It was Michael Gove who had the experts line. And I heard it guffawed over by liberal outlets for an ages. So I looked it up the full quote and it’s more interesting to consider:
“I think the people of this country have had enough of experts with organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong”.
Plenty of those orgs in Ireland who get consistent airtime.
Yeah I’d be interested even to heard your thoughts on this whether it’s in housing or Irish society more broadly. That kind of sense that liberal technocratism is a political force, a class even, in itself and no wonder people feel choices about their lives are not even made by distant elected politicians but even more distant “organisations with acronyms”.
I doubt people feel they have any real ability to change anything about the housing situation at this stage. And I wonder how technocratism plays in to that.
I'm planning on doing a bit more writing on this very subject soon as it is something I've been thinking a lot about. I've been reading lots of books on populism (in general, not just housing stuff), and technocracy is really a key theme in that literature. I think you're right that people don't feel they can change anything, and I guess the debate about Judicial Reviews perhaps reflects that kind of anger. But I think there is another problem with technocracy which is that it doesn't really have a clear, values based idea of what housing system we should have (or what society we should have). And finally, the idea that technocrats are kind of a highly educated elite who are disconnected from ordinary people but also don't share ordinary people's values. In the case of housing, for example, policy elites often favour 'tenure neutrality' while ordinary people have a strong preference for homeownership.
I think the desire to reflect "tenure neutrality" was instituted to get away from the idea that government only cared about home owners to the detriment of tenants. It only failed because it was so late coming with robust protections for tenants. It was never intended to displace homeownership, however it might have been interpreted.
Supply is a partial solution at best, the more notable issues are
- large percentages of people living in rental housing who technically can afford to buy but are prevented from doing so by structural obstacles
- large numbers of immigrants also trapped in PRS for similar reasons
- lower income HAP recipients who cannot afford to move for fear of losing legacy rental rates
- a shrinking minority of self-paying tenants who haven't bought homes and stayed put for same reasons as HAP tenants above, but technically could afford higher rents
- long tail of early 2010s era arrears for landlords - nearly 31% of BTL mortgages were in arrears in 2014, while owner occupiers protected by forbearance no such case for either landlords or their tenants - leaving such tenants in the crossfire; failure to institute protections for such tenants has had a lasting effect
- limited access to BTL lending for domestic landlords leaving future of the sector in the hands of SMEs and institutions
- negative image of apartments caused by perception that apartments are "defective" and substandard in terms of amenity which is not the case universally
- undersupply of small homes for single adults & child free families plus social pressure preferring houses pushing dense living to institutions (including state owned)
- fear of eviction causing tenants not to report issues - leading to degradation of rental stock
- general lack of mobility for everyone regardless of tenure
- resultant social pressure against apartment development because of reasons above exacerbating all these issues
- lack of options for social housing for single people and young people
- continuing high rents and poor enforcement causing less trust in institutions as Mick rightly says
- but BTL landlord overstretch is a major factor reaching back to 2012-2015
- Increased borrowing costs maybe a factor
- disappearance of cheap apartments hits both domestic investors and a segment of FTBs who like apartment/urban living, knock on impact on rents
- state backed investment in remediation of period buildings destroys old "pre 63" flats - as owner refurbish back to original "family homes" or for occasional use
- growth of platform economy - AirBnB & others - particularly harsh on rural Ireland
- growing attraction of Ireland as a place to retire or migrate - eg Trump, Brexit escapees
- backlash to increasing enforcement via RTB AND Revenue commissioners
- ageing out of 80s to 90s era landlords and later "tiger era" domestic investors
- populist political pull of orchestration of Judicial reviews - builds rapport with communities, foot in the door for left in non traditional middle class voter areas with no political costs
New problems
- growing organic gentrification like activities in traditional working class districts eg D12, D7
- knock on impact of state backed schemes eg TUD to Grangegorman, Devaney Gardens leading to gentrification
- impact of transport development eg LUAS red and green lines, same will happen with Metrolink unless specific measures taken to protect less well off
- lack of perceived benefit to existing communities through development - lack of "social dividend"
- isolation and alienation - greater incidence of people living alone for decades - social stigma attached to living with family
- increased residualisation of apartment living likely to stigmatize apartments even more
Nobody has mentioned the corollary of increasing supply: reducing demand.
