Home. Eoin Ó Broin
Loans Fund, extending the repaying period from 25 to 50 years and the provision of lump sum grants to Councils.
The subsequent 1948 Housing Act also increased the maximum market value of houses to be purchased under the Small Dwellings Scheme, increased home buyer grants and introduced a new supplementary grant for lower-income home buyers.
The results of these measures were significant with both social and private housing output increasing over the following ten years. Keogh notes that ‘in a spirit of new age optimism’ Government’s capital expenditure increased to £120 million including £6 million of borrowing the bulk of which was to fund houses and hospitals.37 Social housing output doubled from the 1940s to the 1950s from 20,768 houses in the first decade to 52,500 in the second while private output increased from 37,164 during the 40s to 49,188 in the 50s.38
While housing output increased significantly, the ratio of social to private housing shifted dramatically in favour of the latter from the early 1960s with just 29,124 social units delivered in that decade compared with 64,835 private homes. Kenna confirms that despite the significant increase in Council house provision, Government subsidies still benefited the private home buyer more than the social renting tenant:
In the 16 years from April 1948, about 137,000 dwellings were built with State aid, of which 74,000 were provided by private enterprise and 63,000 by local authorities. Capital expenditure in the period 1948 to 1964 on housing was estimated at £225m. Of which State aid and local authorities contributed £192m.39
Significantly just 15 percent of total capital invested in housing during this period came from non-State sources demonstrating the extent to which the vast majority of housing, including private homeownership, relied on non-market sources for funding.
Michelle Norris notes that the ‘take-up of central government house purchase and reconstruction grants increased from 2,157 in 1948/1949 to 17,544 in 1963/1964. This reflects the fact that, contrary to the 1948 White Paper’s expectations, ‘70% of dwellings constructed during the 1960s were provided by the private sector primarily for owner-occupation.’40
The short-lived 14th Dáil brought Fianna Fáil back to power for three years during which investment in and output of housing was scaled back by the fiscally orthodox Minister Seán McEntee and his officials at the Department of Finance.
However, with the return of the coalition Government in 1954 the expansion of house building was resumed well into the 1960s. As increased supply addressed much of the acute housing need, it also led to renewed concerns about the absence of adequate planning as new estates provided homes but not necessarily with the necessary social and economic infrastructure to meet the needs of communities. Concerns also continued regarding the growing economic and political significance of the construction industry and its relationship to Fianna Fáil who were back in Government from 1957 for a straight eleven-year run.
As the 1950s were coming to a close a new source of opposition to continued expenditure on housing emerged. Thomas Whitaker’s 1958 First Programme for Economic Expansion argued strongly for a shift in public expenditure from social to productive sectors of the economy.41 Housing constituted the single largest area of social expenditure through capital funds, loans and tax reliefs. While little understood at the time, this prioritising of ‘productive’ over ‘social’ investment and the negative social costs that come with it, was to have a profound impact on Government thinking for decades to come.
In 1962 Dublin Corporation has almost 9,000 households on their waiting lists with almost half of these deemed to have an immediate need. In the same year just 1,035 new council homes were under construction.42
While house building continued to increase, slum conditions remained a reality for many as highlighted by the death of four people including two children in 1963 when two tenement buildings collapsed within a fortnight in June, first in Bolton Street and then Fenian Street, only a short walk from Dáil Éireann and Government Buildings. The Dublin Housing Action Campaign was formed in response to the tragedy demanding the demolition of the tenements and the provision of safe and adequate housing.
A second Housing White Paper was published in 1964 and estimated that 50,000 new homes were needed immediately to meet existing demand. The paper also projected a need for a further 98,000 homes up to 1970, 50 percent of which were to be provided by Local Authorities. This would require the largest output of housing in the history of the State at 14,000 units per year.
In the same year officials and elected members from Dublin Corporation visited Paris, Copenhagen and Stockholm to examine how new building technologies, including system built concrete apartments, could be used to meet housing need at home. The trip was important as it not only secured a commitment to deliver an additional 1,000 homes a year over the next three years but was also seminal in the future use of high-rise housing developments.43
The 1964 White Paper was quickly followed by the 1966 Housing Act which consolidated all of the existing housing legislation of the preceding half a century into a single piece of law. In addition to providing further incentives to private homeownership, including the provision of low-cost sites for self-builders, it also extended the right of purchase to all Local Authority tenants. The results were quite dramatic.
Despite only becoming available in the second half of the decade Local Authorities sold 64,490 Council homes by 1969, more than double the output of social homes in the same decade. Significant discounts of up to 30 percent for urban purchasers and 45 percent for rural purchasers were available, determined by the length of time in the tenancy.
In response to demands for a more planned approach to housing output the Government introduced a requirement on Councils to produce development plans via the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act 1963. Combined with the 1968 Buchanan Report new suburban population centres in Tallaght, Clondalkin, Lucan and Blanchardstown were proposed. Forty years after it was first suggested, suburbanisation was to become official Government policy.
This newfound optimism was evident in the zeal with which the Minister for the Environment Neil Blaney belatedly embraced the post-war ambition of his British counterparts. A new National Building Agency with significant funds at its disposal was set to work with Local Authorities to deliver the largest scale housing projects in the history of the State, best exemplified by the proposed 3,000-home development in Ballymun at a cost of more than £9 million and the 1,000-home suburban development in Moy Ross in Limerick.
But Government hubris – as evidenced in the naming of the Ballymun towers after the signatories of the 1916 Proclamation – was not matched by long-term investment. The peripheral location of the larger developments combined with lack of amenities and poor allocation and estate management policies were to turn these iconic projects of the late 1960s into notorious examples of poor housing policy by the 1990s.
Social Housing’s High Point
The 1970s witnessed the largest output of housing in the history of the State with 61,953 social and 176,230 private homes built. However, with the massive transfer of stock from the public to the private sector via tenant purchase the overall balance in favour of homeownership continued to prevail.
Private homeownership increased dramatically between 1946 and 1971 from 52.6 percent to 70 percent statewide and from 26 percent to 48 percent in Dublin and 13 percent to 49 percent in Cork. Nevertheless, significant social housing output also saw Council housing as a percentage of the overall housing stock during this period increase from 16.5 percent to 18.4 percent.
The late 60s and early 70s was also a period of increasing investment in city centre commercial development with significant private and semi-State developments replacing some of the historic core of Dublin City. As slums were cleared, speculative developers could make significant gains replacing Georgian terraces with modern office blocks. The result was a profound change to the streetscape and aesthetics of large parts of the city centre generating strong opposition from the Georgian Society, high profile cultural figures and members of the public. That the Fianna Fáil Minister for Local Government unsurprisingly took the side of ‘progress’ – and the developer – dismissing the protestors as ‘belted earls’, was a sign of the increasing political strength of those who had money