad Hereijgers, Business Development Director Austen Reid, Director UK RITTERWALD Consulting Berlin | Frankfurt | Amsterdam | London E: ad.hereijgers@ritterwald.nl, austen.reid@ritterwald.co.uk W: www.ritterwald.eu, www.sustainable-housing.eu

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Planning pipeline and construction starts The Construction Information Services’ Q1 2020 Construction Activity Report provides an insight into the residential planning pipeline and the number of starts in residential construction, with apartment building

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Planning permissions granted in the residential construction sector showed a 14 per cent year-on-year increase in the first quarter of 2020 in terms of projects passed; this was coupled with an astounding 184 per cent increase in the number of residential units proposed for development, with 16,790 units passed altogether.

In the eastern and midlands region, 177 of the projects are accounted for, a 31 per cent yearly regional increase, covering 14,050 units, a 319 per cent increase. The largest development in the region outside of Dublin to be granted planning permission is the 661-unit €130 million housing project in Rathmullan, County Meath.

within those projects was up 6 per cent

326 projects were proposed in Q1 2020, with a total value of €3.54 billion. 6,281 housing scheme units were granted planning permission, a 72 per cent rise on Q1 2019, while the granting of planning permission for 10,510 apartments was a 366.6 per cent growth.

There was significant growth in the granting of permission for one and twobedroom apartments, which totalled 9,882 units. Nine of the 326 projects granted planning permission over the quarter were estimated to be worth over €100 million.

In the southern region, project numbers are down 1 per cent yearly to 110, with a 6 per cent decrease in units to 2,066.

Planning permissions for houses saw a 25 per cent decrease, while apartment permissions rose by 270 per cent to 530 units. The largest of these projects is the 217-unit development at Crann Ard in Clonmel, County Tipperary.

apartments in Baldoyle. One and two-

However, a regional breakdown of these planning permissions shows a vast imbalance throughout the State, with the eastern and midlands region accounting for 85 per cent of the overall value and Dublin alone accounting for 64 per cent.

The southern region accounts for just 11 per cent, while the western and northern region makes up the remaining 4 per cent.

The number of projects in the northern and western region fell by 3 per cent to 39, but overall units were up 90 per cent to 668. While Donegal accounts for 40 per cent of these planning permissions, the rate has slowed further in Galway city and county, which suffered its own yearly fall of 8 per cent to just 179 units.

The largest of the region’s projects is an €11.4 million 91-unit development in Sligo.

In terms of project starts for Q1 2020, the number of projects was down 15 per cent to 137, but the number of units

to 6,127. This represented a total overall value of €967 million, a 4 per cent yearly rise. Housing unit starts fell by 29 per cent to 3,360, while apartment build starts rose 160 per cent to 2,770.

The largest of these projects was a €94 million 550-unit mixture of houses and beds continued their rise in prominence, with 1,714 two-beds and 685 one-beds started, but there has been a significant fall in social housing, with only 259 units across 18 projects started in the quarter.

At the regional level, Kildare (558) and Louth (472) have seen the largest amount of unit starts outside of Dublin within the eastern and midlands region, which saw 4,963 starts overall. The southern region saw a 55 per cent yearly decrease in the number of units started and a 33 per cent decrease in the number of projects. Both the number of projects and units increased in the northern and western region despite a 6 per cent fall in the value of those projects. Worryingly, starts in the northern and western region also show an over 50 per cent fall in public housing investment, now down to just €8 million.

Sophia Housing: Providing Homes, Supporting People Presentation Sisters utilising the former Sacred Heart Secondary School and surrounding lands.

Ireland’s housing magazine

The former convent, which is a protected structure and will be converted into three one-bedroom apartments and six twobedroom apartments. Three new apartment blocks will be built onsite which will incorporate 23 two-bedroom apartments and 10 one-bedroom apartments along with four two-bedroom town houses.

Sophia's future project in Portlaoise.

With uncertainty forecast for the coming months and even years, Sophia Housing is leading the way through its collaborative partnerships designed to support the most vulnerable and get value for the State in its long-term supported housing projects.

A diverse range of partners has backed Sophia. Local Authorities and the Department of Housing have invested in Sophia developments across the State, over €30 Million of capital funding has been approved by the State, which across the country will support hundreds of people to progress out of homelessness. Many of these

developments are unique as Religious Congregations have collaborated with Sophia to utilise land and buildings in towns and cities which have been centres of their communities for generations, reimagining them as housing for people who have complex support needs, people who need more than just a home.

Sophia’s response to the homeless and housing crises in Ireland has seen the organisation increase the number of people it supports by 100 per cent over the past four years. In the next three years, it will grow by a further 60 per cent, building hundreds of new homes.

These new homes will come with support for at least 546 people including 86 families with 172 children.

Since 2016, Sophia’s innovative response to homelessness has seen it enter into a collaboration agreement with Midlands Simon Community. This partnership is a best practice model in terms of getting optimal use and return for the public funds, by working together each organisation supports more people and achieves even greater outcomes.

The aftermath of Covid-19 will require innovative responses that bring diverse groups together. The Sophia model of providing homes and supporting people creates partnerships at the centre of communities to build homes for the most vulnerable.

John McEvoy is the Projects Manager with Sophia Housing.

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For over 20 years, Sophia Housing has been crafting a model of housing with support that responds to the needs of homelessness in Ireland. Founded by Jean Quinn DW, the Sophia model of support places providing a home and the needs of the person at the centre of everything they do. This is a model that was ahead of its time, and many elements of Sophia’s model are now embodied in Housing First which is considered mainstream public policy and is central to the Government’s response to the homeless crisis.

The impact of such a development on the local community will go beyond providing much needed housing. The project will create a new public park and garden in the heart of the site and access to a proposed new ‘blueway’ which will link Portlaoise town centre with a large town park.

T: 01 473 830 E: jmcevoy@sophia.ie W: www.sophia.ie

One of its upcoming projects will create 52 new homes in the heart of Portlaoise town centre. The scheme brings together the Department of Housing, Laois County Council, the local parish and the 65

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Covid-19: Bursting the Airbnb bubble Across the world, Airbnb has been abused by would-be ‘hoteliers’ and ‘professional’ sub-letters. The platform has grown to python-like proportions, constricting private rental markets in cities around the world, but what effect will Covid-19 have?

Initially, Airbnb was conceived as a second revenue stream for people renting out their spare rooms or empty holiday homes. In short, owners could monetise their vacant and often geographically desirable space while tapping into travelling culture. With a potential for reciprocal arrangements and cultural exchange, tourists and travellers received an affordable and ‘authentic’ alternative to a hotel or hostel stay.

Today, Airbnb regards itself as an “economic empowerment engine” which “has helped millions of hospitality entrepreneurs monetise their spaces and their passions while keeping the financial benefits of tourism in their own communities”. There are in excess of 7

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million Airbnb listings across over 220 countries and 100,000 cities.

With the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic and disruption to travel, it would appear that the housing empires of many aspiring rental moguls were no more rigid than a house of cards.

Data Airbnb does not provide public data.

This creates two specific challenges: firstly, it makes it difficult to understand how the platform is being used by hosts and therefore monitor the impact on the private rental market; and secondly, it hinders efforts by local authorities to ensure compliance with short-term letting legislation.

Inside Airbnb, an independent and noncommercial open-source data tool, attempts to mitigate Airbnb’s reluctance to publish data by using publicly available Airbnb listings.

Inside Airbnb utilises public reviews, minimum stay and price per night to calculate an estimated occupancy rate and the monthly income for each listing.

Often Airbnb can prove more lucrative for property owners. This disproves the fallacy that Airbnb is a platform for property owners to occasionally monetise their spare room or a vacant holiday home.

In reality, entire homes and apartments are available for short-term lease (less than 14 days at a time) for most of, if

not all of, the year. Quite obviously, this disadvantages city residents by removing stock from an already finite housing supply, impacting affordability and destabilising existing communities.

Airbnb listings in Dublin. Of these, 49.4 per cent (4,663) are entire homes or apartments, while 47.7 per cent (4,498) are private rooms and 1.7 per cent (161) are shared rooms.

Using the site’s filters and metrics, it is possible to determine:

•

how many houses and apartments are short-term lets;

•

how frequent houses and apartments are being rented in the short-term;

•

how much hosts (owners or

Meanwhile, many hosts have several

Credit: David Shane.

how many listings there are in a city and their locations;

According to the latest data available on AirDNA’s Market Minder, which uses “industry-leading data” to provide “valuable competitive insights on Airbnb and Vrbo rental properties” and “benchmark your short-term rentals against your competitors”, short-term rentals are up to three times more lucrative than traditional long-term rentals. Of the 3,738 active rentals listed on Airbnb and Vrbo, 69 per cent had a minimum stay of one night (34 per cent) or two nights (35 per cent).

Only 2 per cent had a minimum stay of 30+ nights.

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•

Around 2,566 (27.2 per cent) Airbnb listings in Dublin are recorded as highly available – that is available for more than 90 days per annum. The frequent availability of entire properties for shortterm rental draws several conclusions.

Firstly, it is unlikely that a property owner is present or that it is their primary residence. Secondly, this is likely to be illegal and a contributing factor to the displacement of residents.

AirDNA

The most commonly available property has two bedrooms (39 per cent), followed by one bedroom (33 per cent), three bedrooms (14 per cent), studio and four bedroom each at 6 per cent and five or more bedrooms (2 per cent).

According to AirDNA, the vast majority of properties listed are in the ‘city centre’ (834), followed by 370 in the ‘Old City’, 321 in ‘North City Central/O’Connell Street’, 236 in Phibsborough, 235 in Dún Laoghaire, and 212 in Ranelagh and Rathmines.

In the previous year, 34 per cent of listings were available full-time, with 19 per cent available for rent between 271365 days.

Short-term rentals

subletters) are earning from shortterm lets; and •

how many hosts are leasing multiple properties in a city.

listings, which may be either entire properties or multiple rooms in the same property. Indeed, 43.4 per cent of Dublin Airbnb hosts have multiple listings. In such circumstances, it is

By answering these questions, it is possible to understand the impact that Airbnb may be having on the private rental sector in a city like Dublin. For instance, it is therefore possible to determine how much of the housing stock is removed from the long-term rental market to facilitate tourists over residents while also identifying those who using the platform to run virtual hotel or hostel businesses and how much more profitable such a practice is.

Dublin As of 17 July 2020, there are 9,437

likely that these are hosts are running a ‘business’ and again, are unlikely to be living in the property and are likely to be violating housing legislation.

A total of 1,908 listings (20.2 per cent) are entire properties rented by hosts with multiple properties. 811 (8.6 per cent) are entire properties which are highly available and listed by hosts with multiple listings. These listings are highly concentrated around Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Grand Canal Dock, Temple Bar, Ringsend and Drumcondra Road.

Despite its founding in 2008 as a platform to facilitate short term rentals, Airbnb has increasingly encroached on private rental markets. Local authorities have responded by enhancing regulation for short-term rentals (see Figure 1).

In 2018, then Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy acknowledged that as homesharing for tourism letting gained popularity, some landlords have withdrawn properties from the longterm rental market and instead rented them as short-term lets (STLs).

Homesharing is defined as “the letting of a room or rooms in a person’s principal private residence while it is occupied by the resident”, while shortterm letting is defined as “the use of a bedroom or bedrooms in a home as paid overnight guest accommodation for a continuous period of up to two weeks”.

“This is an unregulated activity, it is not homesharing as it is typically

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Credit: Open Grid Scheduler.

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understood, and in a time of housing shortage it is unacceptable that rental homes would be withdrawn from the letting market… The reforms being presented here aim to bring homes, once available on the traditional rental market, back into typical long-term renting, to regulate for the first time STLs, and to allow homesharing to continue as it was originally meant to be – a homeowner hosting people in their own home for short periods of time,” Murphy explained.

Similarly, the owner of a property which is not their PPR must apply for change of use planning permission before using a property for short-term letting purposes. Meanwhile, an individual who is not the legal owner of a property must also acquire the owner’s consent before short-term letting the property.

The then Minister asserted that additional resources would be allocated to the Planning Section within Dublin City Council so that registers could be compiled, and compliance enforced.

Individuals in breach of the new legislation risk criminal conviction, fines and criminal conviction

The reforms underpinned by the Residential and Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2019 are primarily designed to mitigate the impact of the use of residential homes for short-term tourism letting on the private rental market in areas of acute housing need.

Year-round short-term lets are effectively banned in private properties in rent pressure zones.

Regulation

Compliance

As of 1 July 2019, Airbnb hosts in Ireland are subject to regulations of the Residential and Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2019. These regulations require hosts listing a room or rooms in the place where they normally reside, otherwise known as a principal primary residence (PPR), or an entire PPR, within a Rent Pressure Zone (RPZ) to register with the relevant local authority and fulfil specific obligations.

While the Department of Housing indicated a commitment of between €750,000 and €800,000 in funding for enforcement by Dublin City Council, initial reports suggest that compliance with the new legislation among shortterm let landlords and homesharers is low.

Under the new planning requirements, homesharing a room or rooms within a PPR for a cumulative period of less than 90 days per annum while the owner is absent remains permissible once registered and exempted by a local authority. However, change of use planning permission must be sought to

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share a PPR beyond this 90-day threshold.

Between December 2019 and May 2020, Dublin City Council initiated more than 400 investigations into short-term property lets, bringing to total since 1 July 2019 above 600. A total of 21 enforcement notices were issue and one prosecution initiated. Staffed by 11 individuals and four enforcement offices, the Short-Term Lettings Unit has a target of 1,000 properties investigated per annum.

However, according to a report made to the council’s Planning Committee, as of February 2020, only 249 property owners had registered with Dublin City Council, a fraction of the 9,000 Dublin listings on Airbnb. At the same time, the local authority received 20 change of use applications, only one of which was approved.

Covid-19 However, according to AirDNA’s metrics the Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the short-term rental market. Average daily rate (including nightly rate and cleaning) for all booked days last year fell from €166 in July 2019 to €134 in April 2020.

Meanwhile, median occupancy (booked days divided by days available to rent over 12 months) decreased from 90 per cent in September 2019 to 52 per cent in March 2020. Simultaneously, median monthly revenue (nightly fees and cleaning fees over 12 months) is down from €3,331 in August 2019 to €1,361 in April 2020.

Transparent, a “Spain-based specialised data intelligence company”, indicates that the difference in occupancy between 2019 and 2020 was -91 per cent on 20 April, -89 per cent on 10 May and -63 per cent on 6 June. Estimated occupancy for 2020 year-to-date (YTD) is 38.87 per cent, almost halved from 2019 YTD which was 72.02 per cent.

Challenges Last valued at $31 billion in September 2017, Airbnb remains privately owned, though 2020 was supposed to be the year the company went public. In September 2019, the company famously issued a single sentence statement saying: “Airbnb, Inc. announced today that it expects to become a publicly-traded company during 2020.”

Since then, Airbnb’s Extenuating Circumstances policy allows hosts and guests to cancel eligible reservations with no charge or penalty. This applies to all Covid-19 impacted reservations booked on or before 14 March for check-ins up to 15 July 2020.Airbnb acknowledged that this “will impact hosts around the world, many of whom depend on the economics they generate on Airbnb” but stood by the policy. Furious hosts responded to CEO Brian Chesky’s tweets with demands that their individual cancellation policies be honoured.

Factoring in the uncertainty of when exactly travel would return and how this might look, redundancies were deemed necessary. Some 1,900 employees were made redundant, constituting 25 per cent of the total Airbnb workforce (7,500 employees). In Dublin, where the company employs 500 people, 320 employees are engaged in a consultation process which will see around 190 job losses (35 per cent).

Future Simultaneously, on Daft.ie, there has been a 40 per cent increase in the number of homes available to rent across the State in the last 12 months.

With the volatility of the short-term rental market exposed, it remains to be seen if and for how long properties will return to the long-term private rental market in significant numbers.

‘Monthly stays’ are now conspicuously advertised on Airbnb.ie, though it seems likely that hosts with deep enough pockets will attempt to ride out the Covid-19 wave in their pursuit of yield.

The reconfiguration of Airbnb to a primary focus on spare rooms, homesharing, and unoccupied holiday homes is doubtful.

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In early May 2020, in an address to his employees, Chesky confirmed that Airbnb would be reducing the size of its workforce. Revealing that Airbnb revenue for 2020 is forecasted to be less than half of that in 2019, the company raised $2 billion in capital and “dramatically cut costs that touched nearly every corner of Airbnb”.

Figure 1: Global restrictions on short-term rentals

• Amsterdam: Entire home/apartment rentals limited to a cumulative 30 days per annum.

• Barcelona: Hosts of short-term rentals are required to seek a licence, but no new licences are being issued.

• Berlin: Hosts require a licence to short-term let greater than 50 per cent of their primary property.

• London: Entire homes or apartments may only be short-term leased for a cumulative 90 days per annum.

• New York City: Unless the host is present, renting an apartment for less than 30 consecutive days is prohibited.

• Paris: Short-terms rentals are capped at a cumulative 120 days per annum.

• San Francisco: Short-term rental hosts require business registration and specific certificates, while rental of an entire house or apartment is restricted to a cumulative 90 days per annum.

• Tokyo: Short-term rental is limited to a cumulative 180 days per annum.

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Threshold: Working to Empower Private Renters service is for private renters anywhere in the country, urban or rural. If they have a query or a worry about renting, we’re here to help. Indeed, Threshold's work on behalf of tenants was recognised in February of 2020, when we received the ‘Excellence in the Private Rented Sector’ award at the Chartered Institute of Housing Awards.”

The housing and homelessness charity Threshold offers advice and advocacy to keep tenants in their homes. Its CEO John-Mark McCafferty speaks to the Housing Magazine about the organisation’s vision, the Covid-19 restrictions on evictions and the Programme for Government (PfG).

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Threshold is different from other housing and homelessness charities. “Our work is about providing advice to tenants and advocating and negotiating on their behalf to protect tenancies and prevent homelessness,” says CEO John-Mark McCafferty. “Generally, we are less about helping the homeless than preventing homelessness. Most of what we do is about empowering and informing tenants, and saving tenancies. The

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Since its foundation in 1978, Threshold has been working with and for tenants to help them pursue their rights and to stay in their homes. A core activity of Threshold is its Tenancy Protection Service, which was set up firstly in Dublin in 2014 in response to a rise in evictions and the ever-increasing struggle for people to hold onto their rented homes. It has since expanded across the country.