It was Michael Gove who had the experts line. And I heard it guffawed over by liberal outlets for an ages. So I looked it up the full quote and it’s more interesting to consider:
“I think the people of this country have had enough of experts with organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong”.
Plenty of those orgs in Ireland who get consistent airtime.
Thanks for the correction! At the time I was probably one of the liberals who were aghast at his comment but now i think he was basically right
Yeah I’d be interested even to heard your thoughts on this whether it’s in housing or Irish society more broadly. That kind of sense that liberal technocratism is a political force, a class even, in itself and no wonder people feel choices about their lives are not even made by distant elected politicians but even more distant “organisations with acronyms”.
I doubt people feel they have any real ability to change anything about the housing situation at this stage. And I wonder how technocratism plays in to that.
I'm planning on doing a bit more writing on this very subject soon as it is something I've been thinking a lot about. I've been reading lots of books on populism (in general, not just housing stuff), and technocracy is really a key theme in that literature. I think you're right that people don't feel they can change anything, and I guess the debate about Judicial Reviews perhaps reflects that kind of anger. But I think there is another problem with technocracy which is that it doesn't really have a clear, values based idea of what housing system we should have (or what society we should have). And finally, the idea that technocrats are kind of a highly educated elite who are disconnected from ordinary people but also don't share ordinary people's values. In the case of housing, for example, policy elites often favour 'tenure neutrality' while ordinary people have a strong preference for homeownership.
I think the desire to reflect "tenure neutrality" was instituted to get away from the idea that government only cared about home owners to the detriment of tenants. It only failed because it was so late coming with robust protections for tenants. It was never intended to displace homeownership, however it might have been interpreted.
It's not particularly insightful to just mindlessly repeat that supply is the answer. In fact, it's intellectually lazy.
Supply is a partial solution at best, the more notable issues are
- large percentages of people living in rental housing who technically can afford to buy but are prevented from doing so by structural obstacles
- large numbers of immigrants also trapped in PRS for similar reasons
- lower income HAP recipients who cannot afford to move for fear of losing legacy rental rates
- a shrinking minority of self-paying tenants who haven't bought homes and stayed put for same reasons as HAP tenants above, but technically could afford higher rents
- long tail of early 2010s era arrears for landlords - nearly 31% of BTL mortgages were in arrears in 2014, while owner occupiers protected by forbearance no such case for either landlords or their tenants - leaving such tenants in the crossfire; failure to institute protections for such tenants has had a lasting effect
- limited access to BTL lending for domestic landlords leaving future of the sector in the hands of SMEs and institutions
- negative image of apartments caused by perception that apartments are "defective" and substandard in terms of amenity which is not the case universally
- undersupply of small homes for single adults & child free families plus social pressure preferring houses pushing dense living to institutions (including state owned)
- fear of eviction causing tenants not to report issues - leading to degradation of rental stock
- general lack of mobility for everyone regardless of tenure
- resultant social pressure against apartment development because of reasons above exacerbating all these issues
- lack of options for social housing for single people and young people
- continuing high rents and poor enforcement causing less trust in institutions as Mick rightly says
Another two points are:
- justifications for high rents
- but BTL landlord overstretch is a major factor reaching back to 2012-2015
- Increased borrowing costs maybe a factor
- disappearance of cheap apartments hits both domestic investors and a segment of FTBs who like apartment/urban living, knock on impact on rents
- state backed investment in remediation of period buildings destroys old "pre 63" flats - as owner refurbish back to original "family homes" or for occasional use
- growth of platform economy - AirBnB & others - particularly harsh on rural Ireland
- growing attraction of Ireland as a place to retire or migrate - eg Trump, Brexit escapees
- backlash to increasing enforcement via RTB AND Revenue commissioners
- ageing out of 80s to 90s era landlords and later "tiger era" domestic investors
- populist political pull of orchestration of Judicial reviews - builds rapport with communities, foot in the door for left in non traditional middle class voter areas with no political costs
New problems
- growing organic gentrification like activities in traditional working class districts eg D12, D7
- knock on impact of state backed schemes eg TUD to Grangegorman, Devaney Gardens leading to gentrification
- impact of transport development eg LUAS red and green lines, same will happen with Metrolink unless specific measures taken to protect less well off
- lack of perceived benefit to existing communities through development - lack of "social dividend"
- isolation and alienation - greater incidence of people living alone for decades - social stigma attached to living with family
- increased residualisation of apartment living likely to stigmatize apartments even more