SPOL20280

Housing not only provides shelter it has many other important social and economic functions. It impacts on the wellbeing of individuals and families and the cohesion of neighbourhoods.

Housing provision is costly for governments and households but it is an important asset, source of tax revenue and of employment. Therefore housing also has important implications for social inequality, economic efficiency and community cohesion.

This module examines the development of housing policy in Ireland over the last century and explores the implications of these policies for social inequality, community cohesion and economic efficiency. It is divided into three parts.

The opening lectures examine the development of government involvement in housing during the first two thirds of the twentieth century. This expanded steadily over this time to the extent that Ireland developed a property based welfare state which contrasted with the welfare models common in the rest of Western Europe.

The module then examines the radical changes to housing policy and also finance for housing from the 1980s as a result of which the Irish housing system began to conform with the norm in other English speaking countries. These changes contributed to a house price boom from the mid 1990s and ended in a bust of unprecedented scale in 2007.

The socio-economic impact of these developments for inequality, poverty and homelessness are examined, together with the their political economy divers and implications.