Why Cant we Do this? Swedish Government built 1 million homes for all income levels (in a population of 8 million) between 1965 and 1974. That’s like us building 650,000 social housing units over 65,000 per year for a decade. This would literally solve everything

37 comments

1. Because it would require sacrificing elsewhere as regards govt departments and just try suggesting merging or downscaling govt expenditure on this sub and you’ll face a tankie avalanche and “but the banks”.

   I mean we definitely need Coillte AND the Department Of Agriculture AND a Forestry Department. I can’t see any possibility of how those could be merged, downsized and outsourced and the savings put into construction.

2. We did.

   The issue with housing isn’t capacity. There are more than enough homes in Ireland for every Irish family to be housed.

3. You say this like this is just that easy. For one thing, we don’t have enough builders in the country to reach targets like that.

4. Because nobody here wants shitty one-bed apartments. That’s always been the perception in Ireland about such housing. We actively resisted it.

5. We don’t have the construction capacity. When the recession hit, we lost a huge chunk of our capacity.

   The Government are allocating money, it’s just they’re having a hard time spending it due to every builder building.

   What needs doing is a huge campaign to sponsor foreign builders, we gotta get our capacity back if we’re to build enough homes.

6. Because *insert bullshit reason*.

   Therefore it’s impossible and we shouldn’t even try.

   ^^ This except unironically, for the rest of the threads comments.

7. Because they’d increase third world immigration to compensate

8. I see the usual bs excuses already.

   There is no reason we cant do this. In fact we did it already. The reason we are not doing it is purely ideological. Nothing more. FF and FG are dyed in the wool neoliberals who worship at the alter of the market will solve everything.

   Its funny, if the market is so good at sorting this mess out then why are we pouring billions into help to buy, first home, HAP, cost rentals and new nonsense schemes dreamt up every year. And all that happens is billions of tax payers money is being funneled into developers and pension fund coffers.

   The idealogues here and in FFG are happy to sink billions of taxpayers money into schemes that dont work.
   You would think that a right leaning political party would be fiscally conservative and keen to get value for the taxpayer. Hmmm seems that that belief goes out the window when it helps certain business interests.

   When are people going to start asking why we are funneling billions into private hands for fuck all return?

   What we need in ireland is simple.

   State housing built on state land and owned by the state.

   EDIT: So ive been accused of being a populist, a fascist enabler and a non taxing paying prole.
   Lads the longer this disaster goes on the more idiotic you look. The private market as failed to do what its supposed to do in terms of housing. You remind me of the arseholes who were telling us that Nama was the only game in town, that we needed to pull on the green jersey and other nonsense. Dig up lads, dig up!

9. “Why Cant we Do this?”

   The refrain of every country that elects a right wing conservative government at every election.

   Same reason you don’t have universal healthcare.

   Same reason the majority of Swedish employees are in a trade union and the majority of Irish ones are not.

   > …by the governing Swedish Social Democratic Party…

   This.

   Why do you not have social policies. Because at every election Irish people choose the “don’t implement social policies parties”.

   Maybe if Ireland was in Scandinavia then it would be like Finland. Implementing its second generation of nuclear. But instead, it’s next to the UK, and “better than Tories” is where the very low bar for organising a society is set.

10. The million programme was a great idea, but poorly utilised and it ended up being the breeding ground for the organised crime epidemic Sweden is suffering from now. Huge suburban low-income areas with extreme crime rates and little sign the authorities able to solve it. Imagine old Ballymun times a thousand. That is the “million programme”.

    Social housing is definitely needed. It does however have to be kept within the existing society or it is a given that you’re making it easy for criminals to recruit kids when the low income population live in one area.

11. If your ain’t had balls she’d be your uncle.

12. The nature of capitalism.
    Politicians bought buy landowner interests to keep their housing “scalping” business hot.
    Look at Vienna 120 years ago.
    Sorry Dublin.

13. The Nordic countries are amazing especially Denmark, Iceland and Finland

14. The Irish Government built a shit ton of houses in the 20th century though. Was one of the big projects of the early state.