“Our vision is of an Ireland where families and individuals have access to affordable homes of good quality in mixed communities with secure tenancies,” McCafferty says. “It shouldn’t be too much to ask, yet it is a real struggle for many people to hold onto or even access private rented housing. Our role has become increasingly important in our more than 40 years of service, particularly when social housing availability reduced from the late 1980s.

“The private rental sector became a much larger player, partly by design, partly by neglect of social housing provision. It became a default place for people who couldn’t access social housing but didn’t have the income to own their own homes.”

Before the Residential Tenancies Act 2004, regulations regarding the private rental sector were scarce. McCafferty says that even that 2004 legislation brought “fairly basic low-level protection”.

He says the more substantive changes from 2015 to the present day, while very welcome, have “come from a really low baseline and from the situation where many tenants have been marginalised and have struggled to access quality housing”.

The need for regulation was particularly important in March 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic reached Irish shores. With a rate of 100 families per month becoming homeless prior to the pandemic, emergency measures were required to limit the number of people being exposed to the virus. “The emergency measures came in through necessity and quite radical decisions were made back in March. It shows you that something like a pandemic can place government in a situation where it must shift the status quo, which it has done with regard to the moratorium on rent increases and evictions,” McCafferty says.

“It’s going to be short-lived. It was only extended to the 20th July, but what it did was provide a level of certainty in a market that is still uncertain for private renters. Rents have continued to rise significantly since 2016 despite Rent Pressure Zones. This was coupled with a reduction in the supply of private rented housing until recently. The moratoria have provided a stop-gap for those affected, especially many of the private renters who are younger and in the sectors most vulnerable to the Covid-19 crisis.

“Many have either lost their jobs or had their hours reduced. Notwithstanding the fact that the Pandemic Unemployment Payment is in situ, the rent supplement payment wasn’t very well promoted, despite access to it being eased. We are seeing that arrears are building up with

Ireland’s housing magazine

Saving Homes: Threshold launches its pre-budget submission and calls for an increase in funding for homeless prevention services in the Budget.

(L-R) Edel Conlon, Southern Regional Manager, John-Mark McCafferty, CEO and Ann-Marie O'Reilly, Policy Officer.

the private renters we’re working with.

“Unless people get back to work, we will have a medium-term challenge to keep tenants in their homes. There are systems in place from the last recession in relation to mortgages, and the Central Bank is involved, but for renters, they have to negotiate individually with their landlord. That’s a concern for the weeks, months and years ahead in relation to people who may not be working for some time but are in the private rental sector and who are increasingly accumulating arrears.”

There are longer-term plans outlined in the Programme for Government agreed

He also sees a need for more clarity when it comes to the programme’s commitment to homelessness prevention.

“Private rented tenants are less protected than people in other tenures. There have been improvements in rental protections in recent years, and we welcome those, but there are still circumstances in which a tenancy can be ended through no fault of the tenant, particularly with regard to the end of what’s known as a Part 4 tenancy. It looks like the PfG is committing to doing away with Part 4 tenancies, which is welcome.

“The Programme also talks about cost rental and that needs further clarity in terms of how affordable such housing will be for tenants. An increased supply of rental housing in this intermediate market is welcome, but the devil is in the detail.

The lower these rents are than market rents, the better in order to best target eligibility. The models have still to be clarified. There is a slight sense of déjà vu because we have been talking about cost rental for some years. Now there

seems to be a push to come up with models but it’s in the absence of a government model, so greater clarity from the Department is required.

“Threshold has a broad vision of housing; the private rental sector operates in a bigger environment and we have a lot to say about wider housing policy in terms of affordable rental, social housing provision and a rights-based approach to housing,” McCafferty says.

In closing, McCafferty stresses that Threshold exists to provide free and confidential advice and support for people in every county in the State through the Freephone 1800 454 454 number and via threshold.ie. He says that Threshold has been able to “seamlessly provide” a national service for private renters, especially more vulnerable tenants such as the young, low-income or migrants, despite the Covid-19 restrictions.

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Much of the discussion of Irish housing has been in the context of the Government policy, Rebuilding Ireland, where one of the first initiatives was the Tenancy Protection Service, which Threshold now operates. “Through our advice and Tenancy Protection Service, we provide free, confidential supports across the State that can assist people to stay in their home. We also represent tenants at hearings at both the Residential Tenancies Board and the Workplace Relations Commission,” McCafferty says, adding: “And critically important, we advocate for change through policy and legal work with and on behalf of private renters. It’s key that people know that we are there as a free and confidential source of advice and to save tenancies.”

by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party. “There is a reiteration in the PfG of the need for a deposit protection scheme.

That has been enacted, there’s legislation there but it hasn’t been commenced for a good number of years,” he says. “It’s easy to name something that’s already been enacted but the challenge will be to make it real through whatever means necessary.”

John-Mark McCafferty Chief Executive, Threshold 21 Stoneybatter, Dublin 7 T: 00 353 1 635 3606 E: john-mark@threshold.ie W: www.threshold.ie www.facebook.com/Thresholdire @ThresholdIRE j Find us on LinkedIn /company/thresholdhousingcharity

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In comparison: European private rental sectors Ireland’s housing magazine

How does Ireland’s private rental market compare with those in other European countries in relation to its policy context and dispute resolution framework?

Ireland •

Context: In Q1 2019, 356,500 dwellings were privately rented in Ireland an increase of almost 15,000 on Q1 2018. Almost one-fifth (19.1 per cent) of Irish households are privately rented dwellings. This represents a dramatic increase since 2004, when only 8 per cent of households were privately rented. The total number of people renting in Ireland in Q1 2019 was 910,300. Meanwhile, in Dublin, over one-quarter (25.9 per cent) of dwellings were rented privately in the same period.

Q4 2019 marked the end of 29 consecutive quarters of nationwide rental inflation, meaning that for the first time since mid-2012, rents did not rise nationally in a three-month period. Rents in December 2019 were 0.1 per cent less than in September 2019. However, yearon-year, rents in Q1 2020 were still an average of 3.8 per cent higher nationally than in 2019. This is the lowest rate of inflation since late 2012.

The Residential Tenancies Act 2004 is the main legislation governing the rights and obligations of landlords and tenants. The Act introduced Part 4 rights to provide security of tenure to tenants in a tenancy for between six months and four years while also detailing required notice periods.

The Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Act 2016 introduced several amendments to the legislation including extending Part 4 tenancies (after 24 December 2016) from four years to six years for tenancies commenced after that point and removing the provision which enabled landlords to end a Part 4 tenancy during the first 6 months without reason. The 2016 legislation also introduced rent pressures zones (RPZs). Taking effect from 24 December 2016, RPZs are designated areas in which rent can only increase by 4 per cent per annum.

Additional changes to the 2004 legislation were made by the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2019 which, among other measures, increased notice periods required for a landlord to terminate a tenancy longer than six months and shorter than five years.

•

Dispute resolution: Under the 2004 Act, the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) replaced the courts in dealing with most disputes between landlords and tenants. The RTB’s Dispute Resolution Service offers the choice mediation or adjudication and any agreement reached between parties with the RTB’s assistance or adjudication is legally binding.

The dispute resolution process is defined by several stages: 1.

Self-resolution A dispute may be resolved quickly and privately between landlord and tenant through informal discussion of the problem.

2.

Mediation or adjudication Mediation is a free service provided by the RTB to tenants and landlords to find resolution to a dispute. Any agreement subsequently forms the basis for a binding Determination Order. Or an adjudicator can more formally investigate a case, using an evidence basis to determine how a dispute should be resolved. Again, the determination of an adjudicator is binding with a Determination Order issued to both parties.

3.

Appeal to Tenancy Tribunal If agreement cannot be reached via mediation or either the tenant or landlord is unhappy with the decision the adjudication, either party is entitled to appeal to a Tenancy Tribunal. The tribunal is presided over by three members of the appointed by the RTB who will hear the dispute and make a decision.

4.

Determination Order The Determination Order, or the decision reached by adjudication or tribunal, is legally binding on those party to the dispute.

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Germany •

Context: Germany has a tradition of renting as a secure and long-term option, with home ownership relatively low in comparison with other European countries at a rate of 51.4 per cent in 2018.

According to 2018 Eurostat data, 48.5 per cent of German households are tenants.

Mietspiegel (rent index) is the mechanism which is used to determine the level of rent that can be charged. It is a database of all rents in a local geographic area and is utilised by landlords to determine the appropriate rent for their property relative to size, quality and location.

This rent can only be increased once every twelve months, should not exceed 10 per cent of the reference rent and cannot be increased by more than 20 per cent in three years. This means that tenants’ rights are respected while ensuring an acceptable yield for landlords.

Simultaneously, new build residential units are exempt from this rental regulation, though a rent increase may not exceed 20 per cent of the rent reference. Landlords also benefit from tax deductions to facilitate depreciation allowances, as well as mortgage interest tax relief, deduction of maintenance costs and the potential to deduct losses from the income tax base.

Dispute resolution: Civil courts retain the competency for the litigation of Germany’s private tenancy law and, as such, residential tenancy disputes are heard in the local courts. In some German states, or Länder, mediation is required before disputes valued at less than €750 go to trial. In cases where the dispute is valued in excess of €600, an appeal against the first judgement is admissible.

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•

A local court may also permit an appeal if the case is fundamentally important to developing the law. The regional court may then scrutinise a local court judgement either for infringements or accuracy in its findings. A second appeal is possible if the regional court agrees or if the Federal Court of Justice grants it. The latter applies when it is successfully argued that the appeal will further develop the law. The Federal Court of Justice solely scrutinises the regional court’s judgement for questions of law or infringement. It is also possible for a leap from court of first instance to the Federal Court of Justice in this circumstance.

The Netherlands •

Context: According to the Dutch Government, the housing market in The Netherlands comprises 4.4 million owner-occupied homes (60 per cent of housing stock) and 2.9 million social (32 per cent) or private rental homes (8 per cent).

The Dutch Civil Code lays down the rules of landlord and tenant law in The Netherlands and exhibits a significant emphasis on the protection of tenants. For instance, the ‘ill reliance doctrine’ contained in the Civil Code indicates that a contract can only end when both the tenant and the landlord have legitimate reason to believe that one party is ending the contract based on terms understood to be true.

Within Dutch tenancy law, the price regime to increase rents is dictated by the characteristics of a dwelling rather than status of the landlord (professional or otherwise). Within this regime, a maximum percentage of rent-increase per annum is set by the Housing Minister. Outside of this regime, while prices are not determined by specific rules, rent can only be increased once per annum.

•

Dispute resolution: Tenancy disputes relating to rent levels, maintenance or service charges can be heard in the Huurcommissie (Rent Tribunal), a national and independent organisation, not unlike the Residential Tenancy Board in Ireland. However, it does not mediate and adjudicate disputes involving nuisance, housing benefit or business/office accommodation. The ruling of the Huurcommissie is binding, though appeal to the Dutch courts is possible. Local ‘rent teams’, established in some city municipalities, are an alternative avenue and operate as an interim to tribunal, providing free assistance in rent disputes.

Finland •

Context: According to Eurostat, 71.1 per cent of Finnish households were owner-occupied while 28.9 per cent were tenants in 2019. Strict rent controls were abolished in Finland in the early 1990s meaning that the country swung from having a highly regulated private rental sector to having an exceptionally liberal one. Following an economic crisis, the reforms successfully aimed at injecting more rental dwellings into the market. Consequently, a legal limit on initial rents or annual rent increases is now absent from the Finnish private rental market. Complete contractual freedom means that security of tenure for tenants has been eroded.

However, unless the grounds for rent increase are agreed in a tenancy contract, Finnish landlords cannot unilaterally increase rent. Before any such increase, tenants must also be notified in writing as to when this will occur. ‘Fair Rental Practices’ guidelines recommend that any increases must be proportional and that negotiations on these be initiated at least six months in advance. Unless extensive renovations are being made to a property, these increases must not exceed 15 per cent per annum.

•

Dispute resolution: Finnish courts have jurisdiction in tenancy disputes and at a tenant’s request, the courts can scrutinise the proportionality of a rent, reduce it or alter the stipulation determining the rent if it is in excess of the market rate for a similar property in the locale. Since 2007, the Consumer Disputes Board has also dealt with tenancy disputes, delivering recommendations for dispute resolution in circumstances where private landlords are party.

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Going for growth Ireland’s housing magazine

Clanmil Ireland sought to approach this from a collaborative angle and was keen to avoid entering a partnership or merging with the smaller organisation without then giving it an opportunity to retain its voice.

“We are interested in partnering with small approved housing bodies. Having previously worked for a large housing association in the UK, I have experience of these organisations simply absorbing their small partners. We want to avoid this.

Valhalla, Clondalkin.

Clanmil Housing Association Ireland has experienced an annual growth of over 50 per cent in the last two years. CEO Michael Haynes speaks with the Housing Magazine about opportunities for further expansion and enhanced service delivery for tenants.

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“Over the next 12 months, we want to expand further. Clanmil has a growth target of 50 units per annum and as such we’d like to attain 400 units by the close of 2020 and 450 by the end of 2021. Any increase beyond this target is a bonus,” Haynes asserts.

Since 2018, Clanmil Ireland has increased its portfolio from around 250 units to over 350. This growth is dualpronged, having been enabled firstly by collaboration with developers to construct new units and secondly through partnership with other housing associations. Indeed, in June 2019, Clanmil merged with the smaller Léim An Bhradáin Housing Association (LABHA).

Mergers The imminent implementation of 74

enhanced regulation is going to present a challenge for volunteers in small approved housing bodies (AHBs).

Ultimately, smaller AHBs are likely to consolidate their resources through partnership with larger organisations and subsequently provide an enhanced service for their tenants.

Indeed, LABHA did not employ any staff and all five board members were volunteers. Those five individuals each had full time jobs and had to pursue their housing association work in evenings and weekends. The advent of GDPR and forthcoming regulation was too significant a challenge and provoked an internal conversation which culminated in the directors selecting Clanmil for a merger.

“While it’s about expansion and growing portfolios, it’s also about applying a more benign approach. For example, we have offered the LABHA board members a position on our board. Our 2019 amalgamation was very much a merger of equals,” the Clanmil CEO emphasises.

Benefits Clanmil, which does employ staff and has systems and procedures in place, alongside partnerships with contractors for maintenance, was a suitable match for LABHA. Immediately, therefore, the tenants experienced an improved service and more efficient delivery by the housing professionals in the Clanmil team.

“When we met with its directors, the culture between LABHRA and Clanmil was strikingly similar with both organisations being primarily customer driven. Due to its small scale, the LABHA tenants had an intimate relationship with the board of directors. On the business side, however, a professionalisation of the service was required. For example, when tenants ring our office midweek, the phone will be answered, whereas previously they might have been forced to leave a voicemail and await a response.

“There was a shift for tenants, therefore, to a service provided by an organisation which has a recognised name, identity, office and staff. As such, there was some concern on the part of the tenants that the merger was a retrograde step.

These misgivings evaporated almost

instantaneously when the Clanmil team met with tenants in their homes and at their convenience. Crucially, the most significant outcome was that tenants have experienced improved service and a greater range of options,” Haynes outlines.

Lessons

“We conducted 32 meetings in 32 different households across a period of three or four weeks whereby we met every single tenant and their family.

There was a substantial benefit for my staff in understanding individual needs and requirements of their service.

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Led by Haynes, the Clanmil team cooperated with LABHA to ensure that the merger project was concluded in a timely matter. The housing associations benefited from the CEO’s experience of similar mergers and the utilisation of processes he had previously applied.

Carton Grove, Maynooth.

“For the Clanmil team, it drove home the importance of customer contact and the significance of personal interaction with a tenant, discussing individual circumstances. As such, it was less a case of lessons learnt and more a case of lessons confirmed,” he indicates.

Opportunities This year will be a watershed moment at Clanmil. For the previous two years, Haynes as been an operational chief executive endeavouring to set a new course for his organisation. “We have embarked upon a recruitment process to acquire three managers. That will represent the first time in Clanmil Ireland’s 19-year history that it will have a management structure in place.

“This will be of huge benefit to our organisation and our tenants alike. As we grow, we must have dedicated people in position to oversee the various components of the business. It’s also a fantastic career opportunity for the staff,” he explains.

“Approved housing bodies must move off the government balance sheet. Whilst this hasn’t created any constraints yet, it will do if we continue in the direction we have been travelling. In that scenario, we would be competing with schools, hospitals and transport infrastructure for funding. This would restrict the opportunities for us to go out and

undertake innovative projects, borrowing in volume from organisations other than the Housing Finance Agency,” he contends.

Meanwhile, as Ireland emerges from the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions and faces into recession, the Clanmil CEO believes that social housing construction could act as an economic stimulus.

“House builders are cognisant that there is going to be less of a market for their product and many have already initiated construction. There are going to be huge opportunities for the social housing sector to acquire properties that ordinarily wouldn’t be available.

“The difference between this current recession and its predecessor is that there is plenty of finance available. The banks are in a relatively decent position, as is the social housing sector. Approved housing bodies must take advantage of the situation that they find themselves in as willing purchasers of properties. I envisage the sector as being a lifeblood for the construction industry,” he says.

Ambitions Clanmil’s main ambition for the time ahead is to grow and become a significant player in the Irish social housing sector. “Our sector will transform over the next five years.

Regulation is about to be implemented, the number of AHBs will subsequently shrink drastically. Clanmil Ireland wants to seize this opportunity, establish itself as a key stakeholder and contribute to solving the housing crisis in the short-tomedium term. This will consolidate our long-term position in the sector.

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Externally, there is an opportunity for AHBs to transfer off the government balance sheet, a move that has widespread support within the sector.

While suggesting that the challenge is not insurmountable, Haynes advocates that the AHBs work with government to secure this change.

Valhalla, Clondalkin.

“From a personal perspective, it’s about applying an emphasis on growing and developing the business so that if I move on at some point in the future, I leave a legacy of a bigger and better organisation,” Haynes concludes.

Clanmil Housing Association Ireland T: 01 456 8079/086 044 4228 E: michael.haynes@clanmilireland.ie W: www.clanmilireland.ie 75

Ireland’s housing magazine

Under the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP), the State subsidises rising rents for struggling tenants through direct payments to private rental sector landlords.

Since its introduction, the social housing scheme has ballooned. Now, there are significant questions surrounding its value for money for the State.

