Surrealing in the Years: Housing plans will have us living like Bosco, if Bosco had roommates

WELL, LOOK. LEO Varadkar was never exactly known for a deft, diplomatic hand in bringing different classes of people together, was he?

Having made a name for himself as Minister for Social Expenditure with his infamous ‘Welfare Cheats Cheat Us All’ campaign, the former Taoiseach raised the hackles of many across Ireland this week by suggesting that taxes paid by those who live in urban areas subsidise the livelihoods of those who live and work in rural areas, particularly those in agriculture.

Just as the tensions around the Easter ‘fuel protests’ (protests which encompassed several other confusing, incoherent, and in many cases, clearly far-right agendas) had begun to simmer down, Leo Varadkar popped back up to tell the farmers that they should actually be more grateful for all the hard work done by us city-slickers. It went down precisely as well as you’d think.

Varadkar has since qualified the remarks, which didn’t work out for him either, as Independent Ireland TD Michael Fitzmaurice slammed him for dithering on his original comment. Speaking on Virgin Media’s Tonight Show this week, Fitzmaurice said: ‘If you say something and you believe in it, what are you apologising for? If he believes that, you stick your ground.’ And let’s be real here, Leo Varadkar does believe it, acknowledging only that he ‘went too far’ and maintaining that many of his points are still valid. 

Varadkar’s attitude is compatible with the philosophy of Fine Gael under his leadership and beyond. It’s a worldview that conceptualises us all as living in an economy, rather than a society. Rather than working together to bring about positive collective outcomes, we should be counting the beans on who owes what to whom, who’s working hard and who’s getting off too easily, who gets to be comfortable and who gets to be grateful.

Fine Gael leader and Tánaister Simon Harris disavowed Varadkar’s comments, saying that he doesn’t believe in dividing people… But just because Harris has a better knack for sounding sympathetic than Varadkar ever had doesn’t excuse this government from the steps it is taking to cement the income inequality that exists in Ireland, particularly as it pertains to housing. 

Harris labours under the same way of thinking that could lead a government to believe that allowing homeowners to rent out modular homes built in their back gardens, without even seeking planning permission or registering with the Residential Tenancy Board, will be perceived as good news by those facing down the housing and rental crises. The political ideology of the indignant workhouse foreman who says “More?!” when Oliver Twist asks for more. 

Part of the reason why this plan inspires so little positive feeling amongst the public is that it’s not really a plan at all. For example, if the government had instead announced something like: ‘We’re going to zone some land and build 5,000 small modular homes across Ireland, and then rent them out to applicants at a fair and affordable price, enabling them to live somewhere and save money’ then maybe people would be more likely to give the idea some consideration. It would create the impression that the state itself has some stake in whether or not people are able to find appropriate housing.

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Scrapping planning permission for modular homes in private back gardens creates the opposite impression. It does not suggest a game plan of any substance. It fosters a housing market that exists to cram workers into tight spaces at exorbitant rents that can be extracted by the more fortunate classes. It contributes to an atmosphere of desperation that is especially advantageous to those who would exploit the circumstances for their own gain.

We already know well that these people are among us. Even in more traditional, tightly regulated rental accommodation, one does not have to look too far to find abuses of the system. 

This week, it was revealed by reporting in The Journal that a converted office on Clare Street was currently housing, in some cases, four people to a room at a cost of between €690 and €790 a month, plus a flat rate of €100 in bills. The landlord in this case, Nicholas Toppin, justified these conditions by arguing that “it’s a very difficult time in Ireland to make money”. He’s not wrong, but it would be a more compelling argument coming from the people paying nearly a grand a month to sleep six inches from a stranger, rather than from the guy who’s taking the money from them. 

Against a backdrop where something like this can happen, how on earth is any prospective renter supposed to feel comforted by the knowledge that virtually anybody, with virtually no oversight, can build a box in their back garden and charge god only knows how much for someone to sleep there? How long before we have four people crammed into a box 45 square metres? Reduced to living like Bosco, except that Bosco didn’t have roommates, as far as I can recall. 

This state of affairs on its own is disheartening enough, but what makes it all the more painful is the knowledge that there are people out there who really do see it as: “Well, maybe tenants should be more grateful that there are all of these landlords out there willing to do their bit and make their useless, empty, converted office space available”. 

Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns characterised the scrapping of planning permission for these modular homes as little more than ‘throwing renters to the wolves,’ though, at this point, there are probably thousands of renters who’d just as soon take their chances with the wolf instead of another opportunistic landlord. After all, if the story about the three little pigs is to be believed, and I can think of no reason to doubt it, then wolves and opportunistic landlords can each be defeated by the same thing: well-made and accessible housing. 

If there is comfort to be taken from the last few weeks, it is that those who are outraged by this state of affairs have been offered a playbook. The interest groups representing agricultural contractors, farmers and hauliers got a rescue package of €505 million from the government after they shut down roads, affecting public transport, health appointments and other essential goings on.

Granted, one can’t assume that the government or the Gardaí would treat housing protests with the same patience as most of the fuel protestors got, but it would be a fascinating stress test of the Irish state’s capacity to answer for the crisis it has spent the last ten years so meticulously maintaining. 

There is little suggestion that any such protest movement is about to emerge, or that the same forces who so vociferously demanded that the cost of fuel be lowered feel the same way about the cost (and thereby supply) of housing. 

Until the same kind of pressure is brought to bear on the government in terms of housing supply, it seems we can all get back in our box. Literally. 

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