The Making of a Crisis: A Qualitative Analysis of Social Housing Marketisation Policy in Ireland
(2025) WPMM42 20251Sociology
School of Social Work
Department of Sociology
- Abstract
- Social housing in Ireland has undergone several phases of transformation, including financial restructuring in the 1980s and severe retrenchment during the years of post-crash austerity. Concurrently, the overall housing sector has been defined by several ‘boom and bust’ crisis phases and is currently experiencing a housing crisis characterised by increasingly inflated property and rental prices, limited supply, and rising rates of homelessness. The State has recently committed to the intensification of social housing marketisation, through the expansion of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) which consolidates private rental subsidies as the
mechanism of choice for provision, in the policy ‘Rebuilding Ireland: Action Plan for Housing... (More) - Social housing in Ireland has undergone several phases of transformation, including financial restructuring in the 1980s and severe retrenchment during the years of post-crash austerity. Concurrently, the overall housing sector has been defined by several ‘boom and bust’ crisis phases and is currently experiencing a housing crisis characterised by increasingly inflated property and rental prices, limited supply, and rising rates of homelessness. The State has recently committed to the intensification of social housing marketisation, through the expansion of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) which consolidates private rental subsidies as the
mechanism of choice for provision, in the policy ‘Rebuilding Ireland: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness’ (2016). Using theories of liberal welfare regimes, neoliberalisation, and social rights, this thesis investigates the withdrawal by the State from direct provision of social housing, in favour of private market provision, in terms of (a) its consequences for the functionality of social housing and the broader housing sector and (b) the associated implications for housing as a social right and as a key form of welfare. Document analysis of the policy ‘Rebuilding Ireland’ finds that social housing marketisation can be understood as a reproductionof crises; the introduction of the precarities of the private rental sector (PRS) to social housing has created crisis conditions, which are reflected in outcomes such as increased levels of competition, risk individualisation, and financial and tenure insecurity, and marketisation also acts to amplify crisis tendencies in the overall housing market, which results in adverse societal outcomes such as homelessness. Ultimately, the use of the PRS as the mechanism of choice for social housing provision presents serious concerns for the functionality of social housing and, more broadly, for our understanding of housing as a key form of social welfare. (Less) - Popular Abstract
- Social housing in Ireland has traditionally been provided – meaning built and paid for – directly by the State. However, in recent years, how social housing is delivered has changed. Reforms to funding in the 1980s as well as huge cuts to social housing spending after the financial crash of 2008 have had harmful consequences for the social housing sector. At the same time, there have been several crises in the overall Irish housing sector; from the ‘Celtic Tiger’ boom, to the post-2008 housing market crash, to the most recent housing crisis, where being able to source and afford housing and rental accommodation is becoming increasingly difficult and homelessness rates are rising. Through the policy ‘Rebuilding Ireland’, and in particular... (More)
- Social housing in Ireland has traditionally been provided – meaning built and paid for – directly by the State. However, in recent years, how social housing is delivered has changed. Reforms to funding in the 1980s as well as huge cuts to social housing spending after the financial crash of 2008 have had harmful consequences for the social housing sector. At the same time, there have been several crises in the overall Irish housing sector; from the ‘Celtic Tiger’ boom, to the post-2008 housing market crash, to the most recent housing crisis, where being able to source and afford housing and rental accommodation is becoming increasingly difficult and homelessness rates are rising. Through the policy ‘Rebuilding Ireland’, and in particular the expansion of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP), the private rental sector (PRS) is now being promoted as the preferred provider for social housing. This means that, rather than the State mainly building social housing, they provide indirect social housing ‘support’ by paying a rent benefit to individuals who independently rent in the PRS – a process known as social housing ‘marketisation’. Using welfare regime theory, the concept of neoliberalisation, and the framing of housing as a social right, this thesis considers the relationship between this marketisation and the housing crisis. Document analysis of ‘Rebuilding Ireland’ finds that marketisation has serious implications for how social housing works, as well as having broader consequences for the housing crisis. The use of rent subsidies as social housing is associated with higher levels of risk and lower levels of security, and marketisation feeds crisis tendencies in the overall housing market. Based on these findings, this thesis argues that the promotion of marketisation as the primary means for social housing provision represents a threat to housing welfare and a key social right (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9190419
- author
- O'Doherty, Maeve Alice LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- WPMM42 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- marketisation, crisis, social housing, neoliberalisation, welfare, rights
- language
- English
- id
- 9190419
- date added to LUP
- 2025-07-14 10:26:58
- date last changed
- 2025-07-14 10:26:58
@misc{9190419,
abstract = {{Social housing in Ireland has undergone several phases of transformation, including financial restructuring in the 1980s and severe retrenchment during the years of post-crash austerity. Concurrently, the overall housing sector has been defined by several ‘boom and bust’ crisis phases and is currently experiencing a housing crisis characterised by increasingly inflated property and rental prices, limited supply, and rising rates of homelessness. The State has recently committed to the intensification of social housing marketisation, through the expansion of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) which consolidates private rental subsidies as the
mechanism of choice for provision, in the policy ‘Rebuilding Ireland: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness’ (2016). Using theories of liberal welfare regimes, neoliberalisation, and social rights, this thesis investigates the withdrawal by the State from direct provision of social housing, in favour of private market provision, in terms of (a) its consequences for the functionality of social housing and the broader housing sector and (b) the associated implications for housing as a social right and as a key form of welfare. Document analysis of the policy ‘Rebuilding Ireland’ finds that social housing marketisation can be understood as a reproductionof crises; the introduction of the precarities of the private rental sector (PRS) to social housing has created crisis conditions, which are reflected in outcomes such as increased levels of competition, risk individualisation, and financial and tenure insecurity, and marketisation also acts to amplify crisis tendencies in the overall housing market, which results in adverse societal outcomes such as homelessness. Ultimately, the use of the PRS as the mechanism of choice for social housing provision presents serious concerns for the functionality of social housing and, more broadly, for our understanding of housing as a key form of social welfare.}},
author = {{O'Doherty, Maeve Alice}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{The Making of a Crisis: A Qualitative Analysis of Social Housing Marketisation Policy in Ireland}},
year = {{2025}},
}