The Housing Assistance Payment is a form of social housing support provided by local authorities and paid directly to landlords, subject to prescribed rent limits, on behalf of households which qualify for support. In return, a recipient household pays a differential rent contribution, based on income and ability to pay, to the relevant local authority.

HAP entitlement is reliant on a household’s qualification for social housing support and therefore the local authority housing waiting list. Similar to Rent Supplement, HAP recipients are responsible for finding accommodation in the private rental market and must also secure the agreement of a landlord.

Since 2015, the HAP scheme has been the primary source of new social housing. Indeed, the importance of HAP as a social housing mechanism is widely recognised as an improvement on Rent Supplement. For instance, under HAP a recipient may take up full-time employment and retain housing support.

However, HAP is also a magnet for criticism.

Recently, in his new book, Housing Shock, Maynooth University Assistant Professor Rory Hearne suggests that this has marked “a significant departure in the nature of social housing delivery in Ireland towards a privatised, marketorientated approach”. There are two main consequences, he asserts. The first is an increase in housing distress and the second is rising cost for the State.

Rather than deliver the security of tenure that might be expected of traditional

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social housing, HAP tenancies have the same limited security as other private rental tenancies in Ireland. Likewise, tenants who qualify for HAP are required to compete in the private market against households in a higher income decile.

Meanwhile, HAP tenants, similar to Rental Accommodation Scheme tenants, are subsequently removed from social housing waiting lists, effectively masking the true scale of the housing crisis.

Simultaneously, by expanding the use of the private rental sector to provide social housing on a large scale, government policy has sent a message to foreign investors on the profitability of the Irish housing market. State-subsidised social housing accounts for almost one-third of private rental sector tenancies. In turn, this has helped sustain inflated private rental sector rents.

Cost Conversely, as well as being devoid of long-term value to the State, HAP is a more expensive mechanism for the delivery of social housing when compared with direct build social housing. Worryingly, while social target provision targets are being met by HAP, the supply of new build social houses constructed by local authorities and approved housing bodies remains insufficient.

Under HAP, after a typical borrowing period, it is the private rental sector landlord who accumulates an asset through State payments. Whereas, through a direct social build scheme, after the borrowing period, the State

gains an asset, which can remain in the social housing stock and be used either as collateral for future borrowing or as a revenue generator.

The Rebuilding Ireland strategy projects that over 120,000 households will receive some form of private rental sector subsidy, including Homeless HAP (HHAP), by 2021. Concurrently, in an attempt to arrest the housing crisis, government has significantly increased spending on HAP. While the net Exchequer expenditure on HAP was around €400,000 in 2014, the profiled expenditure for 2019 in the Revised Estimates for Public Services was €423 million (supporting a cumulative 50,000 households). In 2019 alone, there were 17,025 HAP tenancies set up across the country.

The average monthly payments to landlords for HAP tenancies, by all local authorities and household types (e.g. €829 in Q2 2019) was lower than national average market rents (e.g. €1,202 as per RTB Rent Index Q2 2019). The highest monthly average, as of June 2019, was in the Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council area, where the figure was €1,357.

However, the use of discretionary additional payments by local authorities, above statutory HAP limits is also increasing. For instance, these payments have increased from 12.6 per cent of active tenancies in 2016 to 40 per cent of active tenancies by end of Q2 2019, meaning that the Exchequer is being exposed to rising private rental sector rents.

Enhancing the planning process authority development plans and other planning functions.

The appointment of an independent Planning Regulator, empowered to oversee the planning system in Ireland, was one of the key recommendations of the Tribunal. Niall Cussen, Chief Executive and Planning Regulator was subsequently appointed as Ireland’s first Planning Regulator in December 2018.

3.

Speaking about the OPR and his role, Cusssen said: “The formation of the OPR represents an important milestone in the development of Ireland’s planning system.

Commenting on the progress of the OPR since its establishment, Cussen said: “Since our establishment, we have delivered many successful events and contributions to the national planning process. We met with a large number of our stakeholders and ran various training events across the country. We have conducted evaluations of statutory spatial plans and made a series of recommendations. We have also laid the groundwork for a programme of reviews of the systems and procedures used by planning authorities.

“Put simply, our planning process directly affects every citizen of the State in meeting housing, physical and social infrastructural requirements, protecting and enhancing the quality of our environment and enabling the essential economic functioning of the country.”

Functions of the OPR The role of the OPR is to ensure that the implementation of planning policy and legislation by local authorities and An Bord Pleanála supports government policy and statutory requirements, that effective programmes of research, training and public awareness in planning are in place to strengthen the planning process, and that the wider public are effectively engaged in the planning process.

The Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended, gives the OPR a statutory basis to carry out three main functions: 1.

The OPR is responsible for driving national research, education and training, to highlight the role and benefit of good planning. The OPR delivers education and training programmes for both elected members and staff of local authorities and regional assemblies.

“Ireland will change significantly over the next 20 years. It will become home to an extra million people, requiring 500,000 new homes and 600,000 extra jobs. We have an obligation to plan and manage that change in a much more environmentally responsible way, essentially the right development in the right places and at the right time. The OPR will be central to supporting this and ensuring a continual enhancement of the quality of our planning process.”

E: info@opr.ie W: www.opr.ie

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The OPR has responsibility for independently assessing all statutory plans to ensure that the plans provide for the proper planning and sustainable development of the area concerned.

2.

The Mahon Tribunal made 64 recommendations aimed at significantly enhancing the transparency of planning in Ireland against a backdrop of significant historical deficiencies in relation to decision-making on local

Evaluation of statutory plans

Education, training and research

Ireland’s housing magazine

The Office of the Planning Regulator (OPR) was formally established in April 2019 on foot of recommendations made by the Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments (the Mahon Tribunal). Niall Cussen, Chief Executive and Planning Regulator speaks with the Housing Magazine.

to planning authorities, and to the Minister.

Planning reviews and examinations The OPR may review the systems and procedures used by any planning authority including An Bord Pleanála in the performance of any or all of their planning functions, making independent and evidence-based recommendations

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Ireland’s housing magazine

What affordable housing really means

Finishing touches to the roofs in Oileáin Na Crannóige, Ballymun.

Despite all of the recent widespread coverage of the housing crisis there appears to be confusion about what buying affordable homes actually means.

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Affordable housing is home ownership that people can afford. The experience of Ó Cualann is that many people still want to own their own home, but a growing number simply cannot afford to buy one.

And for those who prefer to rent, the definition is similar: affordable rental is rental occupation at a rate that people can afford to pay. And what can people afford to pay for their housing needs? The metric used across Europe is one third of net income. If we make an allowance for maintenance and utilities, Ó Cualann argues that people should be able to buy a house such that they pay no more than 30 per cent of their net income on their mortgage. We assume a 25-year mortgage. Ó Cualann housing is affordable primarily because the land is provided at a discount by a Local Authority, the State, or other willing landowners and the Ó Cualann margin is maintained at circa 5 per cent.

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In some circumstances, development levies are waived. Construction finance is sourced privately from banks or investors and is repaid as houses are sold to purchasers. This approach keeps the overall cost down, and in turn delivers a top quality, affordable home.

There is every reason for the State to support this model. As soon as an Ó Cualann house is sold, the State gets 13.5 per cent in VAT, 1 per cent in stamp duty and 10.5 per cent in taxes collected during the construction process from PAYE and USC, etc. Even if development levies are waived the return to the State and the taxpayer is at worst cost neutral and usually makes a contribution to the Exchequer. If you assume the net cost of a new A2 rated, 3-bedroomed house to be €200,000, the State will collect over €50,000 for each house sold. Affordable Purchase when provided via this model, is cost neutral.

The same applies to affordable rental in the Ó Cualann model. Rental on State land can also be cost neutral, or contribute to the exchequer over time.

Rent is calculated based on the household income and no tenant pays more than 31 per cent of their net income on their rent. For example, the cost rental or base rent of a three-bedroomed house built on State land, costing €225,000 including VAT is circa €1,100 per month.

A household earning €40,000 per annum will need a subsidy of €200 per month to be able to afford to rent this house, whereas a household on €80,000 per annum can afford to pay up to €450 per month more than the base rent. This element of cross-subsidisation is not new, it has been common practice in Helsinki, Zurich and Vienna for decades.

In this way, the rent is affordable in perpetuity and the asset belongs to the State, Local Authority, or co-op in

perpetuity and remains a valuable asset once the capital has been paid down.

This approach provides for better integration, it means that housing benefits are widely accessible. Income eligibility includes the middle-class, and families can remain in their homes even as their incomes rise. This creates a broadly shared, mixed-income, intergenerational asset that can cut through social classes and stigma typically associated with public housing. The model as used in Vienna has proven to be sustainable even as the population grows. It works in Vienna, Zurich, and Helsinki, where your address is never a factor in determining your or your family’s educational or professional advancement.

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We also argue that the current Social Housing model can and should be scrapped in favour of universal affordable rental. In such a model, whether you earn €10,000 per annum or €10,000 per month, you can apply to rent an affordable house or apartment. The only difference is that you pay a variable differential rent for the same house and you only get a subsidy if you need it. As your financial circumstances change, your subsidy reduces or increases accordingly. However, you never pay more than 31 per cent of your net income on rent.

Final touches before handover.

Affordable housing delivers; homeowners and renters pay no more than 33 per cent of their net income on their housing needs. Factoring in utilities and maintenance, no one pays more than 30 per cent of their take-home pay on their mortgage repayments or 31 per cent of their net income on rent. In our first Ó Cualann development, the average monthly mortgage repayment was less than 20 per cent of net pay.

To safeguard against exploitation of the model, a buyback or clawback arrangement is used if someone sells their house. This ensures that houses cannot be flipped for profit. It means people stay in the community and promotes and preserves more cohesive and enduring communities.

Affordable housing is a realistic proposition, both economically and socially. The Ó Cualann model is people-

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And speaking of community, because people have considerably more disposable income when they move into an affordable house, we have shown that for every 1,000 affordable homes in any given area, €6,500,000 extra income per annum is generated and therefore available to be spent locally. This is hugely beneficial for areas such as Ballymun, where local services can be sustained successfully in the local community.

New homes ready for occupation.

centred and community-based in its approach, and it works financially for everyone. If we really do want to solve the housing crisis in a compassionate way, here is a ready-made solution.

T: 01 286 9237 E: info@ocualann.ie W: www.ocualann.ie

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Ireland’s housing magazine

European Commission identifies housing solutions in tackling economic imbalance The European Commission has recommended that Ireland increase its provision of social and affordable housing by the end of 2021, recognising that shortages in social housing supply “remain a significant challenge” to fostering inclusion.

The Commission made a number of recommendations for Ireland spanning improved accessibility to healthcare, addressing the digital divide, tax policy and housing in an in-depth assessment of the country’s performance against recommendations adopted by the Council in July 2019.

Under the 2020 European Semester, the Commission carried out a comprehensive analysis of Ireland’s economic policy and published it in the 2020 country report.

Published in February, the country report for Ireland outlined the finding that Ireland is experiencing macroeconomic imbalances, in particular in relation to significant stocks of public debt, private debt and net external liabilities.

The report assesses the submission of Ireland’s National Reform Programme and Stability Programme in April 2020 and also takes account of the potential knock-on effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Housing affordability is a problem for many households and inflation in the rental sector is persistently high,” the Commission states, adding that improved infrastructure, combined with spatial planning, could be a “critical enabler” for improving housing supply.

Another recommendation made by the Commission is for the solving of “administrative deficiencies” in the vacant site levy. Since January 2019 vacant sites in Ireland (those deemed as empty lands suitable for housing but not put forward for development) have been subject to a levy, however, at the start of 2020 fewer than 80 sites had been brought back in to use as a result of the costs.

The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has increased its pressure on local authorities to ensure that they are equipped to identify sites, as well as administer and collect the levy, some three years after provisions for the levy were introduced.

current waiting list and of potential new applicants,” the analysis states.

On homelessness, the Commission highlights that of the estimated 10,000 homeless people registered in Ireland, more than one-third (3,500) are children and says that it is concerned about the potential risks of “deepening inequalities, entrenched poverty and social exclusion”.

It also recognises the “substantial regional and urban differences” in relation to homelessness, highlighting that almost 70 per cent of all Ireland’s homeless adults are concentrated in the Greater Dublin Area. Such a figure is striking when considering the Commission’s broader finding that the socio-economic consequences of the pandemic are likely to be unevenly distributed across regions due to different specialisation patterns. “This entails a substantial risk of widening regional disparities within Ireland,” the Commission finds.

Housing

Shortages in social housing supply remain a significant challenge to foster inclusion and for the most vulnerable, the Commission recognises.

The context for dealing with the housing crisis in Ireland is its changing economic circumstance. Ireland has reported expectations of a significant change of GDP from a 0.4 per cent surplus in 2019 to a 7.4 deficit in 2020. The deficit is expected to be 4.1 per cent of GDP in 2021, however, the Commission analysis recognises that the pandemic makes the macroeconomic and fiscal outlook highly uncertain.

The report recognises measures implemented by the Government to support housing supply, outlining the 40 per cent housing completion rate rise in the two years to September 2019 and indicates that additional measures have helped curb house price inflation.

“Recent policy measures have accelerated social housing delivery, but there were still approximately 68,700 households on social housing waiting lists in Ireland in December 2019.

Further efforts are needed to cover the needs of remaining households on the

Increasing the provision of social and affordable housing is among the Commission’s recommendations to address Ireland’s macroeconomic imbalances, in the context of tackling the pandemic and facilitating economic recovery as a first step.

Recognising the economic measures introduced to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, including but not limited to the temporary ban on rent increases and evictions, it states that despite such measures “the risk of significant output loss, bankruptcies and insolvencies, and an increase in unemployment and people at risk of poverty, remain high”.

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However, it also recognises that demand still far outweighs the levels of completions.

The Commission estimates that addressing these administrative deficiencies might “ultimately help improve housing affordability in the medium-term”.

Local authority housing maintenance under question

The IHREC has also accused the State of a failure to ensure that housing is accessed in a timely manner and a separate failure to take action to address the decrepit conditions within some of the social housing stock. These comments were made in the human rights watchdog’s submission to the Council of Europe on Ireland’s 17th National Report on the Implementation of the European Social Charter.

The submission says that “research has shown that a number of the local housing estates have become some of the most deprived urban areas in Ireland”, with the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection’s Social Inclusion Monitor for 2017 noting that the consistent poverty rate for local authority housing tenants that year was 16.6 per cent. A 2018 study conducted by the IHREC and the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) found that 38 per cent of those living in local authority housing

experience housing deprivation, which is defined as the house featuring one or more of: leaking roof; damp walls, floor or foundation; rot in window frames or floors; dark rooms; no central heating; or no double glazing. The study also found that 28 per cent of local authority homes are overcrowded.

These levels of deprivation and overcrowding “can particularly affect vulnerable groups such as lone parents, Travellers, and people with disabilities who are over-represented in social housing”. While stating that it recognises the State’s commitment to delivering higher quality social housing under Rebuilding Ireland, the IHREC questions the “implementations of these commitments in practice”, stating that “the State has not taken timely and effective action to address the inadequate conditions” within Irish local authority housing.

With regard to the conditions, the IHREC cites the comments of Community Action

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The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) has said that local authority tenants have had to endure mould, damp, defective heating, sewerage problems and rodent infestations in Irish social housing.

Network and the Centre for Housing Law, Rights and Policy Research at NUI Galway that accompanied the 16th National Report. Their survey of 13 local authority housing areas “reveal the persistent problems of mould, damp, lack of heating, sewage issues, rodent infestations and overcrowded conditions that residents of these housing estates experience”. Residents of the Balgaddy estate in Dublin, one of the 13 areas surveyed, are said to still be experiencing these conditions.

The level of response to maintenance requests and the quality of repairs carried out within these homes has also come in for criticism. Michelle Norris and Aideen Hayden found in their report, ‘The Future of Council Housing’, that “the maintenance staff employed by local authorities devote nearly all their time to response maintenance, responding to tenants’ repair request, which means that the spend on planned maintenance (repairs and upgrading) is inadequate”.

Within their report, Norris and Hayden also state that an interviewee from the Housing Agency noted that the standards of some social housing stock would breach minimum standard legislation for rented dwellings.

International best practice suggests that 65 per cent of social housing budgets be devoted to planned maintenance, but the current underinvestment has left Irish social housing stock in the state in which it now sits.

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Fold Housing: Enabling its residents to age in place

The courtyard in New Dolphin Park.

Fold Ireland is one of Ireland’s leading approved housing bodies providing housing, care and support to older people, families and those with complex needs. Fold Ireland is an approved housing body with charitable status led by a skilled voluntary board with experts from the private and public sectors. We work with local authorities, the HSE, financial institutions, developers and other critical delivery partners to meet housing demand.

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purpose-built accommodation for older people to independently age in place.

Denis Buckley, Chief Executive Fold Housing Association Ireland CLG.

Fold Ireland currently have a portfolio of 12 general needs schemes with a total of 252 properties located all across Dublin and Meath and two housing with care schemes housing 112 people both located in North Dublin. Fold specialise in housing for over 55s and provide 82

Fold have had their most exciting year yet in 2020 with the theme of this year certainly being rejuvenation and regeneration. Not only are Fold carrying out regeneration on-site in their developments, they have had an exciting revamp to our internal structure. Fold Ireland recently introduced a new Chief Executive Denis Buckley following the separation from Radius Housing in Northern Ireland, who previously managed Fold Ireland. Buckley was appointed Chief Executive in December 2019 and has 20 years’ experience at CEO level in the corporate sector both nationally and internationally. Buckley has also been a member, at board level, of several approved housing bodies and charities in the disability and ageing sectors. Buckley is also Chairperson of

Acquired Brain Injury Ireland since 2017.

He was a member of the Housing SPC for Kildare CC and Committee Member of Kildare Chamber of Commerce. As CEO, Buckley is focused on keeping the vision and mission as the focal point when meeting the organisation’s strategic goals.

The Fold Ireland Development team lead

by Tina Donaghy has been busier than ever this past year. Fold currently have two very exciting projects onsite and nearing completion: St Agnes’ in Crumlin, which will consist of 103 units for people over the age of 55, and New Dolphin Park in Rialto, which will house 43 older persons. Fold have also recently taken ownership of 31 units in Abelard Square, Phoenix Park and hope to welcome residents very soon. Fold have also agreed to manage thirteen units in Mount Argos and will take over 24 in Cúil Dúin,

City West. Fold have ambitiously aimed to double their portfolio from 252 to 466 by the end of 2020.

