Pro tip for local election candidates trying to get national media coverage: It’s very hard, but try and say something new and interesting in your press release. One person who managed that yesterday was an independent candidate running in Wicklow by the name of Rob Carry, who is a self-described “Independent Nationalist” candidate who was once a member of Sinn Fein. Here’s what he has to say for himself. Emphasis mine:
Carry believes measures similar to those used to guide planning decisions on one-off rural housing should be adopted in social housing allocation: “In order to be considered for permission to build a one-off home in rural Wicklow you will have to show long-standing and deep ties to the area,” Carry explained.
The guidelines on one-off rural housing in the county are detailed in the Wicklow County Council Pre-Planning Guide No.1. The guidelines recognise the ‘need for residential development to house those who are indigenous to and/or have a bona fide necessity to live in the rural area’. They state that applicants can apply by demonstrating ‘strong linkages to the area in which you want to build. This will usually mean either a strong family linkage or a need to live in the area because of your employment.’
In other words, the planning regulations in Wicklow say that you can’t build a one-off rural house in that neck of the woods unless you can demonstrate long-standing local and family ties to the area. But the social housing regulations place no such requirements on people applying to avail of council housing in Wicklow. That, says Mr. Carry, is an aberration and it should be fixed.
Now of course, you could fix it in either direction: You could simply allow whoever wanted to buy a site in Wicklow and build to do so, and then there’d be no contradiction. Or, as Carry suggests, you could prioritise locals for social housing.
To do such a thing would, no doubt, be wildly popular. And there is, of course, a strong moral case for it: Social housing in most areas is paid for at least in part by taxes paid by local people, often over generations. Councils are funded by local property taxes, rates on business, and a subvention from central government, so a substantial portion of their funding comes from “people with long-standing ties to the area”.
It should also be noted that such a set of regulations would only apply to social housing, just as the regulations in rural areas only apply to new housing – for example, my wife and I are blow-ins to North Tipperary, and would not have been permitted to build a one-off rural house here. We were, however, permitted to buy one that had already been built.
This is important because one obvious argument against Carry’s idea is that restricting housing to locals would, in the long term, cause any community to stagnate. New people coming to an area, in a proportionate and sustainable way, is no bad thing. There’s an argument that locking newbies out of local housing is a bad idea in the long term.
But this would be social housing. Subsidised housing. There would be nothing stopping an immigrant to Wicklow – whether they come from India or Enniskillen – buying themselves a home there or renting one on the open market. Carry’s going after the people who come to an area and seek social, or council housing.
The left, obviously, will argue that such a restriction explicitly discriminates against the poorest migrants, and to some extent it does – but the other way of looking at this is that it would be the local council discriminating in favour of needy people in their own area. In other words, the choice isn’t between rich migrants and poor migrants, but between poor migrants and poor locals. In such circumstances, Carry is saying, poor locals should win out. I suspect many locals would agree with him – and not just in Wicklow.
Of course, for it to be consistently applied, such a policy would also have to apply to Irish people, and that’s where the problems might arise in enacting it. How do you define long-standing ties to an area? Does, for example, somebody who moved from Donegal to Bray in 1992 and who suddenly finds themselves homeless have to go back to Donegal for housing because that’s where their family lives? How many generations back do “local ties to an area” cover?
This is how that’s dealt with when it comes to rural housing:
“Local authorities often consider factors such as family ties to the area, involvement in local activities (like parish or sporting clubs), and a history of residence in the locality.
The key is to demonstrate a genuine and ongoing connection to the area, which is more than just owning land or having relatives in the vicinity.
Examples of accepted local needs might include working locally in a manner that necessitates living in the area or taking care of family members residing there.”
That should, you’d think, cover the fella from Donegal.
Anyway, as I said, this is an interesting idea from Mr. Carry. As to whether the voters endorse him and it on June 7th, we shall soon find out.