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 to invest in property.44
The significant increase in private housing output brought a new dynamic into play, namely land price inflation. As residential development increasingly took place in suburbs, once-agricultural land would significantly rise in price when zoned for residential use. Of course, the increase in value had nothing to do with the land itself or the efforts of the owners, but was a direct result of both the decision to rezone and the provision of infrastructure such as roads and services by the Local Authorities.
In one example, serviced land in County Dublin rose in price in a single year from £1,100 per acre to £7,000 – a 536 percent increase in value.
In response the Government commissioned respected judge John Kenny to examine the issue of land management and bring forward recommendations to curb the ever escalating cost of land. The 1972 Report from the Committee on the Price of Land made a series of radical proposals which have been quoted as often as they have been ignored.
Amongst the options considered were price controls, development