Fold Ireland are a rapidly expanding Approved Housing Body with an ambitious aim to double their housing stock by the end of the year. They are internally expanding year-on-year by welcoming new, skilled housing professionals and dedicated care staff to

The modern, spacious kitchens inside the New Dolphin Park development.

The crane comes down in New Dolphin Park.

New Dolphin Park being built on the door step of future residents.

the Housing with Care schemes. Fold Ireland are continuously working hard year-on-year to ensure there is a consistent, yearly increase in delivering safe, secure, and well managed homes for people on low incomes. The use of smart technology along with a personcentred approach to housing management allows Fold tenants to independently age in place in a friendly and welcoming community. Fold look

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These homes will then be managed by the Housing team in Fold lead by Martina Conroy. The Fold Housing team take a person-centred approach to housing, meaning the resident’s needs are a top priority for the Housing team. This also means that through organised events and activities there is a real sense of community in every housing scheme.

Fold encourage every scheme to arrange a residents’ association that organises activities. These residents’ associations create a time and place for friendships to form naturally and eliminates any loneliness many residents over 55 typically suffer from. Unlike many Housing Associations, Fold do not just build houses and walk away, they create communities for people to age in place, happy and content.

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New Dolphin Park in Rialto is one of Fold’s most exciting projects yet. This development is a regeneration project similar to their development in Ballygall which was completed in 2014. This project will be brand new purpose-built housing for older persons and will house 43 residents. These tenants will be a mixture of pre-existing Dolphin’s Barn residents and new residents. The new apartments will be an exciting upgrade from the cramped, dark apartments the Dolphin’s Barn residents are currently living in. The apartments feature large windows with plenty of natural light, modern kitchens, spacious living rooms and bedrooms and purpose-built bathrooms that will allow residents to age in place. The complex also features smart technology with Radius Connect 24 in every apartment to give residents the peace of mind that they are safe and secure in their homes. The stunning development is bright and colourful on the outside with red brick, colourful metal details and bright red doors. The courtyard, in the centre of the development, will create a real sense of community and the day room will allow residents to meet and arrange activities.

This is a total regeneration project and like the residents in Ballygall, Fold hope the New Dolphin Park residents are left rejuvenated and uplifted by their new homes.

forward to the welcoming hundreds of new tenants by the end of the year and providing many more quality homes in the future.

T: 01 822 8804 E: inquiries@foldireland.ie W: www.foldireland.ie

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Rent freeze: A constitutional question

The introduction of short-term rent freeze measures during the Covid-19 pandemic have reinvigorated calls for the new Government to bring proposed long-term policy in to law, however, both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael view such a move as potentially unconstitutional.

In late 2019, a proposal to freeze rents on all current and new tenancies won a hollow victory in the Dáíl. The then Government was defeated in the vote on the second stage of the Rent Freeze (Fair) Rent Bill but opted not to support the legislation moving onto the committee stage on the basis that it believed the measures included in the Bill could be deemed unconstitutional if challenged in court.

However, protections for renters, including a rent freeze, introduced at the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic have raised questions as to why such measures could not be a more permanent feature in tackling the housing crisis.

While many acknowledged that a risk of the courts finding the legislation invalid

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did exist, others, including Assistant Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin, David Kenny, argued that the potency of property rights in the Constitution is often exaggerated and points to a trend of the courts giving “a lot of leeway in restricting property rights in the common good”.

prohibiting tenants from being forced to leave a property and the increase of rents. Following an initial extension to 20 July, on 17 July Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien’s request to extend the rent freeze and eviction moratorium on a short-term basis was accepted by the Cabinet.

Despite opposing the reading that the context of a housing crisis would be suffice to meet the legal test of taking away property rights, if undertaken in the service of the public good, the Government, by then in caretaker format following February’s General Election, did introduce rent freeze measures at the outbreak of the pandemic.

Some TDs, including Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Broin, have called for the measures to be extended to the end of 2020 at least. Ó Broin is the architect of the Ban on Rent Increases Bill 2020, which is essentially an update of the legislation that the previous government refused to progress.

Under the Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (Covid-19) Bill 2020 an initial three month period was set out

The new Bill will cap rents in existing tenancies at their current rate and new tenancy rents will be set according to the Residential Tenancies Board rent index.

It proposes a three year restriction on rent increases with provision for extension by the Oireachtas but also an annual review mechanism.

The Bill also seeks to amend the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 to make it illegal to evict tenants in buy-to-let properties on the grounds that the property is to be sold.

Some lobby groups have proposed an amendment to ther Constitution to ensure the constitutionally of a rent freeze. Home for Good, the group headed up by former Barnardos Chief Executive Fergus Finlay, has asked for a referendum to be called on defining “the common good” set out in the Constitution, which states that the right to property is mitigated by the common good.

It has proposed the insertion of a new provision which declares the right to a “decent, affordable and safe home is fundamental to the common good”. The Programme for Government has set out a pledge to hold a referendum “on housing” although no details have been offered on the parameters of what will be put to citizens.

Without a change to the Constitution, Ó Broin’s new Bill is likely to face similar oposition as in 2019.

TCD’s David Kenny has previously written of his understanding that attributing the ‘unconstitutional’ label associated with the measures within the original Bill and subsequently the new Bill, is far from clear cut.

“The Constitution does not define what the common good or social justice consist in,” he says.

“This is worked out in context, and changes with the needs of society. If challenged, the State will have to offer some common good that is served by any interference with property.”

Kenny admits that precedent exists for a possible constitutional case against the Bill but believes that general nature of the proposed rent freeze application and the context of a housing crisis is grounds for an argument against it.

Highlighting that “context is king” the constitutional law expert says that the courts would have to consider the particular objectives of the law and the current social problems it is designed to address.

“The scope and scale of the current housing crisis, and the fact that this is a time-limited measure that will not indefinitely restrict rights, would suggest the law could be upheld under this test,” he wrote in the Journal.ie in December 2019.

Adding: “I cannot think of any Supreme Court precedent on property rights in the last 20 years that would suggest the courts would invalidate a measure such as the one under discussion.”

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The original version of the Bill was backed by Fianna Fáil, now the largest party of the three-party coalition Government and holders of the housing portfolio. At the time, the party stated its desire to amend the legislation to provide tax relief for small landlords.

However, in the run up to the election in February it refused to commit to a “flat rent freeze” and published its own legal advice that also suggested such a move would be unconstitutional.

“This idea that the Constitution is some kind of heavy-handed block isn’t true…the only people who keep telling us that the Constitution is a problem are politicians who don’t want to take these actions and who use the Constitution as a convenient excuse.” Eoin Ó Broin TD Ó Broin says: “The issue isn’t that things are or aren’t unconstitutional, the issue is that if you do it in a particular way, the chance of it being deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court are greatly increased.”

Highlighting Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000 which says that 20 per cent of any private development would be purchased at a discount by the relevant local authority, as a potential precedent for accepting the Bill, he says: “It ruled that as long as it’s fair, proportionate and in accordance with the clear social policy needs and is done in the interest of the common good, then the Constitution allows for a very wide range of limitations on the use of private property and the ownership of private property.

“This idea that the Constitution is some kind of heavy-handed block isn’t true… the only people who keep telling us that

Interestingly, Kenny also highlights a presidential power, which has never been utilised, that allows the President to refer any bill to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality before he signs in into law.

the Constitution is a problem are

Undoubtedly, those in favour of the new Bill, to be brought forward by Ó Broin, will seek to highlight the existence of this power given the Government’s concerns.

is possible to constrain how parts of a

Talking to the Housing Magazine,

affordable accommodation.”

politicians who don’t want to take these actions and who use the Constitution as a convenient excuse.

“Is it possible to go in and sequester people’s property? Of course not. But it property are used, managed or sold to ensure, for the greater good, that regular people with good jobs can access

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Construction at a glance A new report from the Oireachtas’ Construction Sector Group provides an overview of trends within the sector, from productivity, growth, costs and the sector’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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The report found that the recovery and growth of the construction industry has continued apace since 2014, with investment from both public and private sources having significantly improved between 2014 and 2019. Public investment rose from €4.3 billion to €7.3 billion from 2014 to 2019, while private sector investment more than doubled from €8.3 billion to €18.9 billion in the same period.

At the same time as public infrastructure projects such as the Port of Cork and the Gardens International Offices have progressed, the domestic private sector has developed a reputation for handling technically challenging projects such as data centres, which led to the sector recording the fastest growth in exports among Enterprise Ireland clients, a 22 per cent increase to €1.97 billion.

This rise in demand and investment has fed through to growth, both overall and in all sub-sectors during the same period, in the volume of output from the industry.

Overall construction activity increased by 13 per cent year-on-year in quarter four of 2019, with a 31.2 per cent uptick in the residential sector and an 18.5 per cent increase in the non-residential sector.

Civil Engineering was the only sub-sector to suffer a decrease in 2019, down from its decade peak of 2018, but “there has clearly been a step change since 2017”.

Employment in the sector has recently reached 148,300 in Q4 2019, although this is still some way off the 2007 peak of 240,000.

Covid-19 Then Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe announced a number of measures in April in order to safeguard the progress of Project Ireland 2040 while work had been stopped in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, including: consideration by the delivery board “as to how a phased and orderly restart can best be achieved”; continuation of planning to facilitate the restart; continuation of pre-construction design work to ensure projects are ready to go to tender once measures are relaxed; and extending ex gratia interim payment to contractors on public work

contracts. The industry has been slowly reopening since May, following the Government’s Roadmap for Reopening Society and Business and Return to Work Safely Protocol.

Demand Demand on the construction sector saw an uptick in the second half of the 2010s as government plans such as Project Ireland 2040 and Rebuilding Ireland were rolled out, and this demand is set to increase in the 2020s. The delivery of housing is of course to the fore of the construction industry given the housing crisis the country has been experiencing for years now and the affordability of housing both during and after construction has been a major talking point around the new Government’s Programme for Government.

Demand is still outpacing delivery, which has driven costs upwards both in construction and in the final product, but one approach that has curbed this is the fixed price agreement approach deployed by the Approved Housing Body (AHB) Respond. Rather than use the looser public works contracts, Respond use their own fixed price agreements with contractors, which protect them from the spiralling costs often associated with other public works. The AHB are currently working on 27 sites, with 24 of them covered by these agreements, which has meant these sites have avoided any extra costs incurred by the pandemic, unlike the public projects agreed under public works contracts.

Rise of retrofit to retrofitting to upgrade at least 500,000 homes to a B2 energy rating by 2030; 2. the grouping together of homes to lower cost, starting in the midlands (where fossil fuel dependency is highest);

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3. the leveraging of smart finance (including through European Investment Bank); and 4. the development of easy pay back mechanisms (i.e. through utility bills).

Delivery The actions listed to support the delivery of this ambition include:

The Programme for Government document, otherwise known as Our Shared Future, features the words ‘retrofit(s)’ and ‘retrofitting’ a total of 23 times. Under the Green New Deal mission, the Government outlines its commitment to a National Retrofitting Plan.

Retrofitting is process by which a more advanced technology is retrospectively fitted following initial construction. For instance, in a home this might relate to heating systems, insulation or window glazing. The main objectives of retrofitting are often climate orientated, making dwelling more sustainable and efficient by reducing carbon emissions as well as cost. Simultaneously, retrofitting can contribute to health outcomes for occupants, reducing poor ventilation, draughty rooms and damp.

Action Council. It has also committed to an average 7 per cent reduction in overall greenhouse gas emissions per annum from 2021 to 2030.

Climate action

Retrofitting represents the built environment’s contribution to climate action and the National Retrofitting Plan is also a component of the National Economic Plan. Among the stated objectives of the plan, which include warmer buildings, energy efficiency and emissions reduction, retrofitting is intended to act as a “crucial economic stimulus”.

Through Our Shared Future, the new Government has committed to directing relevant funding from the European Green Deal towards various decarbonisation projects, including retrofits. “This will be an important element of our National Economic Plan,” the document states.

The Government has indicated that the Climate Action Bill, promised to be introduced in the Dáil within 100 days, will set a target of net zero emissions by 2050 in law and establish a new Climate

The first policy change for the delivery of this “expanded and deepened climate ambition” listed in the Programme under the Green New Deal mission is the delivery of “a National Aggregated Model of Retrofitting reaching over 500,000 homes by 2030”.

Ambition

The four commitments contained in the National Retrofitting Plan are: 1. the development of a new areabased and one-stop-shop approach

•

designating a National Retrofitting Delivery Body by the end of 2020;

•

utilising resources from the National Recovery Fund to immediately finance local authority retrofit programmes and to offer grants to owners of private properties (initially focused on the midlands);

•

commencing pilot schemes in early 2021;

•

amending the Energy Efficiency Obligation Scheme to boost the supply of retrofits; and

•

increasing the number of homes and businesses with Building Energy Ratings (BER) and Display Energy Certificates (DEC).

Additional commitments noted in the Programme include examining the development of “green mortgages and financial products” to help facilitate retrofitting, undertaking a programme to install heat pumps “in homes that are already suitable for the technology, as part of our plan to install 600,000 heat pumps by 2030” and work with tenants and landlords to minimise disruption caused by retrofitting.

It is intended that the National Retrofitting Plan will stimulate a tenfold increase in the size of the existing retrofit industry, providing opportunities for SMEs, while instilling confidence for the establishment of supply chains, training and investment.

“We will make Ireland a leader in retrofitting by developing innovative ways in which to roll out retrofitting by lowering the cost and improving efficiency and productivity,” the Programme states.

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Ireland’s housing retrofit imperative Upgrading Ireland’s housing stock to minimise the greenhouse gas emissions from heating, lighting and Ireland’s housing magazine

appliance use and maximise the comfort and health of citizens is already a national priority. It is rapidly becoming an imperative. Jim Scheer, Head of Policy Insights with Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), writes.

Momentum has been increasing since the publication of the Government’s Climate Action Plan in 2019, building on the work of many actors supporting retrofits in Ireland since around 2000.

But what will it take to cause the ‘renovation wave’ being spoken about in EU circles1 to break over Ireland?

Context for action The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) 2019 Gap Report2 sets the scale of the decarbonisation challenge with one clear, stark piece of data: 7.6 per cent. This is the rate, at which science dictates, total global greenhouse gas emissions must reduce every year to keep to 1.5°C of warming.

This will inevitably involve significant changes in how we run our economy, and for many, how we live our lives.

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The International Energy Agency provides the definitive global statistics on emissions from energy use. Based on their most recent analysis in the Global Energy Review 20203, CO2 emissions from energy use worldwide could decline by around 8 per cent in 2020. Such a reduction would be the largest ever; six times larger than the previous record reduction in 2009 due to the financial crisis and greater than those seen during the Great Depression, both world wars, and the oil shocks of the 1970s (IEA, 2020).

The impact of the pandemic on international emissions is what we have wanted to see for some time, but not of course how we wanted to see them being achieved.

SEAI’s most recent data for 20194 indicates a 3.9 per cent reduction in energy related emissions for the first year of data since the Government’s Climate Action Plan5 was released. The biggest savings coming from (nearly) eliminating coal use for electricity

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generation. A welcome development – however an action that can only be taken once.

One-quarter of all energy used in Ireland is consumed directly in homes; second only to transport, and more than is used by industry. Emissions (over 9 million tonnes CO2 per year) and energy use in homes decreased from 2006-2014 as the economy contracted.

But we have seen a reversal in this trend over recent years with energy use in households in 2018 at 9 per cent higher than in 2014. Increasing house numbers and sizes are outpacing efforts to reduce energy demand through energy efficiency. New homes are built to very high standards of energy efficiency and must include 20 per cent of energy use sourced from renewable energy. So, the real challenge lies in upgrading the existing housing stock.

The graph across shows the spread of household Building Energy Ratings (BERs) as of 1 May 2020, weighted to the stock of permanently occupied dwellings across Ireland (source: CSO).

It illustrates that over 1,350,000 homes in the country are at C1 or less and over half at D1 or less. A lot of scope for major improvement.

Economic and social case for retrofit Beyond the climate, there are many additional benefits for Ireland from upgraded homes. Well insulated homes are comfortable, cheaper to run, and bring health benefits. Studies show that increased indoor temperatures lead to reduced hospital and doctor visits for those with underlying health conditions, taking pressure of the health system.

SEAI’s Warmth and Wellbeing scheme has funded upgrades in these groups.

Further analysis of the scheme will

highlight the benefits of deep energy renovations in such situations.

Analysis by McKinsey & Co. for the Government’s Climate Action Plan highlighted the compelling economic case for retrofitting homes and buildings. It is one of the cheapest ways to remove carbon from our energy system. Despite this economic case and long running government grants, the renovation wave we require has not yet broken. Government intervention is still very much warranted to accelerate deployment given the range of barriers householders face.

Much work is required to increase awareness of the benefits and to continue to build community momentum, an area being explored via SEAI’s behavioural insights team.

Government and citizen action: Generating momentum To date, over 440,000 householders have taken advantage of existing government supports through SEAI to make their homes more energy efficient and to use renewable energy. However, as yet, those upgrades have not been deep enough to reverse the trend of household greenhouse gas emissions.

Last year, around 2,000 homes were upgraded via government schemes to a BER B2 level. The Climate Action Plan envisages this number increasing to 3,500 in 2020, scaling up to over 50,000 annually from 2024 onwards.

There is plenty of work to do, and a growing economic and jobs opportunity awaiting us.

The Climate Action Plan includes over 180 measures, with many of them targeted at supporting improved energy efficiency in homes. These measures will see the addition of low-interest

finance products to support homeowners to overcome the upfront cost barriers. SEAI has worked on a number of innovative finance pilots that are starting to bear fruit. We have also seen banks introduce green mortgage and lower interest finance products for household retrofits, as well as new products targeting home energy retrofits e.g. via An Post.6

Global energy-related CO2 emissions and annual change 1900-2020 25 20 15 10 5

Other measures will include:

A range of measures have been included in government plans to support the necessarily skills development for installing high levels of insulation and technologies like heat pumps. SEAI estimates that between 30,000 and 40,000 jobs could be supported by a full-scale programme nationally.

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Ireland’s housing magazine

1. Supporting skills development

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Energy related CO2 emissions (MtCO2)

2. Targeted support for heat pumps Heat pumps will reduce the 700,000 plus homes currently using oil as a main source of central heating. Many of these homes, are already heat pump ready, and by switching to electricity provide an opportunity to get those homes off direct fossil fuel use all together.

