If you wonder if Sinn Féin’s housing policy will work, just look at what it has achieved in the North – The Irish Times

Sinn Féin launch Housing policy There have been some critical comparisons made in the Republic to the party’s performance in the Northern Frontier.

When Stormont is restored in 2020, Sinn Fein He chose the housing portfolio and then announced a plan to build 100,000 social and affordable homes over 15 years, the equivalent of 6,700 a year. Social housing starts have averaged 700 a year since then and could fall to as few as 400 this year because of the Sinn Féin Chancellor’s budget cuts, but the DUP is now responsible for housing. Total housing construction, public and private, is just over 5,000 a year, half the area’s needs.

But accelerating plans always took time, and much of that since 2020 has been disrupted by the pandemic and the collapse of the takeover system.

Some Sinn Féin representatives offered less plausible excuses, such as the mandatory coalition and the lack of tax-raising powers. While Stormont has extensive powers to levy property taxes, any Sinn Féin-led government in Dublin would likely be a coalition.

North-South comparisons tend to assume that Sinn Féin should be criticised for having different policies on either side of the Border. In reality, different policies are often appropriate. When Sinn Féin acts on them, that is progress, and there is a danger that this will be reversed if the party is forced to prioritise republican ideology over practical application.

Housing certainly requires different approaches. The Republic has a budget surplus that could be directed towards building social and affordable housing, which is at the heart of the Sinn Féin plan.

Stormont has no surplus, so Sinn Féin welcomed private finance and facilitated borrowing for the housing associations that built almost all of Northern Ireland’s social housing. Banks and insurers were quick to jump at the lending opportunity. While it would be more accurate to say that Sinn Féin approved rather than initiated long-standing proposals for borrowing, it did not block them on ideological grounds.

In the Republic, Sinn Féin wants student accommodation built by universities rather than “predatory funds”. In Belfast, where Sinn Féin is the largest party, it has rolled out the red carpet for private student accommodation. Sinn Féin is also happy to approve tenements, the best model for large residential buildings in Belfast, despite opposing them in Dublin. Belfast’s centre has been almost completely gutted since the outbreak of the Troubles, so there is a unique argument to develop it by any means available. Sinn Féin supports Northern Ireland’s housing co-ownership scheme but wants to scrap equivalent shared equity schemes in the Republic. These schemes subsidise demand, which is patently absurd. But Stormont funds co-ownership from a portion of its otherwise extremely difficult-to-spend budget, so Sinn Féin’s inconsistency is not as absurd as it seems.

( Can Sinn Féin make a real difference to the housing crisis?Opens in new window )

Northern Ireland is finally adopting developer quotas for social and affordable homes, 13 years after gaining the power to do so, and decades after the rest of the UK and Ireland. Belfast City Council is leading the way with a 20% quota. Sinn Féin is taking a two-speed approach to the policy, calling for the same quota in the Republic to be increased from 20% to 30%.

All housing development in Northern Ireland has been constrained by what the construction industry describes as its most serious problem, an overwhelmed sewer system. Planning approvals have come to a standstill in Belfast and most major cities. Sinn Féin is primarily responsible for the failure to adequately fund NI Water, the Stormont-owned water company, since it took over in 2007. The party has done so with one eye on the Republic, fearing criticism if it proposes any form of domestic water charges. It is part of a wider populist refusal to raise revenue or reform public services and control costs. So Sinn Féin has come up with a populist alternative – instead, contractors should pay.

The numbers add up for this. If Northern Ireland were to build all the housing it needed, as it did before the 2008 crash, NI Water’s additional long-term funding requirement would add £15,000 to the cost of a new home. That’s slightly more than the rise in prices over the last two years, largely thanks to shortages caused by an overburdened sewer system. Home buyers can also afford to pay extra and have homes to buy.

Work is ongoing behind the scenes on this issue. Developers could be charged for sewer connections and provide additional drainage and treatment facilities, but NI Water said it needed legal changes to effectively use a general levy.

Sinn Féin’s different approaches to housing are intriguing and evolving. Ultimately, they are about gaining power to advance a united Ireland, so it is somewhat perverse that there is little interest in policy details across the Border, north or south.