Affordability and access to Irish housing: trends, policy and prospects

Abstract

This paper begins by tracking the emergence of housing affordability as a policy issue, before reviewing trends in private and social housing output , contrasting the fonunes of the private and social housing sectors over the recent past. Attention then turns to trends in house price innation with the key issue of access to housing being considered before an examination of how new entrants to owner occupation overcome the price barrier of accessing home ownership. Housing affordability and access to rental housing is then considered prior to a discussion of the policy responses to affordability issues and the relationship between housing affordability and social exclusion. The paper concludes with an argument for a more sophisticated understanding of affordabi lily which encompasses sustainability and addresses diminished access to housing as an issue of social exclusion rather than simply the house price issue.