3. Area based initiatives Delivering upgrades on an area-by-area basis offers economies of scale to delivery agents and hence savings for householders. SEAI’s BER mapping allows targeting of areas where the carbon savings could be greatest.

Community action is on the rise and working in groups helps address many of the known barriers.

BERs weighted to national level (2009-2020) 250,000 200,000 150,000 100,000

4. District heating Government has signalled its intention to support the establishment of district heating networks in Ireland. Another significant infrastructure project, these measures create jobs and provide emissions reductions facilitating the use of renewable and waste heat, replacing fossil fuels.

SEAI is observing many positive signs on retrofit for Ireland. The wave is building in size and momentum. We have seen an explosion in communitybased activity with over 350 community groups forming to look at solutions and access grants and other Government supports. We are seeing several

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innovative finance products come to market. Central government is leading through the National Retrofit Task Force. Momentum is gathering at EU level too with what is being termed the EU Renovation Wave. This has potential for Ireland to leverage international financial supports.

Transforming Ireland’s housing stock to a low carbon one is an infrastructure challenge that will generate jobs, economic activity and unlock wide-

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ranging benefits for Irish householders and the Government, including a crucial contribution to climate targets. SEAI looks forward to playing its role as Ireland’s energy authority, supporting the delivery of this essential project.

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The next wave of action is coming

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For information on SEAI's data insights or home energy grants, visit www.seai.ie

1. https://ec.europa.eu/energy/topics/energy-efficiency/energy-efficient-buildings/renovation-wave_en • 2. https://www.unenvironment.org/interactive/emissions-gap-report/2019/ 3. https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review- • 2020/global-energy-and-co2-emissions-in-2020 • 4. https://www.seai.ie/news-and-media/co2-emissions-from-energy/ • 5. https://www.dccae.gov.ie/enie/climate-action/topics/climate-action-plan/Pages/climate-action.aspx • 6. https://www.businesspost.ie/climate-environment/an-post-to-offer-green-loans-for-retrofitting-homes-62dfc526

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Housing Conference 2019 (L-R) John O’Connor, Housing Agency; Fidelma McManus, Beauchamps; John Hannigan, Circle Voluntary Housing Association; Sharon Cosgrove, Oaklee Housing & Gerard Cahillane, National Development Finance Agency.

The Housing Conference 2019, sponsored by Beauchamps and Opensky, took place on Tuesday 3rd December at the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, Dublin. Delegates heard from a range of speakers including those from the Housing Agency, National Development Finance Agency, Oaklee Housing and Dublin City Council. Topics focused on the delivery of the Rebuilding Ireland plan and included the challenge of delivering new homes, transforming housing through innovative technology and working towards net zero emissions for new social housing. If you would like to attend the 2020 conference, please contact info@eolasmagazine.ie.

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1: Susanna Lyons and David Rouse, Housing Agency. 2: Niamh O’Grady, Mason Hayes & Curran and Anne Doyle, Beauchamps. 3: Susanne McCabe, Opensky Data Systems with Denis Bergin, Bank of Ireland. 4: Paula Shannon, Simon Clear & Associates and Dominic Stevens, JFOC Architects. 5: Michael Cronin, OpenSky Data Systems; Susanna Lyons, Housing Agency; Dáithí Downey, Dublin City Council; Fidelma McManus, Beauchamps; Brian Rankin, Choice Housing and Dara Deering, Home Building Finance Ireland. 6: Peter Ayton, Fold Housing Association Ireland and Colm Ward, South Dublin County Council. 7: Delegate asks a question of the speaker panel. 8: Fidelma McManus, Beauchamps with Ray Fanning, Respond Housing.

9: Peter Ayton, Fold Housing Association and Gavin Friel, Centrus Advisors. 10: Clodagh Memery and Sinead Brennan from the Residential Tenancies Board. 11: Laura McManus, NAMA and Gráinne deLacy, Home Building Finance Ireland.

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Building on success: North & East Housing Association announces a new Strategic Plan for 2020-2024

North & East Housing Association is launching a new Strategic Plan for 2020-2024. Having already reached its previous strategic objective of delivering 700 homes by the end of 2020, the earlier than projected and successful outcome has brought a doubling of

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the housing in management since 2016.

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From its Incorporation in 1993, North & East has focused on the simple philosophy of providing quality homes while supporting tenants to build communities. Having reached its previous strategic objective of delivering 700 homes by the end of 2020, this successful outcome has brought a doubling of the homes in management since 2016.

the work of the successful strategy to

The Association has made real progress in the past five years, but it now needs to go further. North & East plans to build on

needs. It will also consider opportunities

increase its portfolio of homes owned or leased to 1,100 by 2024.

In recognising the changing demographic profile of both its residents and of the wider community; the Association will seek opportunities in partnership with other agencies, to provide housing for older people and those with special to participate in affordable housing projects.

North & East will continue to place tenants at the heart of its activities. In 2019, it launched its first ever Tenant Engagement Strategy. The three-year strategy lays out a commitment to engage, communicate and actively listen to the tenants of North & East. This will ensure a better understanding of tenants’ experiences and will affect the decisions made in all areas of the organisation.

One of the first objectives in the strategy was to conduct the Association’s first ever survey of its tenants to understand the baseline position when it comes to tenant experience and satisfaction. The Association is satisfied with the positive outcome of the survey but knows it can do even better.

North & East realises that it cannot achieve all this alone. It plans to continue building on existing partnerships and developing new ones both in the sector

“North & East will continue to place tenants at the heart of its activities. In 2019, it launched its first ever Tenant Engagement Strategy.” and further afield. The Association is committed to working with statutory bodies including local authorities, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the Housing Agency and the HSE, as well as with other voluntary agencies (including care providers); with AHBs and private partners including developers and lenders and the Housing Finance Agency.

It will continue to participate in governance and policy development activities, such as with the Irish Council for Social Housing.

Internally, North & East plans to consolidate its organisation by recruiting relevant expertise, increasing collaboration across the organisation, providing more training opportunities for its staff and modernising its digital infrastructure. The Association will further implement management and governance structures such as risk management and asset management that will underpin an expanded scale of activity.

North & East Housing Association is a value-based organisation and its values

are meaningful throughout the organisation.. All North & East projects are underpinned by the aims of being tenant centred, trustworthy and collaborative. North & East’s Strategic Plan 2020-2024 sets out a series of strategic aims and objectives, each of which will help to deliver an enhanced level of service and tenant satisfaction within a financially sustainable business model.

These aims are backed up by clear performance metrics and will be delivered by a dedicated team. North & East Housing Association is poised for growth albeit in an operating environment of great uncertainty which will bring both opportunities and risks. This plan aims to minimise the risks and make the most of the opportunities. The Association remains confident it can deal with both.

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Having listened to its tenants’ views, North & East recognises the need to provide an improved, easier to access and more consistent service. The Association will do a significant amount of work to appreciate the effectiveness of the services it delivers. An important part of this is having the latest information on its homes from stock condition surveys.

This information will allow for proactive maintenance, which in turn will reduce the financial impact of emergency repairs.

Ireland’s housing magazine

North & East believes in strong and transparent governance and is fully compliant with all relevant regulatory frameworks. The Association will continue to invest resources and expertise to ensure the new Strategy is underpinned by this ongoing commitment.

T: 01 820 0002 E: info@neha.ie W: www.northandeast.ie

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Who’s who Will Aylmer

Ireland’s housing magazine

Will Aylmer is a Partner at Castlehaven Finance, an industryleading alternative lender funding property development in Ireland.

Will has considerable experience in the property sector with a background in managing development projects for private clients as well as in residential and commercial investments in both the UK and Ireland. In 2014 Will co-founded Castlehaven Finance with business partner Clark McCann, driving the general direction of the firm and overseeing business activities, strategy, and operations.

Jim Baneham Jim Baneham is Director of Delivery at the Housing Agency. Jim graduated from DIT Bolton Street in 1989. He graduated as a Chartered Quantity Surveyor. Soon after he began working with the National Building Agency (NBA) specifically, in the area of delivery of social housing and other Local Authority facilities. From 2007 Jim moved into a corporate role within the NBA before moving to the Housing Agency in 2011. It was there he helped develop the AHB funding model.

Since then he has gone on to be Head of Housing Supply and Head of the Mortgage Support Section.

Hugh Brennan Hugh Brennan has worked in construction for the past 40 years.

Having started his career with ARUP he moved to contracting.

Having spent 10 years working on Humanitarian Aid projects in South Africa and Haiti, he returned to Ireland, accidentally met a kindred spirit in Bill Black and in 2014 they incorporated Ó Cualann Cohousing Alliance. Hugh has assumed the lead role in developing the Ó Cualann model to deliver fully integrated, cooperative, affordable housing for purchase and rent throughout Ireland.

Peter Burke TD Peter Burke was appointed Minister of State with responsibility for Local Government and Planning on 2 July 2020. Peter is a TD representing Longford-Westmeath.

He first joined Fine Gael and was elected to Westmeath County Council and Mullingar Town Council in June 2009. He was elected to the 32nd Dáil in February 2016.

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Gerard Cahillane Gerard Cahillane is a Deputy Director for the National Development Finance Agency. He has been with the NDFA since 2004. Prior to joining the NDFA, he was Head of Risk in NTMA with responsibility for Funding and Liquidity management and Benchmarking of the National Debt. Prior to joining the NTMA in 1991, he worked for six years in the Budget and Planning Division of the Department of Finance.

Shane Cahir Shane Cahir is a Director at CBRE Ireland where he specialises in residential investment. CBRE are Ireland’s leading property advisors with unrivalled expertise in all aspects of the residential investment market, having access to international expertise through their global network. The company’s Residential Capital Markets and Commercial Capital Markets teams operate as a fully integrated single entity within the business. This unquestionably creates the largest property investment advisory team in the country. From structuring forward funding and forward commit transactions in the multifamily space, to advising on design and management of co-living, purpose-built student accommodation and build-to-rent schemes, to the acquisition and sale of residential investments to navigating the affordable leasing model, CBRE are a one-stop-shop.

Michael Carey Michael Carey is Chairman of the Housing Agency. Carey has extensive experience in overseeing State bodies, having served as Chairman of Bord Bia (2011-2018), and as Chair of the Grow Dublin Tourism Alliance in 2016. He is the Executive Chairman of the Company of Food, a specialist food investment business, providing equity to start-up and established high-growth food businesses, and is also Chairman of East Coast Bakehouse, Ireland’s largest biscuit manufacturer.

He has been involved in several not-for-profit initiatives: Chair of Soul of Haiti Foundation (2009-2015) and Traidlinks Uganda (2013-2016) Member, Clinton Global Initiative (2009-2015); and a current Member of the Emeritus Advisory Board of Smurfit Graduate Business School.

Ireland’s housing magazine

Who’s who Louisa Carr

Collete Cassidy Collete Cassidy is an Associate in the Property Department at O’Connor Solicitors and has acted for a number of leading developers in Ireland. Collete is currently advising extensively in relation to acquisition of land and dwellings for social and affordable housing on behalf of a number of Housing Associations. She has wide experience in the acquisition of development land and the planning issues, easements and wayleaves, and other property issues that arise in those transactions. Collete has also advised on contractual issues and collateral warranties arising on the building and development of sites.

John Coleman John Coleman has been Chief Executive of the Land Development Agency since its inception in September 2018.

John previously held senior roles at Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), worked extensively on the set up of its Residential Delivery division and was its Chief Financial Officer. John is a graduate of University College Dublin (BComm) and a chartered accountant (FCA). Prior to joining NAMA in 2011 he worked in banking and accountancy.

Fiona Cormican has over 20 years’ experience in the delivery of social housing projects in a senior management capacity. She is New Business Director with Clúid Housing, one of Ireland’s largest approved housing bodies (AHBs) with a portfolio of assets in excess of €1 billion. Fiona is responsible for leading Clúid’s inhouse development team to achieve their goal of 3000 new homes before the end of 2022. She is also responsible for the strategic direction and management of Clúid as part of the Executive Management team. Prior to joining Clúid, Fiona was founder and Operations Director of Tógáil Developments, a non-profit property development company. Fiona holds a Masters in Project Management from the University of Limerick and a primary degree in Education as well as a Diploma in Site Management and a PMP Certification.

Ireland’s housing magazine

Louisa Carr is Head of Services with Respond. She has been working in the housing and homeless sector for 16 years, working with Sophia Housing Association and Focus Ireland.

Louisa has specialised in providing support to families and single persons with complex support needs in both long-term and emergency accommodation. She has experience in managing a variety of other services including childcare services and tenancy sustainment. Louisa holds an Honours degree in Social Science from UCD and Certificate in Housing Management from the National College of Ireland.

Fiona Cormican

Sharon Cosgrove Sharon Cosgrove joined Oaklee Housing as CEO in May 2016, having previously held a number of senior roles including CEO of the Asthma Society of Ireland and CEO of Sonas Housing. Sharon led regeneration and housing programmes in South Dublin and in Bristol City. Sharon is a member of the Choice Housing Ireland Group Management Team. Since joining Oaklee, Sharon’s focus has been on expanding the development programme, leveraging new sources of finance and leading innovation. In December 2017, Oaklee reached financial close on a €50 million facility with German bank Nord/LB and established Acorn Housing an innovative SPV structure, which now holds 217 social housing units. Oaklee Housing is a partner in Comhar Housing, the consortium contracted to deliver the first Social Housing PPP bundle of 543 homes in Ireland in 2020 and early 2021.

Niall Cussen Prior to his appointment as Chief Executive of the Office of the Planning Regulator, Niall was Chief Planner at the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government from July 2014, having worked in the Department from January 2000. Niall was responsible for leading the Department’s forward planning section and its professional and multi-disciplinary planning team in developing legislation as well as all Government policy on planning and related matters. This included the National Planning Framework as part of Project Ireland 2040 alongside the National Development Plan. Prior to joining the Department in 2000, Niall had an extensive planning career working for local authorities in Clare, Meath, Dublin City Council and An Bord Pleanála where he worked in all aspects of the planning process. He is a member and a past President of the Irish Planning Institute.

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Who’s who Dara Deering

Ireland’s housing magazine

Dara Deering is CEO of HBFI, having joined the organisation on 2 September 2019. Dara has extensive experience in financial services having previously served as Executive Director and Head of Retail Banking at KBC Bank Ireland since February 2012. During that time Dara led the launch and implementation of a new retail bank, broadening the range of products and services available, and offering a new banking alternative for Irish consumers. Prior to her time in KBC Dara held a number of leadership positions in the retail financial services industry. She holds an MBA from Smurfit Business School and a Bachelor of Science Management from Trinity College Dublin.

Pat Dennigan Pat Dennigan is the Chief Executive Officer of Focus Ireland and its sister Approved Housing Body, Focus Housing Association. He joined Focus in 2014 as head of the Finance function, adding responsibility for Property in 2016.

He was appointed Chief Executive in March 2019. Pat is a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland. Prior to joining Focus Ireland, Pat held a number of senior finance and operations roles in companies such as Nortel Networks and Boston Scientific. He is a past president of Galway Lions Club and is a past member of the Charity SORP committee.

Dáithí Downey Dáithí Downey is Chief Officer for Dublin City Council’s Local and Community Development Committee (LCDC) and Head of Housing Policy, Research and Strategy. He leads the city’s Housing Observatory as its Principal Investigator including delivery of its online Housing Data Navigator under Ireland’s Public Sector Data Strategy. He was Director of the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) to end of 2016, having previously been its Deputy Director and Head of Policy and Service Delivery from 2006. Dáithí is a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a member of the Royal Irish Academy’s Social Science Committee.

Pat Doyle Pat was appointed as CEO of Peter McVerry Trust in 2005. Under Pat’s leadership the charity has become a key partner to local authorities and statutory bodies in the response to homelessness. The charity has also grown from a small Tier 1 approved housing body to a Tier 3 body with over 500 residential units across Ireland. Pat is the current president of the ICSH and until recently represented Ireland on FEANTSA, the European network of national homeless organisations.

David Duffy Tina Donaghy As Director of Development, Tina Donaghy has taken FOLD Ireland Housing Association from a fledgling organisation to a Tier 3 AHB over a timeline spanning more than a decade. Having spent her entire career in social housing provision mostly working for leading Housing Associations in the UK, Tina has experienced the full spectrum of challenge and opportunity this sector offers. She remains as passionate as ever about the fundamentals of our business: collaboration, work ethic and delivery. Tina believes positive outcomes are heavily dependent on the people not just the process.

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David Duffy is Director of Property Industry Ireland (PII), Ibec’s sectoral association for businesses in property and construction.

Property Industry Ireland (PII) was established in 2011 in response to the impact of the recession on the property sector. One of the reasons for establishing the organisation was to have an independent and inclusive representative organisation for all sub-sectors of the Irish property industry.

Before joining PII, Dr. Duffy was a senior research officer at the ESRI, where his main research area was the housing market. He has published on such housing market issues as measuring house price change, negative equity, affordability, and household formation.

Ireland’s housing magazine

Who’s who Declan Dunne

Claire Feeney Claire Feeney is a Senior Executive Officer at the Housing Agency. She started her career in Dublin City Council in the late 1980s. She spent a number of years on secondment to the then Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government working on the computerisation of motor tax offices and motor tax online.

She moved to the Limerick Regeneration Agencies in 2007 where she worked as Project Manager for the physical and economical regeneration of Moyross, Southill, St Mary’s Park and Ballinacurra Weston. Claire took up her current role in 2012 on her return from Limerick. She heads up the Local Authority Services Section which provides support and advice to both the Department and Local Authorities on all housing related functions provided by Local Authorities including the various leasing schemes, Housing for People with Disabilities and Mortgage to Rent.

Aoife Flynn Kennedy Aoife Flynn Kennedy is Head of Clann, Ireland’s largest provider of age-friendly housing and services.

She has over 20 years’ experience in housing services, disability rights and community engagement. Aoife is firmly committed to delivering Clann’s mission and advocates for every person to have the right to access age-friendly housing. Clann is a dedicated age-friendly housing body committed to providing quality housing and services that enable people to create homes and thriving communities.

Launched in 2020, Clann’s ambitious growth strategy will deliver over 800 new homes before the end of 2022.

