Publication
Solidarity Housing: Getting the Vultures out of Irish Housing
Online version
What Solidarity Housing proposed
The paper responds to mortgage arrears, insecure private renting and a social housing waiting list that it records as 139,359 households. It argues that restricting public housing to the lowest-income households leaves many other households exposed to high rents and insecure tenancies.
Solidarity Housing would widen access to public housing to almost everyone who wanted it. Homes would remain publicly owned and managed. The stated goals were secure tenancies, affordable rents, stable communities and lower long-term costs to the state.
Income mix and rents
The model would allocate half the homes in a development to households earning below €35,000 and half to households earning above that threshold. The paper's indicative rent formula was 15 per cent of income up to €35,000, plus 30 per cent of income above it. These figures are part of the 2016 proposal and are not current rent guidance.
Each household would pay according to income. The authors describe this as cross-subsidisation: rents from higher-income households would support lower rents for households with less income. The development would contain a mix of incomes, while all homes would have the same public tenure.
Construction and ownership
The proposal calls for a state housing body to finance and construct homes directly. Public land would be retained, and public borrowing would replace developer finance. The paper argues that this would remove developer profit and reduce land, marketing and borrowing costs.
It also rejects the use of private development as the main route to mixed communities. Under Solidarity Housing, the public body would control allocations, standards, maintenance and long-term management. Homes could not later be removed from the public stock through sale.
Financial and social case
The paper compares permanent public construction with rent subsidies, emergency accommodation and other payments to private providers. It argues that the state was already spending heavily without acquiring enough housing assets. A broader tenant income base, it says, would allow rental income to meet more of the cost of finance and upkeep.
The proposal also reserves a proportion of homes for people with medical or social priority, including homeless families, older people, single parents, long-term unemployed people and people receiving disability payments. The authors present this as a way to protect vulnerable households without concentrating poverty in separate developments.
O'Devaney Gardens example
An appendix applies the model to O'Devaney Gardens in Dublin 7. It discusses public land, the number and type of homes, income mix and rents. The example is intended to show how a public site could remain in public ownership while providing housing for households across a range of incomes.
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