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Housing is the missing link in the debate about immigration

Perceived competition for housing has always driven anti-immigrant sentiment. The reality is we have had repeated housing crises for the last 100 years, long before recent immigration increases

People seeking international protection were moved from outside the International Protection Office on Mount Street on Wednesday. Photograph: Sasko Lazarov/© RollingNews.ie
People seeking international protection were moved from outside the International Protection Office on Mount Street on Wednesday. Photograph: Sasko Lazarov/© RollingNews.ie
Lorcan Sirr
Thu May 02 2024 - 06:00

In 2016, the Danish Social Democrat politician Ida Auken wrote a blog post for the World Economic Forum (WEF) under the headline “Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better.” It was a speculative article on what it would be like to share or rent things we use daily, including our cars, clothes, appliances and, of course, our homes. Auken wasn’t promoting this version of life: she was simply initiating a debate about potential ways to reduce our unsustainable consumption of goods and services.

The article went nowhere much until 2020, when the WEF announced its post-coronavirus economic plan, the “Great Reset”. This plan was quickly linked to Auken’s essay on owning nothing by 2030. The Dane’s rather harmless paper supercharged conspiracy theorists who believed the WEF was bent on world domination, and that the Great Reset was actually a plot for a global elite to use the pandemic to establish a New World Order where governments cancel all societal debt, but simultaneously take ownership of all property which would then be rented back by households.

In Ireland, the recent increase in the numbers of people seeking asylum or refuge from war has seen pushback from a small group of hardcore anti-immigrant protesters, and groups of local community protesters, a heady cocktail of genuine concern and genuine prejudice.

At the heart of their objections is the idea that their town, their city, their country is full. There is nowhere to house these immigrants – and why should we even try when there are nearly 14,000 homeless Irish people who should be prioritised? Responses that reference our international obligations (or Ireland’s own history of migration) are frequently brushed aside.

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But Ireland is not full – not by any measure. We have well over 100,000 usable empty houses and holiday homes around the country in some of the same towns, villages and cities that are apparently full. The Department of Defence has acres of land (over 20,000 acres), as do many councils. The HSE has hundreds of empty buildings. As a country, Ireland has fewer than 71 people per square kilometre. In Germany, this figure is 233 people per square kilometre; in the UK, it is 277, and 422 in the Netherlands.

The provision of housing has a major role to play in both fuelling and quelling anti-immigrant sentiment. As reported by the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, “issues such as the housing crisis have been a `key catalyst’ for anti-immigrant sentiment in Ireland because it had created the impression that resources are scarce and that people have to compete for services”. This doesn’t bother the wealthy as much as it does the less well-off who are more likely to need these services.

This perceived competition for housing has driven anti-immigrant sentiment in the UK since the end of the second World War. The fact social housing is allocated by the state also means it can easily be politicised (as it was during Land Commission days), and an “us versus them” narrative created.

The Farmers Alliance’s website states: “many of these people are coming from the UK and France as they can get more money and free housing here”. Similarly, a core principle of the Irish People party is “prioritising Housing for Irish citizens”. The Irish Freedom Party will “prioritise Irish families for social housing” and Ireland First’s housing policy includes “immigration controls”. The National Party tweets “We don’t have a housing crisis. We have an immigration crisis”.

Mainstream parties are at risk of finding themselves moving increasingly starboard to compete in a dangerous game of right-wing policy brinkmanship. Fine Gael’s Michael Ring, an experienced politician, said his party “has to move back into the centre again, and more to the right”. He also cited immigration policy. “It is a big issue that hurt us very much in the recent referendum, and is hurting us on the ground. You cannot bring in 120,000 people and not have housing for them,” he said.

The reality is we have had repeated housing crises for the last 100 years, long before recent immigration increases. Facts are malleable though. In November 2023, Independent TD Michael Collins said, “the biggest issue of concern is housing – considering that there are one million people on waiting lists”, apparently combining health lists (869,000) and housing lists (57,842) and coming up with a misleading message.

[ Housing is the top issue for voters, especially those aged 25-34 ]

In the policy arena that is housing, there is no doubt that many have been let down. The average 30-year-old is today materially poorer than his or her 1990 predecessor, for example. And although other aspects of their lives are much better, a lot of that material poverty is down to access to housing. Ireland’s home-ownership rate is now at a level last seen in the mid-1960s, with new homes for sale in many locations replaced by globally financed investment properties available only for rent (circling back to the Danish politician’s inflammatory reflections). The planning system is naively excluding more people from participation – further disenfranchisement.

Poor housing policy is not the sole cause of current anti-immigrant sentiment – exclusion and identity are at play as well – but housing has a central role in resolving it. And yet, in dealing with the flow of asylum seekers and war refugees needing housing, the Department of Housing and other departments have been surprisingly silent. According to junior minister Joe O’Brien, the former taoiseach didn’t make enough of an effort either. “I’ve been in the Cabinet subcommittees that were chaired by taoiseach Varadkar and I didn’t see anyone pushed very hard to look very hard and say ‘will you all identify a building, please?’” the Green Party TD for Dublin Fingal said recently. Minister Roderic O’Gorman has done well to find housing for all who have been accommodated so far, but there is only so much one department can achieve.

It is hard to challenge conspiracy theories, but chasing the far right over the cliff will make matters worse. More productive would be for each Minister to look to their left at the Cabinet table and asking their colleague, “what can you do to help house immigrants?”

Dr Lorcan Sirr lectures in housing at the Technological University Dublin and is currently Visiting Professor of Housing at the University of Galway.