Tom Gilligan is Director of Services at Mayo County Council with responsibility for Housing, Roads, Service Development and the Ballina Municipal District. An Accountant with an MBA in Local Government, prior to joining Mayo, Tom worked as the Head of Finance in both Limerick and Waterford County Councils and was a central figure in the successful reform of local government arrangements in both locations. Founder of the popular crowd-sourcing, portal website VacantHomes.ie, which Mayo County Council initiates on behalf of the Local Government Sector, Tom is an award winner and recognised leader in the whole area of housing and bringing vacant homes back into use.

Ireland’s housing magazine

Declan joined Respond as Chief Executive Officer in August 2016.

Respond, established 38 years ago, is an Approved Housing Body (AHB) with approximately 10,000 tenants and a service provider with a range of services including daycare for older people, early childhood care and education, homeless services for families, family support and refugee resettlement services. Declan is currently the chair of the Housing Alliance which is a collaboration of six of Ireland’s largest Approved Housing Bodies. Declan is an experienced General Manager who built a business over many years and sold to an American multinational and went on to work as their General Manager for Ireland. In his previous role, Declan was Chief Executive Officer with Sophia Housing Association. He was also a non-executive director of the Ballymun Regeneration Board for 10 years and chair of the audit committee which oversaw the Ballymun Regeneration Masterplan.

Tom Gilligan

John Hannigan John Hannigan is Chief Executive Officer of Circle Voluntary Housing Association. He took up his current position in September 2017. John previously held the position of Managing Director of Sunbeam House Services since 2010. Prior to that, John worked as Finance Director with Respond Housing Association. John is currently a member of the Housing Alliance, an alliance of six of the largest Housing Associations in Ireland.

Michael Haynes Michael has held the role of CEO with Clanmil Ireland since 2017, having worked within the regulated housing sector in England for more than 20 years as both a senior executive and a non-executive board member. He brings to his role a wealth of experience and a background of working with organisations to add value at both strategic and operational levels. Michael has a flair for developing, strengthening and leading management teams to maximise organisational performance and efficiency. He has an analytical thinking style and innovative approach to developing dynamic and progressive service delivery, skills which will be put to use as Clanmil Ireland seeks to grow and to be a major player in Ireland’s social housing sector. Michael is a professionally qualified Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing, and a member of the Irish Council for Social Housing.

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Who’s who Rory Hearne

Ireland’s housing magazine

Rory Hearne is an Assistant Professor in Social Policy in the Department of Applied Social Studies Maynooth University. He is author of Housing Shock: The Irish Housing Crisis and how to solve it (2020, Policy Press). He is also involved in advocacy relating to homelessness, the right to housing, and social justice.

Orla Hegarty Orla Hegarty is Course Director for the Professional Diploma (Architecture) at UCD. Orla was previously in architectural practice in Ireland, UK and France. She is a Registered Architect in Ireland (RIAI) and the UK (ARB), a member of the RIAI (Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland), the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects). Orla has appeared as an expert witness to the Oireachtas committee on housing on subjects including: regulation in the construction industry; vacancy; housing standards and defects; and building control.

Ad Hereijgers Ad Hereijgers is Business Development Director at RITTERWALD at the Amsterdam location. He has over 35 years of experience in urban development and affordable housing finance and has supported numerous projects in Europe and the USA. Before joining RITTERWALD, he was partner in a consulting boutique for housing and urban planning in Amsterdam and New York. He serves as trusted board room advisor, project director of public private partnerships and advises housing companies and local authorities. He leads master classes in residential and urban development strategies and is the author of several books and articles.

Marie Hunt

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Marie Hunt established the research department at CBRE Ireland 25 years ago. It is now regarded as one of the most authoritative sources of property information in the Irish market. A regular commentator in the Irish media on property matters, Marie produces a range of property market publications and carries out specialist consultancy work on behalf of a broad range of institutional, private and public sector clients of the Irish business. Marie is an Executive Director of CBRE in Ireland, a member of CBRE Ireland’s Executive Committee and a member of CBRE Research Executive Committee in EMEA. Marie is a chartered surveyor and a Fellow of the Society of Chartered Surveyors, Ireland.

Parag Joglekar Parag Joglekar is Head of Development with Respond. He is a registered architect in Ireland and the UK and holds a Master's degree with distinction in Human settlements from University of Leuven, Belgium. Parag has worked in both the private and semi-private sector in Ireland, UK and India and has extensive experience in Urban Design, Housing and Regeneration and Commercial projects. Parag is a member of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (RIAI) and the Architects Registration Board (ARB) in the UK.

Bob Jordan Bob Jordan is the National Director of Housing First, based in the Dublin Region Homeless Executive.

He is responsible for driving the national rollout of the Housing First programme, which provides homeless individuals with independent accommodation in the community together with intensive wraparound supports in their own homes.

He is working closely with government departments, Local Authorities, HSE and voluntary agencies to deliver on the targets in the ‘Housing First National Implementation Plan 2018-2021’ and to continue to expand the Housing First approach in accordance with the Programme for Government. Prior to his current role, Bob Jordan was a Special Adviser in the Department of Housing. He was CEO of the housing charity Threshold from 2007 to 2016 and he was previously a senior manager for Dublin Simon Community. He is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and holds postgraduate qualifications from Dublin City University.

Vincent Keenan Vincent was appointed Chief Executive of North and East Housing Association in 2014, he has over 25 years’ experience in Homelessness, Housing Management and Development.

Vincent is currently Vice Chair of The Wheel. He is Chairperson of Supply and Development working group of the Irish Council for Social Housing.

Vincent has participated in Social Partnership agreements and has served on the National Homeless Consultative Committee. Vincent is a Chartered Member of the CIH and holds qualifications in Housing management, community development, counselling and has BSc (Hons) Degree in Business Studies from Ulster University and a Post Graduate Certificate in Not For Profit Leadership.

Ireland’s housing magazine

Who’s who Rachel Kenny

Susanna Lyons Susanna Lyons is the Head of Regulation at the Housing Agency.

Susanna has responsibility for the implementation of the Regulatory Framework for Approved Housing Bodies, assessing organisation’s governance, financial viability and performance management. Prior to joining the Housing Agency, Susanna specialised in risk, financial management, strategy, liquidity management and stress testing with a number of US multinationals in Europe and Canada. Susanna holds an BA in Economics, Sociology and Politics, a Master’s in International Economics, Banking and Finance and an MBA in Finance.

Ronan Lyons Ronan Lyons is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Trinity College Dublin, where he is also Director of Trinity Research in Social Sciences. Ronan’s research focuses on housing markets, urban economics and economic history and his doctorate at Oxford was on Ireland's housing market boom and bust of the early 21st Century. Ronan is a consultant to the IMF on residential property prices, a frequent contributor to national and international media on Irish housing and the broader economy and the author of the quarterly Daft.ie Reports on the Irish housing market.

John-Mark McCafferty is Chief Executive with Threshold, the National Housing Charity, whose aim is to prevent homelessness through advice, tenancy protection and advocacy. He took up this position in January 2017. Prior to Threshold John-Mark was Head of Social Justice and Policy with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, working on policies including income, utilities policy, child poverty, financial inclusion, housing and sustainable development. John-Mark also represented SVP during Social Partnership programmes and was a National Economic and Social Council (NESC) member. He holds a Masters in Development Studies from UCD, is a Geography graduate from Glasgow University and worked for the Combat Poverty Agency in Ireland and Scottish Homes.

John-Mark is a member of the Boards of One Family and Clúid Housing.

Ireland’s housing magazine

Rachel Kenny is Director of Planning Operations for An Bord Pleanála, overseeing appeals nationally, as well as direct applications under Strategic Infrastructure Development and Strategic Housing Development provisions. Rachel has over 20 years’ experience in various planning authorities, having previously worked as Senior Planner with both Fingal County Council and Meath County Council, as well as experience in the private sector.

Rachel is a member of the Irish Planning Institute, and one of its past presidents, as well as a former member of Comhar, the National Partnership for Sustainable Development. She is currently Chair of the Management Board of the National Biodiversity Data Centre, with impacts from development on climate change and on our natural environment being of such critical importance. In 2019, Rachel became the first female fellow of the Irish Planning Institute.

John-Mark McCafferty

Clark McCann Clark McCann is a Partner at Castlehaven Finance, an industryleading alternative lender funding property development in Ireland.

He has an extensive background in banking and finance, having held positions in AIB, First Southern Bank, and Anglo Irish Bank, before establishing a private brokerage and later co-founding Miriad, a UK-based real estate financial advisory and investment firm. In 2014 Clark co-founded Castlehaven Finance with business partner Will Aylmer, continually driving new business opportunities for the firm.

Pádraig McGoldrick Pádraig McGoldrick is currently serving as Interim Director of the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB).

He has previously had responsibility within the RTB for Finance, Tenancy Registration and Strategic Projects functions, including lead responsibility for driving and implementing improvements in services and supporting legislative change. He has had considerable public sector experience, and previously worked in the Department of Transport, Sport and Tourism, where he most recently had responsibility for the delivery of the national transport investment programme and for the operation of the Economic and Social Infrastructure Operational Programme (ESIOP) Managing Authority.

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Who’s who Donal McManus

Ireland’s housing magazine

Donal McManus is CEO at Irish Council for Social Housing (ICSH), the national federation of housing associations which has 270 active housing association members throughout the country. He previously worked since 1990 in the public/local authority and housing association sectors in Scotland and Northern Ireland. He specifically worked in areas of housing development, self-build and regeneration, housing management, including homelessness and special needs as well as policy and finance. He had also worked in urban design and land assembly within the private sector.

Donal was president of the non-profit housing section of Housing Europe, chair of the European Housing Forum and FEANTSA. From 2003-2005 he was appointed a member of the UN-ECE Task Force on Social Housing. He is a graduate in Housing from Ulster University, and Urban Design from Strathclyde University School of Architecture Glasgow. He received a doctorate in Governance from Queens University Belfast, School of Law on financialisation and impact of private finance on housing association delivery. He is currently a board member of the Housing Agency and member of the Audit and Risk Committee.

Fidelma McManus Fidelma McManus is a Commercial Property Partner who heads up Beauchamps’ specialist housing team. She is an acknowledged market leader in the acquisition and management of social housing projects and her practice extends to the acquisition, structuring, financing, disposal and leasing of all types of property, including distressed and partially complete residential developments, shopping centres, retail parks and offices. She also advises on all aspects of landlord and tenant law. Working with clients ranging from Approved Housing Bodies and public bodies to receivers, developers, institutional and private investors, Fidelma has unique insights into all issues relating to the provision of affordable and social housing.

Peter McVerry Peter McVerry has worked in Dublin’s north inner city since 1974, where he came into contact with young people who were sleeping on the streets because of their home situation. In 1979 he opened a hostel for homeless boys. He saw through the work of this hostel that when the boys reached 16 and needed to leave, they had few options open to them and most ended up back living on the streets. This realisation led him to set about providing services and accommodation for older youths. By the end of 1983 he had founded the Arrupe Society, a charity to tackle homelessness. This charity, which was subsequently renamed the Peter McVerry Trust, is now one of the country’s largest organisations responding to the issue of homelessness.

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Rebecca Moynihan Senator Rebecca Moynihan was appointed as the Labour Party Spokesperson on Housing, Local Government and Heritage in July 2020. Rebecca represented the South West Inner City on Dublin City Council for over 10 years before being elected to the Seanad in 2020.

Nina Murray Nina Murray is a Principal Officer at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. She has responsibility for the delivery of a range of social housing programmes across the Build, Acquisition and Lease streams which in the main, seek to harness, the opportunity of privately owned property and investment into social housing, including by the Approved Housing Body sector.

She has direct responsibility for the management of a number of the Department’s current and capital funded social housing programmes.

Robert Nicholson Robert Nicholson is the Principal Officer of the Department of Housing’s Capital Infrastructure and Affordability Unit overseeing funding made available to local authorities including the Serviced Sites Fund and Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund. These programmes support the delivery of housing including homes for purchase or rent at market discounted rates. The unit is responsible for the Affordable Purchase Scheme and developing national cost rental policy and also manages Public Private Partnerships' delivery of social housing.

Michelle Norris Michelle Norris is a Professor in the School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice at UCD. Michelle’s teaching and research interests focus on housing policy and urban regeneration. She has led over 20 research projects since 2000 and produced over 170 publications. Michelle’s latest book, Property, Family and the Irish Welfare State, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2016. She has strong links with policy makers in Ireland. In 2012 and again in 2017, Michelle was appointed by the Minister for Housing as chair of the Housing Finance Agency. In 2018 she was appointed by the Minister for Housing to the interim board of the Land Development Agency.

Ireland’s housing magazine

Who’s who Eoin Ó Broin TD

Niall O’Brien Niall O'Brien is a Partner in Beauchamps banking and finance team. Niall works extensively with major domestic and international financial institutions in the areas of corporate lending including acquisition finance, construction finance, project finance and secured lending. He has extensive experience in advising the main participants in the housing sector including lenders, developers, AHBs, contractors, and Irish and international corporations.

Darragh O’Brien TD Darragh O’Brien became Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage in June 2020. Reelected in February 2020, he is a Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin Fingal.

Darragh was first elected to Dáil Éireann in 2007 representing Dublin North until 2011. Following this, he served as a Senator for the Labour Panel from 2011 to 2016 before being elected to the Dáil for Dublin Fingal in the 2016 general election and was Fianna Fáil Spokesperson on Housing.

Cian O’Callaghan TD Prior to becoming a TD, Cian had been a Councillor on Fingal County Council for Baldoyle, Sutton and Howth. Cian graduated with a Master's degree from UCD. He has also studied social policy and healthcare economics. Cian has been very active working with residents in newer housing developments where concerns about pyrite and fire safety defects have emerged.

Ruth O’Connor is a Partner in the Property Department at O’Connor Solicitors and has established an impressive portfolio of corporate and commercial clients particularly in the area of commercial property.

Ruth has advised clients on the acquisition, sale and leasing of corporate headquarters, retail and office premises along with development lands and advises private clients in relation to residential property matters.

She has advised charitable trustees on their duties and responsibilities and deals with all aspects of the management and administration of charitable trusts and charitable organisations. Ruth is currently ranked as a leading lawyer in Chambers Europe 2020.

Ireland’s housing magazine

Eoin Ó Broin TD has been a Sinn Féin activist for 20 years. He is a Spokesperson on Housing, Local Government and Heritage and his priorities are public and private investment in job creation across Dublin Mid-West, investment in social housing, greater regulation of the private rented market and government support for those in mortgage distress and fair tax reform to help hard pressed working families while generating sufficient revenue to invest in jobs, health, education, childcare and community services. Eoin was elected to Belfast City Council from 2001 to 2004 and was the party’s Director of European Affairs from 2004 to 2007. He was also a Councillor for the Clondalkin/Newcastle/Rathcoole area having been co-opted in 2013 and topping the poll in 2014.

Ruth O’Connor

John O’Connor John O’Connor is the Chief Executive Officer of the Housing Agency, which is a statutory body set up under the aegis of the then Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. John is a structural engineer by background and has a wide range of experience in both the public and private sectors. He has extensive experience in the development, provision and direct delivery of housing, particularly in the areas of social housing, affordable housing and regeneration projects. The Agency was established to provide the Department, local authorities and approved housing bodies with support and advice on the delivery of housing and housing services; in addition to a range of other services.

Brian O’Gorman Brian O’Gorman is the CEO of Clúid Housing, one of the largest approved housing bodies (AHBs) in Ireland with a portfolio of assets in excess of €1 billion. Clúid owns or manages over 7,500 homes across the country. Brian leads an awardwinning team of over 230 highly qualified professionals who are delivering a housing pipeline of new social housing developments. Clúid has an ambitious delivery target of 3,000 new homes before the end of 2022. Brian is a resolute advocate of the important role of social housing, the quality and design of which makes it indistinguishable from any other housing. His vision mirrors Clúid’s philosophy to prolong the life of buildings and their environment by investing in sustainability and future capacity. The performance and quality of Clúid’s current housing stock is very much evidence of this.

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Who’s who Barry O’Leary

Ireland’s housing magazine

An accountant by profession, Barry has experience of insolvencies and previously worked with the Comptroller and Auditor General.

Since 1988 Barry has worked with the Housing Finance Agency, holding the roles of Financial Controller/Company Secretary and Head of Treasury. Barry was appointed as Chief Executive Officer in September 2012 and reappointed from 1 May 2020 until the end of April 2025.

Paul O’Neill Paul O’Neill is Head of Financial Advisory in the NDFA. He has been with the NDFA since 2008 having previously been a senior associate in KBC Finance Ireland. Paul advises a range of clients across multiple sectors including the Department of Housing, Housing Agency and various Local Authorities on mixed tenure housing, cost rental and leasing schemes throughout the country.

Tony O’Riordan In October 2016 Sophia and Midlands Simon Community entered into an innovative collaboration agreement which saw both organisations maximising the use of public funds by sharing costs and resources, this included sharing the role of CEO. Sophia, like its partner the Midlands Simon Community, are deeply committed to seeing homes as the solution to homelessness and Tony O’Riordan plays an important facilitative and leadership role in championing the integration of the principles of Housing First into responses to homelessness as well as supporting Sophia to continue to be grounded in an awareness of the impact of poverty and social exclusion as well as the importance in working from a trauma informed model.

Niamh Randall

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Niamh Randall is Head of Advocacy and Communications and Spokesperson with Respond. She has been working within the field of housing, homelessness and drug use for almost 20 years, working with the Simon Communities of Ireland as Head of Policy and Communications and National Spokesperson for more than 10 years and Merchant’s Quay Ireland Homeless and Drugs Services in the areas of policy and communications. She was the Irish Representative on the Administrative Council of FEANTSA from 2011-2013. Niamh holds a Master’s in Drug Policy, a Bachelor's in Social Policy and Sociology; a Professional Diploma in Human Rights and Equality; and a Certificate in Housing.

Austen Reid Austen Reid is the London-based Director for RITTERWALD. He specialises in advising the housing association and real estate sector.

Before RITTERWALD Austen had a successful executive career at several large English housing associations including Clarion, one of the largest in Europe with over 110,000 homes. He has also been a Director at Savills. He has led several large operational and strategic projects in the fields of mergers and integration, property development, portfolio management and asset management.

Mel Reynolds Mel Reynolds is a registered architect with more than 25 years' experience in project management, conservation, urban design and developer-led housing. His recent Joint Oireachtas Committee submissions include papers on building control and costs in the residential sector and the re-use of vacant buildings. He is also a certified passive house designer.