15. We can’t even hit a target of 30,000 a year, not enough people workers in the country to build that many, even if we could where do we house them?

16. Vienna, in Austria, has done it too: [https://www.wienerwohnen.at/wiener-gemeindebau/municipal-housing-in-vienna.html](https://www.wienerwohnen.at/wiener-gemeindebau/municipal-housing-in-vienna.html)

    I live here and it’s such a great system.

17. > Why Cant we Do this?

    Construction Output levels are continually increasing. It just takes time to go from zero to high levels due to constraints (labour shortages, planning, capital etc).

    The average growth rate in output is high since 2016, just from a very low base.

18. Did they name theirs Ballymun too? Darndale?

19. Im just looking at pictures of what they built. They look awfully like the ballymun towers.

    I would prefer my kids to emigrate rather than to try and bring up a family in a slum.

20. Out of interest, what are the per capita homelessness rates in Ireland and Sweden at the moment?

21. Building more housing is a great idea but in Ireland’s case where we would put them. Not to mention the additional schools, hospitals, doctors, shops, public transport, water and electricity needs for the housing. And then the local authorities take it over they would find a new way to mess it up. Look a the mess up that we are doing with building hospitals right now. I believe that anyone who knew how to build stuff left politics and the civil service years.

22. Sweden built 50,000 homes last year. Ireland built 25,000. Sweden has a population twice that of Ireland. Sweden has a massive housing shortage crisis.

23. Ok but do also look up the criticism of that project. It resulted in large numbers of dull soviet-style apartment buildings arranged in grid patterns. It has since led to ghettoisation, particularly of immigrant groups in modern Sweden. A far-right anti-immigration party has just earned the highest proportion of the vote share, and some are blaming the Million Homes Project for the failure of immigrants to integrate.

    We’ve tried high-volume low quality home building in Ireland in the past, and it also led to ghettoisation (or social partitioning) and hotspots of crime. Think of the Ballymun flats, Fatima Mansions or massive housing estates in places like Tallaght.

    These days it’s generally accepted that the best approach is to mix different social groups at a finer scale

24. You get the money from where?

    Tax to fix the concrete on less than 6,000 homes is a financial crisis

25. Build up. This is the only solution.

    Get rid of rights to objections for projects in the national interest. Get rid of county councils rights to object. Get rid of story limitations. CPO vacant land in cities. CPO houses if needs be to make way for luas/metro.

    Build social housing for those in long term employment who otherwise do not make enough to get a mortgage. Those on long term unemployment without good reason aka robbing from working peoples pockets have no right to such housing and should be grateful for a flat.

    Sacrifices need to be made for the long term future of not just our country but (and this is meant for the narcissistic NIMBY lot)- the next generation.

26. Because Ireland and FFG make excuses for everything. There are so many countries that could be used as blueprints, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, even Germany or France. But Ireland chooses not to have mass transit, a metro, nationwide train system, adequate healthcare, or affordable housing. Just keep voting in the same 2 groups of fucking scum for 100 years and expect something different, because at least they’re not SF right?

27. We over pay people and underpay others. It’s why you have terrible infrastructure in this country.

28. We did do stuff like this. Marino is probably the best example. See Crumlin in 1940s-1960s, Finglas 1950s-1970s , I think Swords was 1980, Bayside but I think that was all private but they might of been involved. Obviously Ballymun too. I’m not sure if these amounted to 1 million homes but I’d wager the quality of homes being built in Ireland at that time were superior with techniques like poured concrete etc..

    [https://www.theirishstory.com/2011/09/07/a-garden-city-the-dublin-corporation-housing-scheme-at-marino-1924/](https://www.theirishstory.com/2011/09/07/a-garden-city-the-dublin-corporation-housing-scheme-at-marino-1924/)

29. This rate of building isn’t possible for our government to do.
    Building standards are very different now when compared the 60s and 70s so houses could be built quicker. Also we don’t have enough people with the skillset or who are willing to work in construction to build 600k houses each year

30. In what way was this paid?

    In other words was there and increase in tax’s, a new tax or contributions during this period etc?