Jim Scheer Jim Scheer is Head of Policy Insights and Design (interim) at SEAI with responsibility for policy analysis and support, energy modelling, statistics and behavioural economics remits in support of delivery of Ireland’s sustainable energy goals. He joined SEAI in 2007 and prior to that worked for the Government of South Australia. Jim holds a Professional Diploma in Advanced Management Performance from Smurfit Graduate Business School, an MSc. in Economic Policy Studies from Trinity College Dublin and a primary degree in Environmental Science from Flinders University (South Australia).

David Silke David Silke is Director of Operations in the Housing Agency, which is a statutory body set up under the aegis of the then Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. David previously worked in the Secretariat of the National Economic and Social Forum as a Policy Analyst, as Researcher in the Combat Poverty Agency and a Senior Researcher in the Analytical Services Division of the Department of Social Security.

Ireland’s housing magazine

Who’s who Lorcan Sirr

William Walsh is Chief Executive Officer in SEAI, having previously held the position of both Chief Operations Officer and Chief Financial Officer. William joined SEAI in 2013. Prior to joining SEAI, he worked for IFI where he held a number of roles including Assistant Chief Executive Officer and Director.

Prior to that he held senior management positions in the private sector. William is a Chartered Accountant, holds a Bachelor of Business Studies from Dublin City University and a Graduate Diploma in Strategy, Innovation and Change from UCD.

Ireland’s housing magazine

Lorcan Sirr is a Senior Lecturer in Housing at the Technological University Dublin and Visiting Professor of Housing at the URV, Tarragona, Spain. He is editor of Dublin's Future: new visions for Ireland's capital city (Liffey Press: 2011), Renting in Ireland: the public, private and voluntary sectors (IPA: 2014) and author of Housing in Ireland: the A-Z guide (Orpen Press: 2019). Lorcan has an MA from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, and an MA and PhD in planning and development from the University of Manchester. He is a board member of the Irish Refugee Council and sits on the Research Committee of the Residential Tenancies Board.

William Walsh

Dave Walsh Richard Stowe Richard Stowe is a projects and construction lawyer, heading up Beauchamps' construction team, with over 25 years’ experience in specialist construction practices in Ireland and Australia both in contentious and non-contentious roles. He has had extensive experience advising in relation to a large number of high value infrastructure and construction projects in both jurisdictions. Since returning to Ireland, Richard has been engaged primarily in property development work, particularly in the social and affordable housing sphere. His expertise includes drafting and advising on contracts for building and engineering works at all tiers, contracts for design consultancy services, project/construction management services, FM/OM services, collateral warranty documentation and agreements for all facets of PPP project work, property development and infrastructure provision.

Caroline Timmons Caroline Timmons is a Principal Officer at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, where she works in the area of housing policy, including social housing policy and housing rights. She previously worked in the Planning Division of the Department.

She is a barrister and practiced at the Bar for a number of years, before joining the Attorney General’s Office as Advisory Counsel. She was subsequently a legal advisor at the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. She is a member of the board of the Land Development Agency.

Dave Walsh was appointed Chairperson of An Bord Pleanála in October 2018. He previously served as Assistant Secretary in the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, with primary responsibility for planning policy (including development and delivery of the National Planning Framework) and housing market and rental policy, with a key focus on coordinated implementation of the Government's Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness. Prior to this, Dave headed up the Department's Environment and Climate Division, leading Ireland's and the EU's negotiations on climate change during Ireland's 2013 EU Presidency which ultimately led to the adoption of the Paris UN Climate Change Agreement in 2015.

Colm Ward Colm Ward is currently Director of Housing, Social and Community Development with South Dublin County Council, having responsibility for social and affordable housing delivery and operations. His career in local government has predominantly been spent in the area of housing but has also included roles in enterprise, procurement and environmental services. He holds a First Class Master's Degree in Local Government Management from the National University of Ireland/Institute of Public Administration.

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Ireland’s housing magazine

Ireland’s Housing Magazine Directory The following is an A-Z list of organisations and individuals involved in the Irish housing sector including government contacts, housing associations and advisors.

Government departments Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage Custom House, Dublin, D01 W6X0 Tel: 01 888 2000 Web: www.housing.gov.ie Newtown Road, Wexford, Y35 AP90 Tel: 053 911 7500 Government Offices, Ballina Co Mayo, F26 E8N6 Tel: 096 24200 Minister: Darragh O’Brien TD Tel: 01 888 2403 Email: minister@housing.gov.ie Minister of State: Peter Burke TD Tel: 01 888 2152 Email: ministerofstate@housing.gov.ie Secretary General: Feargal Ó Coigligh (Acting) Assistant Secretary, Housing Delivery: Mary Hurley Assistant Secretary, Housing Policy, Legislation and Governance: Paul Lemass Assistant Secretary, Planning: Maria Graham 104

Oireachtas committee Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage Leinster House Kildare Street Dublin, D02 XR20 Tel: 01 618 3325 Email: jchplg@oireachtas.ie Clerk to the Committee: Pádraig Grant The work of this Committee ceased with the dissolution of the 32nd Dáil.

Government agencies and bodies involved in housing An Bord Pleanála 64 Marlborough Street, Dublin 1 D01 V902 Tel: 01 858 8100 Chair: Dave Walsh Director of Planning: Rachel Kenny

Home Building Finance Ireland Treasury Dock North Wall Quay Dublin 1 D01 A9T8 Tel: 01 238 4000 Email: info@hbfi.ie CEO: Dara Deering

Housing Agency 53-54 Mount Street Upper Dublin, D02 KT73 Tel: 01 656 4100 Web: www.housingagency.ie Email: info@housingagency.ie Chair: Michael Carey Chief Executive: John O’Connor Director of Research and Corporate Affairs: David Silke Internal Audit Officer: Jim Baneham Head of Regulation: Susanna Lyons Senior Executive Officer: Claire Feeney

Housing Finance Agency 46 St. Stephen’s Green Dublin 2 Tel: 01 872 5722 Web: www.hfa.ie Email: cosec@hfa.ie Chief Executive Officer: Barry O’Leary

Land Development Agency 2nd Floor Ashford House Tara Street Dublin 2 Dublin D02 VX67 Tel: 01 910 3400 Email: info@lda.ie Chief Executive: John Coleman

Office of the Planning Regulator Block C 77 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay Grand Canal Dock Dublin 2 D02 VK60 Tel: 01 553 0270 Email: info@opr.ie Chief Executive and Planning Regulator: Niall Cussen

Chancery Street, Dublin 7 D07 T652 Tel: 0761 001 610 Web: www.prai.ie Email: info@prai.ie Chief Executive Officer: Liz Pope

Residential Tenancies Board PO Box 47 Clonakilty Co Cork Tel: 01 702 8100 Web: www.rtb.ie Chair: Tom Dunne Director: Pádraig McGoldrick (Acting)

National Traveller Accommodation Consultative Committee Custom House Dublin, D01 W6X0 Email: ntacc@housing.gov.ie Chair: Eoin O’Sullivan

Local government housing contacts

New Road, Ennis Co Clare, V95 DXP2 Tel: 065 682 1616 Web: www.clarecoco.ie Email: customerservices@clarecoco.ie Chief Executive: Pat Dowling Director of Social Development: Anne Haugh Housing Department, Senior Executive Officer: Siobhan McNulty

Cork City Council Housing and Community Directorate City Hall, Anglesea Street Cork, T12 T997 Tel: 021 492 4000 Web: www.corkcity.ie Email: housing@corkcity.ie Chief Executive: Ann Doherty Director, Housing: Brian Geaney

Cork County Council County Hall Carrigrohane Road Cork, T12 R2NC Tel: 021 427 6891 Web: www.corkcoco.ie Email: housing@corkcoco.ie Chief Executive: Tim Lucey Housing Director: Maurice Manning

Donegal County Council County House, The Diamond Lifford, Co Donegal, F93 Y622 Tel: 074 915 3900 Web: www.donegalcoco.ie Email: info@donegalcoco.ie Chief Executive: Seamus Neely Director of Service, Housing, Corporate and Cultural Service: Joe Peoples

Dublin City Council Carlow County Council County Buildings, Athy Road Carlow, R93 E7R7 Tel: 059 917 0300 Web: www.carlow.ie Chief Executive: Kathleen Holohan Director of Services, Housing: Michael Brennan

Cavan County Council Farnham Centre Farnham Street Cavan, H12 R6V2 Tel: 049 437 8300 Web: www.cavancoco.ie Email: housing@cavancoco.ie Chief Executive: Tommy Ryan Director of Services: Eoin Doyle

Housing and Community Department Block 1, Floor 1 Civic Offices Wood Quay Dublin 8, D08 RF3F Tel: 01 222 2222 Web: www.dublincity.ie Chief Executive: Owen P Keegan Deputy Chief Executive, Housing and Community: Brendan Kenny Director of Dublin Regional Homeless Executive: Eileen Gleeson Director of Housing Delivery: Dave Dinnigan Director of Housing Management and Community Development: Hugh McKenna City Architect: Ali Grehan Head of Housing Policy Research and Development: Dr Dáithí Downey

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council County Hall, Marine Road Dún Laoghaire Co Dublin, A96 K6C9 Tel: 01 205 4700 Email: housing@dlrcoco.ie Chief Executive: Philomena Poole Director of Housing: Catherine Keenan

Fingal County Council County Hall, Main Street Swords, K67 X8Y2 Tel: 01 890 5000 Email: customercareunit@fingal.ie Chief Executive: AnnMarie Farrelly Director Housing and Community Department: Margaret Geraghty County Architect: Fionnuala May

Ireland’s housing magazine

Property Registration Authority

Clare County Council

Galway City Council City Hall, College Road Galway H91 X4K8 Tel: 091 536 400 Chief Executive: Brendan McGrath Acting Director of Services: Dermot Mahon

Galway County Council Áras an Chontae Prospect Hill, Galway H91 H6KX Tel: 091 509 000 Chief Executive: Kevin Kelly (Interim) Housing Director: Liam Hanrahan

Kerry County Council County Buildings Rathass, Tralee, Kerry Tel: 066 718 3500 Email: housing@kerrycoco.ie Chief Executive: Moira Murrell Director of Housing: Martin O’Donoghue

Kildare County Council Áras Chill Dara Devoy Park, Naas Co Kildare, W91 X77F Tel: 045 980 200 Chief Executive: Peter Carey

Kilkenny County Council John Street Kilkenny, R95 A39T Tel: 056 779 4000 Email: info@kilkennycoco.ie Housing Office John’s Green House John’s Green Kilkenny, R95 CX92 Tel: 056 779 4900 Email: housing@kilkennycoco.ie Chief Executive: Colette Byrne Director of Services, Housing: Mary J. Mulholland

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Laois County Council

Monaghan County Council

Áras an Chontae JFL Avenue, Portlaoise Co Laois, R32 EHP9 Tel: 057 866 4000 Web: www.laois.ie Chief Executive: John Mulholland Director of Housing: Joseph Delaney

Housing Department County Offices, The Glen Monaghan, H18 YT50 Tel: 047 30500 Email: info@monaghancoco.ie Chief Executive: Eamonn O’Sullivan Director of Services: John Murray

Leitrim County Council

Offaly County Council

Áras an Chontae St George’s Terrace, Townparks Carrick on Shannon Co Leitrim, N41 PF67 Tel: 071 962 0005 Email: housing@leitrimcoco.ie Chief Executive: Lar Power Director of Services: Mary Quinn

Housing Section Áras an Chontae Charleville Road Tullamore Co Offaly, R35 F893 Tel: 057 934 6800 Email: housing@offalycoco.ie Chief Executive: Anna Marie Delaney Director of Housing: Sharon Kennedy

Limerick City and County Council Merchant’s Quay, Limerick V94 EH90 Tel: 061 407 120 Chief Executive: Pat Daly Director of Housing Development: Aoife Duke

Longford County Council Town Hall, Market Square Longford, N39 C5F2 Tel: 043 334 3300 Web: www.longfordcoco.ie Email: housing@longfordcoco.ie Chief Executive: Paddy Mahon Director of Services: John Brannigan

Louth County Council County Hall Millennium Centre Dundalk, A91 KFW6 Tel: 1890 202 303 Web: www.louthcoco.ie Email: housing@louthcoco.ie Chief Executive: Joan Martin Director of Services: Paddy Donnelly

Mayo County Council Áras an Chontae The Mall, Castlebar F23 FF90 Tel: 094 902 4444 Email: housing@mayococo.ie Chief Executive: Peter Hynes Director of Services, Housing: Tom Gilligan

Meath County Council

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Buvinda House Dublin Road, Navan Co Meath, C15 Y291 Tel: 046 909 7000 Email: housing@meathcoco.ie Chief Executive: Jackie Maguire Director of Services: Barry Lynch

Waterford City and County Council Housing Department Bailey's New Street Waterford, X91 XH42 Tel: 0761 102 020 Email: contact@waterfordcouncil.ie Chief Executive: Michael Walsh Director: Ivan Grimes

Westmeath County Council Áras an Chontae Mount Street Mullingar, N91 FH4N Tel: 044 933 2000 Email: customercare@westmeathcoco.ie Chief Executive: Pat Gallagher Director of Service, Housing: Mark Keaveney

Roscommon County Council Áras an Chontae Roscommon Co Roscommon, F42 VR98 Tel: 090 663 7100 Web: www.roscommoncoco.ie Email: housing@roscommoncoco.ie Chief Executive: Eugene Cummins Director of Services: Martin Lydon

Wexford County Council County Hall, Carricklawn Wexford, Y35 WY93 Tel: 053 919 6000 Web: www.wexfordcoco.ie Chief Executive: Tom Enright Director: Carolyne Godkin (Acting)

Wicklow County Council Sligo County Council County Hall Riverside Sligo, F91 Y763 Tel: 071 9111 111 Email: info@sligococo.ie Chief Executive: Ciarán Hayes Acting Director of Housing and Corporate: Bartley Gavin

South Dublin County Council County Hall Tallaght Dublin, D24 YNN5 Tel: 01 414 9000 Web: www.sdcc.ie Email: info@sdublincoco.ie Chief Executive: Daniel McLoughlin Director of Housing, Social and Community Development: Colm Ward

Tipperary County Council Civic Offices, Clonmel Co Tipperary Tel: 076 106 5000 Chief Executive: Joe MacGrath Director of Services, Housing: Sinead Carr

County Buildings, Whitegates Wicklow Town, A67 FW96 Tel: 040 420 120 Web: www.wicklow.ie Email: housing2@wicklowcoco.ie Chief Executive: Frank Curran Director of Services: Joseph Lane

Housing services ALONE Olympic House Pleasants Street Dublin 8 Tel: 01 679 1032 Web: www.alone.ie Email: hello@alone.ie CEO: Seán Moynihan Services: Elderly

Carbery Housing Association Ltd The Wooden House Rossnagoose Skibbereen Co Cork Tel: 028 21890 Web: www.carberyhousing.eu Email: office@carberyhousing.eu Secretary: José Ospina Services: General needs

Crosscare

Home Again

Block 4, Bracken Business Park Bracken Road Sandyford Industrial Estate Dublin 18 Tel: 01 297 4100 Web: www.cheshire.ie Email: info@cheshire.ie Acting Chief Executive: Theresa Anderson

Holy Cross College Clonliffe Road, Dublin D03 P2E7 Tel: 01 836 0011 Email: info@crosscare.ie Services: Homeless

1 Tempe Terrace Coliemore Road, Dalkey Co Dublin Tel: 01 235 1486 / 01 285 4494 Web: www.homeagain.ie Email: info@homeagain.ie

Daisyhouse Housing Association

Housing Association for Integrated Living (HAIL)

6 Emor Street Portobello, Dublin 8 Tel: 01 453 6763 Email: info@daisyhouse.org Services: Homeless

Second Floor, Central Hotel Chambers 7-9 Dame Court, Dublin D02 X452 Tel: 01 671 8444 Web: www.hail.ie Chief Executive Officer: Martina Smith Services: General needs

Clanmil Ireland G4 Riverview Business Park Nangor Road Dublin 12 Tel: 01 456 8079 Web: www.clanmilireland.ie Email: housing@clanmilireland.ie Chief Executive: Michael Haynes Services: General needs

Clúid Housing Association 159-161 Sheriff Street Upper Dublin 1 Tel: 01 707 2088 Web: www.cluid.ie Email: cluid@cluid.ie CEO: Brian O’Gorman Services: General needs

Circle VHA Phoenix House 32-34 Castle Street Dublin 2 Tel: 01 407 2110/2 Web: www.circlevha.ie Email: info@circlevha.ie Chief Executive: John Hannigan Services: General needs

Clár I.C.H. Ballyhaunis Road Claremorris Co Mayo Tel: 094 937 1830 Email: info@clarichmayo.com Services: General needs

Cork Mental Health Foundation and Housing Association Nore House Bessboro Road Blackrock, Cork Tel: 021 451 1100 Email: admin@corkmentalhealth.com CEO: Brendan McCarthy Services: Mental health

Cope Foundation Bonnington Montenotte Cork, T23 PT93 Tel: 021 464 3100 Web: www.cope-foundation.ie Email: headoffice@cope-foundation.ie Chief Executive: Sean Abbott

Depaul Ireland Holy Cross College Clonliffe Road, Dublin D03 P2E7 Tel: 01 453 7111 Web: www.ie.depaulcharity.org Email: depaul@depaulcharity.net Chief Executive Officer: David Carroll Services: Homeless

Ireland’s housing magazine

Cheshire Ireland

Good Shepherd Cork Bruac Redemption Road Cork Tel: 021 427 4240 Services: Homeless

The Iveagh Trust Focus Ireland 9-12 High Street Christchurch Dublin 8 Tel: 01 881 5900 69 Lower John Street Sligo Tel: 071 914 9974 Web: www.focusireland.ie Email: help@focusireland.ie Chief Executive: Pat Dennigan Services: General needs, homeless

Fold Housing Association Ireland Ltd Suite C, Ashtown Business Centre Navan Road Dublin 15 Tel: 01 822 8804 Web: www.foldireland.ie Email: enquiries@foldireland.ie Chief Executive: Denis Buckley Head of Development: Tina Donaghy Services: General needs

Hearth and Mind Riversdale House Ballyboden Road, Rathfarnham Dublin, D14 W7DO Tel: 01 424 1115 Web: www.hearthandmind.ie Email: info@hearthandmind.ie Services: Mental health

Head Office Bull Alley Street Dublin D08 R7DX Tel: 01 454 2312 Web: www.theiveaghtrust.ie Chief Executive: Aidan Culhane Services: General needs

Kerry Mental Health Association Upper Lewis Road Killarney, Co Kerry Tel: 064 663 1009 Web: www.kerrymentalhealth.com Email: info@kerrymentalhealth.com Services: People with disabilities, mental health

Mental Health Ireland 1-4 Adelaide Road Glasthule, Co Dublin Tel: 01 284 1166 Web: www.mentalhealthireland.ie Email: info@mentalhealthireland.ie CEO: Martin Rogan Services: Mental health

Merchants Quay Ireland Merchants Court 24 Merchants Quay, Dublin 8 Tel: 01 524 0160 Web: www.mqi.ie Email: info@mqi.ie CEO: Paula Byrne Services: Homeless

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Merrick House DAC

Peter McVerry Trust

Sonas

Merrick House Eaton Road, Terenure Dublin, D6W HP96 Tel: 01 490 9816 Web: www.merrickhouse.ie Email: info@merrickhouse.ie Services: Elderly

29 Mountjoy Square Dublin, D01 C2N4 Tel: 01 823 0776 Web: www.pmvtrust.ie Email: info@pmvtrust.ie CEO: Pat Doyle Services: Homeless

5 Aston Quay Dublin, D02 K504 Tel: 01 671 8092 Web: www.domesticabuse.ie Email: info@sonasdomesticabuse.ie CEO: Fiona Ryan Services: Domestic violence, homeless

North and East Housing Association

Prosper Fingal Housing Association

Sophia Housing Association

287, Block G Blanchardstown Corporate Park 2 Dublin, D15 P229 Tel: 01 820 0002 Web: www.northandeast.ie Email: info@neha.ie CEO: Vincent Keenan Services: General needs

Strand Street, Skerries Co Dublin, K34 TD61 Tel: 01 849 3600 Web: www.prosperfingal.ie Email: info@prosperfingal.ie Services: People with disabilities

Novas 87 O’Connell Street Limerick Tel: 061 370 325 Web: www.novas.ie Email: info@novas.ie CEO: Michael Goulding Services: Homeless

Ó Cualann Cohousing Alliance CLG 8 Quinsborough Road Bray, Co Wicklow Tel: 01 286 9237 Web: www.ocualann.ie Email: info@ocualann.ie Chief Executive: Hugh Brennan Services: General needs

Oakfield Trust Ltd Unit D, Nangor Road Business Park Nangor Road Dublin 12 Tel: 01 450 8748 Web: www.oakfieldtrust.ie Email: info@oakfield.trust.ie Manager: Marie Duffin Services: General needs

Oaklee Housing Limited 132 James’s Street Dublin, D08 PK25 Tel: 01 400 2650 Web: www.oaklee.ie Email: enquiries@oakleehousing.ie CEO: Sharon Cosgrove Services: General needs

PACE

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Block 3 Grove Court Grove Road Dublin 15 Tel: 01 823 1000 Web: www.paceorganisation.ie Email: headoffice@paceorganisation.ie Services: Homeless

Respond Housing Association Airmount, Dominick Place Waterford, X91 A397 Tel: 051 840 200 Web: www.respond.ie Email: info@respond.ie CEO: Declan Dunne Services: General needs

The Salvation Army PO Box 2098 Freepost F3201 Dublin 1 Tel: 01 874 3762 Web: www.salvationarmy.org.uk/republic-ofireland Email: info@salvationarmy.ie Services: Homeless

Saoirse Housing Association PO Box 10819 Tallaght Dublin 24 Tel: 01 463 0000 Web: www.saoirsewomensrefuge.ie Email: admin@saoirsewomensrefuge.ie Services: Domestic violence

Simon Communities of Ireland St Andrews House 28-30 Exchequer Street Dublin 2 Tel: 01 671 1606 Web: www.simon.ie Email: info@simoncommunity.com Services: Homeless

Sligo Social Service Council Retreat House Charles Street, Sligo Tel: 071 914 5682 Web: www.sligosocialservices.ie Email: info@sligosocialservices.ie CEO: Christina McTaggart Services: Homeless, elderly, general needs

25 Cork Street, Dublin 8 Tel: 01 473 8300 Web: www.sophia.ie Email: info@sophia.ie Chief Executive Officer: Tony O’Riordan Services: Homeless

Threshold 21 Stoneybatter Dublin, D07 KV61 Tel: 1800 454 454 Web: www.threshold.ie Email: advice@threshold.ie Chief Executive: John-Mark McCafferty Services: Homeless

Túath Housing 33 Leeson Street Lower Dublin, D02 KD68 Tel: 01 676 1602 Web: www.tuathhousing.ie Email: info@tuathhousing.ie Services: General needs

WALK 1 Longmile Road Walkinstown, Dublin 12 Tel: 01 465 0388 Web: www.walk.ie Email: info@walk.ie Services: People with disabilities

YMCA Dublin 53 Aungier Street Dublin, D02 CH96 Tel: 01 478 2607 Web: www.ymca.ie Email: info@ymca.ie CEO: Kathryn O’Mahony Services: Homeless

Industry bodies Chartered Institute of Housing 53 Mount Street Upper Dublin 2 Tel: 01 656 4160 Web: www.cih.org/republicofireland Email: roi@cih.org

Co-operative Housing Ireland 11-12 Warrington Place Dublin 2 Tel: 01 661 2877 Web: www.cooperativehousing.ie Email: admin@cooperativehousing.ie CEO: Kieron Brennan

Construction Industry Federation

Irish Council for Social Housing 50 Merrion Square East Dublin, D02 HP84 Tel: 01 661 8334 Web: www.icsh.ie Email: info@icsh.ie CEO: Donal McManus Director of Policy: Karen Murphy

Irish Planning Institute

AOS Planning CAAS Ltd 1st Floor, 24–26 Upper Ormond Quay Dublin, D07 DAV9 Tel: 01 872 1530 Web: www.aosplanning.ie Email: info@aosplanning.ie Director: Conor Skehan

BMA Planning Taney Hall, Eglinton Terrace Dundrum, Dublin 14 Tel: 01 676 4522 Web: www.bmaplanning.ie Email: info@bmaplanning.ie Managing Director: Ray Ryan

Coakley O’Neill Town Planning NSC Campus Mahon, Cork Tel: 021 230 7000 Web: www.coakleyoneill.ie Email: info@coakleyoneill.ie Contact: Aiden O'Neill

Downey Planning

Floor 3, The Courtyard 25 Great Strand Street Dublin 1 Tel: 01 878 8630 Web: www.ipi.ie Email: info@ipi.ie President: Conor Norton

1 Westland Square Pearse Street, Dublin 2 Tel: 01 253 0220 Web: www.dpaa.ie Email: info@dpaa.ie Founder & Principal Planner: John Downey

Property Industry Ireland

Fenton Associates

84/86 Lower Baggot Street Dublin 2 Tel: 01 605 1500 Web: www.propertyindustry.ie Email: info@propertyindustry.ie Director: David Duffy

6 Camden Place Dublin 2 Tel: 01 479 3140 Web: www.fenton.ie Email: info@fenton.ie Principal: Shay Fenton

Royal Town Planning Institute Ireland

Hogan Associates

1 Westland Square Pearse Street Dublin, D02 EP02 Tel: 0892 515 649 Web: www.rtpi.org.uk Email: contact@rtpiireland.org Chair: Aidan Culhane Director: Craig McLaren

The Lodge Proby's Quay, Cork Tel: 021 431 1206 Web: www.hoganarchitecture.com Email: mail@hoganarchitecture.com Managing Director: Patrick O’Hanlon

HRA Planning Dublin Office 3rd Floor, 121/122 Capel Street Dublin 1 Tel: 087 644 3389 Web: www.hraplanning.ie Email: info@hraplanning.ie Tel: 061 435 000

John Spain Associates 39 Fitzwilliam Place Dublin, D02 ND61 Tel: 01 662 5803 Web: www.jsaplanning.ie Email: info@johnspainassociates.com Managing Director: John Spain

Manahan Planners 38 Dawson Street Dublin 2 Tel: 01 679 9094 Web: www.manahanplanners.com Email: info@manahanplanners.com Director: Tony Manahan

Ireland’s housing magazine

Head Office Construction House Canal Road, Dublin 6 Tel: 01 406 6000 Web: www.cif.ie Email: info@cif.ie Director General: Tom Parlon

Planning consultants

Marston Planning Consultancy 23 Grange Park Foxrock Dublin 18 Tel: 086 383 7100 Web: www.marstonplanning.ie Email: anthony@marstonplanning.ie Principal: Anthony Marston

McCutcheon Halley Dublin Office Kreston House Arran Court, Arran Quay Dublin 7 Tel: 01 804 4477 Web: www.mhplanning.ie Email: info@mhplanning.ie Founding Director: Brian McCutcheon

McGill Planning Ltd 45 Herbert Lane Dublin, D02 RR92 Tel: 01 284 6464 Web: www.mcgplanning.ie Email: info@mcgplanning.ie Managing Director: Colin McGill

Simon Clear and Associates 3 Terenure Road West Terenure, Dublin 6W Tel: 01 492 5934 Web: www.clearconsult.ie Email: admin@clearconsult.ie Principal: Simon Clear

WK Nowlan Marine House Clanwilliam Place Dublin, D02 FY24 Tel: 01 905 8350 Web: www.wkn.ie Email: info@wkn.ie Contact: John McNally

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Advisors Finance AIB

Ireland’s housing magazine

AIB Bankcentre, Ballsbridge Dublin 4 Tel: 0 1 660 0311 Web: www.aib.ie Contact: Donall O’Shea

KPMG 1 Stokes Place St Stephen’s Green Dublin, D02 PE03 Tel: 01 410 1000 Contact: Michele Connolly

permanent tsb 56-59 St Stephen's Green Dublin 2 Tel: 01 212 4101 Web: www.permanenttsb.ie

Bank of Ireland 40 Mespil Road Dublin 4 Tel: 01 661 5933 Web: www.bankofireland.com

Barclays Two Park Place Hatch Street Dublin 2 Tel: 01 618 2600 Web: www.barclays.ie

Castlehaven Finance Dublin office 5th Floor, South Block Rockfield Central Dundrum, Dublin 14 Tel: 01 563 6000 Web: www.castlehavenfinance.com Email: info@castlehavenfinance.com Partner: Clark McCann / Will Aylmer

Unternehmensberatung GmbH Kranzler Eck Kurfürstendamm 22 10719 Berlin Tel: +49 30 609 85 82 40 Email: info@ritterwald.de Managing Director: Mathias Hain

Ulster Bank Ulster Bank Group Centre 16 George's Quay Dublin, D02 VR98 Tel: 01 608 4000 Web: www.ulsterbank.com

Legal Arthur Cox

Cork Office City Quarter Lapp’s Quay, Cork Tel: 021 206 6660

Ten Earlsfort Terrace Dublin, D02 T380 Tel: 01 920 1000 Web: www.arthurcox.com Email: dublin@arthurcox.com Head of Commercial Property: Kenneth Egan

EY Ireland

Beauchamps

EY Building, Harcourt Centre 2 Harcourt Street, Dublin Tel: 01 475 0555 Managing Partner: Frank O'Keeffe

Riverside Two Sir John Rogerson's Quay Dublin, D02 KV60 Web: www.beauchamps.ie Email: info@beauchamps.ie Partner: Fidelma McManus

HSBC Bank 1 Grand Canal Square Grand Canal Harbour Dublin, D02 P820 Tel: 01 635 6000 Web: www.hsbc.ie Email: dublinreception@hsbc.com

KBC Bank Ireland Sandwith Street Dublin, D02 X489 Tel: 01 664 6000 Web: www.kbc.ie

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RITTERWALD

Matheson 70 Sir John Rogerson's Quay Dublin 2 Tel: 01 232 2000 Web: www.matheson.com Email: dublin@matheson.com Partner: Nicola Dunleavy

O’Connor Solicitors 8 Clare Street, Dublin 2 Tel: 01 676 4488 Web: www.oclegal.ie Email: mail@oclegal.ie Partner: Ruth O’Connor

Construction companies BAM Ireland Head Office Kill, Co Kildare W91 KH3E Tel: 045 886400 Web: www.bamireland.ie Email: info@bamcontractors.ie Contact: Micheál Keohane

CLG Developments Ltd Head Office Red Cow Business Park Robinhood Road Clondalkin, Dublin 22 Tel: 01 461 4100 Web: www.clg.ie Email: info@clg.ie

Coen Steel Deerpark Industrial Estate Oranmore, Co Galway, H91 D9P1 Tel: 091 790 044 Web: www.coensteel.ie Email: sales@coensteel.ie Managing Director: David Coen

Coffey Group Moanbaun Athenry Co Galway, H65 Y078 Tel: 091 844 356 Web: www.coffeygroup.com Email: info@coffeygroup.com Property Director: Mark Coffey

John Paul Construction Dundrum Business Park Dundrum Road Dublin, D14 E1R9 Tel: 01 215 6100 Web: www.johnpaulconstruction.co.uk Email: info@johnpaul.ie

SIAC Construction Ltd

Sisk Head Office Wilton Works, Naas Road Clondalkin Dublin 22 Tel: 01 409 1500 Web: www.johnsiskandson.ie Managing Director: Frank Quirk

SSE Airtricity Energy Services Red Oak South South County Business Park Leopardstown, Dublin 18 Tel: 0345 603 0026 Web: www.sseairtricity.com General Manager: Stuart Hobbs

Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland 3 Park Place Hatch Street Upper Dublin 2 Co Dublin D02 FX65 Tel: 01 808 2100 Web: www.seai.ie Email: info@seai.ie Chief Executive: William Walsh

RITTERWALD Unternehmensberatung GmbH Kranzler Eck Kurfürstendamm 22 10719 Berlin Tel: +49 30 609 85 82 40 Email: info@ritterwald.de Managing Director: Mathias Hain

Savills Ireland 20 Dawson Street Dublin, D02 NY91 Tel: 01 663 4300 Web: www.savills.ie Chair: Angus Potterton

Sherry FitzGerald

Real estate and property

164 Shelbourne Road Ballsbridge Dublin 4 Tel: 01 667 1888 Web: www.sherryfitz.ie Email: info@sherryfitz.ie Managing Director: Ivan Gaine

CBRE Ireland

Communications

Dublin Office Connaught House, 3rd Floor One Burlington Road Dublin 4 Tel: 01 618 5500 Web: www.cbre.ie Email: cbredublin@cbre.com Director: Shane Cahir Cork Office 3rd Floor, One Albert Quay Cork Tel: 021 491 7255 Managing Director: Brian Edwards

Ireland’s housing magazine

Dolcain House Monastery Road Clondalkin Dublin, D22 F8F5 Tel: 01 403 3111 Web: www.siac.ie Email: info@siac.ie Chief Executive Officer: Martin Maher

Energy

Property District: Strategic communications 3013 Lake Drive Citywest Business Campus Dublin 24 Tel: 01 442 8811 Web: www.propertydistrict.ie Email: info@propertydistrict.ie Chief Executive Officer: Carol Tallon

Lambert Smith Hampton 86–88 Leeson Street Lower Dublin, D02 A668 Tel: 01 673 1400 Web: www.lsh.co.uk Director: Elaine Coghlan

Lisney St. Stephen’s Green House Earlsfort Terrace Dublin, D02 PH42 Tel: 01 638 2700 Web: www.lisney.com Email: dublin@lisney.com Contact: Christopher Belton

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Covid-19: A turning point Ireland’s housing magazine

The Covid-19 pandemic could act as a turning point in the fight against homelessness. Pat Dennigan, CEO with Focus Ireland writes.

As the new Government looks out at our Covid-19-impacted economy and traumatised society, it may be tempting to think that there is at least one area where things are under control. After all, homelessness fell for the last few months and is at a three-year low.

Programme. These are commitments that Focus Ireland has been proposing for some time. However, there is still a lot of detail for the new Minister for Housing to fill in around the plans for building social housing and tackling family homelessness.

Of course, the recent fall in homelessness is very welcome. Working with others, Focus Ireland supported over 100 households across the country to secure a home in April alone, so it knows what is working. Homelessness is falling because of the rent freeze, the ban on evictions, the release of Airbnb properties into long-term housing and the driven collaboration across government agencies, Local Authorities and voluntary organisations.

We believe Covid-19 can be a turning point in the fight against homelessness.

We hope the new Government will learn from what really worked and use this crisis as an opportunity to rethink our approach to ending homelessness.

But, welcome as they are, rent freezes and eviction-bans only create breathing room. When they go, the underlying problems will re-emerge and we risk being overwhelmed by a new surge of homelessness.

Our problem is that Ireland seems to have forgotten how to build homes that its people can afford to buy or rent. It was disappointing that the Programme for Government went into little detail about how this problem will be overcome. On the positive side, there are strong commitments like the youth homeless strategy, the housing commission and the referendum on a right to housing included in the

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Focus Ireland has recently written to all party leaders, including the three parties who now form the new coalition Government, to call for the urgent development of a clear ‘Roadmap for Housing and Homelessness’ as the country emerges from Covid-19.

Importantly, the Government urgently needs to make commitments to people who are homeless, and who were accommodated during lockdown, will not be expected to return to the streets or hostels but will be offered homes through an expanded Housing First programme.

A welcome early move would be for all parties to work closely with Focus Ireland, local authorities and all interested parties nationwide to build on the amazing, collaborative work that has been achieved during this public health emergency to keep people safe and also seriously cut the number of people who are homeless.

During the Covid-19 emergency, our staff have continued to provide vital services to support thousands of people who are homeless right across the country, as well as working to help them find a new home. Focus Ireland, and our partners who include local authorities, Dublin Regional Homeless Executive and the HSE, should be very proud and have shown the effectiveness of collaboration. These genuine partnerships that worked so well during the Covid-19 emergency are essential if we are to end homelessness once and for all rather than re-live the last few years.

Homelessness and the housing crisis was one of the top issues for voters in the last election. This message must not be lost in the upheaval of the Covid-19 crisis. The new Government must recognise the scale of this problem and how important it is for people right across our society that we find lasting solutions which build new homes and good communities.

We are at a crucial juncture which will decide how the homelessness crisis goes not only for the rest of this year but for many years to come.

Pat Dennigan is the CEO of Focus Ireland.

an

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