31. Because the government is incompetent. How many fucking times does this need to be explained?

32. It’s almost like the idea of a social house in the 70s was a far more modest and easily built affair than what people expect today.

    It was a lot cheaper and quicker to build a ton of ugly, small, brutalist flats, pack people into them and call them social housing than it is to do what we do today which is have social housing basically be of a standard with any other typical new house being built. You can’t really compare the two. Our idea of what social housing is has progressed. It no longer means just a roof over your head, instead it means a house that someone might actually want to live in. Those just take more money and work to build.

33. Solve everything doesn’t actually enhance the value of the assets of those in power.

34. Sweden isn’t run by Irish people, that’s why.

35. Yeah but the mé féiners little nest eggs, not to mention little Fiacra,Fachna and Saoirses inheritance would take a big hit if the plebs all had their own homes aswell since supply/demand would reduce the value of their property.

    Cant be having that

36. It could solve everything but then we look at all the objections.

    Build to rent!? Shut down because people want to buy homes

    Single bedroom apartments? No because someone should live in a house with a garden

    Social housing en-masse? Lol

37. I will happily lay out what I see as the *actual* reasons its not being done (but cannot stress enough, that this is not the same answer as: “why cant we do it”).

    * Political reasons:

    * FG (and ff to a lesser extent) get most of their political support from people who already own houses (easy to forget that’s a very large proportion of the population – and even larger proportion of active voters). It’s very easy to underestimate how much that affects people’s decision making when they vote. Most people want others to have happy lives… just not at the cost of themselves. If housing prices were to plummet, FG’s base would be very put out. And not just the landlords. The people who’d be trapped in negative equity would be very pissy also.

    * FG and FF (but again mostly FG) both went to the polls with a policy of public private partnership, private enablement and, essentially, allowing a stable market to sort itself out – and that’s what people voted on. Both FF and FG will tack with the winds of change – but massive projects or changes are very hard to get through the FG political party without an election on the horizon to get a mandate for their policies. I mention this often – but the significance of FG openly saying after the last election “yeah we lost the election, we should take some time in opposition to redesign our policies” was absolutely fucking bonkers. Folks within the party knew their policies needed to change, but people still voted for them based on those policies, so that’s what they’ve (largely) pursued.

    * Risk posture:

    * However you look at it major projects mean major change, and change is risky (for some people). If you’re a 25 year old who will literally never in their lives have a hope of buying a home if nothing dramatic changes… well you’ve got very little to lose and want this to all happen yesterday. But people who already have homes, work in construction or generally have skin in the game are thinking “I got mine, jack” and have a lot to lose – and that manifests itself as political opposition to these projects.

    * Major infra or state-driven projects require a lot of experience, organization and general competence at some level of government (state, local, etc). Without that, the projects inevitable run over, fall apart, are mired with political controversy etc etc. As a result, countries who can do it effectively are the countries who are always doing it. I say it a lot: The thing about major civil/infra projects is, you just have to keep doing them. the orgs that get them done are huge beasts that live and die by well managed momentum (through which they foster effective skills pipelines, competent management, practical outlooks; and cull change shyness, bloated structures, hangers on, etc)

    * Practical reasons:

    * Ireland is an Island, so major infra projects are always a little harder to get over the line -because we have a smaller pool of local natural resources, local skilled workers, etc.

    * We have a two-tier economy in a way few countries past or present have had. If you work for a multinational in tech; pharma or finance and can hang in for a few years – Ireland isn’t actually that expensive. You’ll make well into 6 figures per year. Of course, buying housing is still crazy expensive – but you can very comfortably afford to live, rent and save… Add to that the fact that we’re also divided between have (a mortgage) and have not (a mortgage) in terms of how the cost of living crisis really bites…and ll this means the groundswell of public outrage at all of these problems are suppressed somewhat. Because a non-trivial minority of people – are simply not feeling it like everyone else is…. ( I won’t put concrete numbers on how big that minority are…but of 2.3 million working adults in Ireland, ~300k work for major multinationals, and >70% of homes are owner occupied)