All Aboard, The Housing List

December 11, 2024

People might assume the housing list functions in a straight forward manner. That it is primarily a supply side problem, with the ball firmly resting in the so-called Government of Ireland’s court.

The assumption might be that once you are on the housing list it is simply a waiting game. Eventually you will receive a council house or council flat at some future point.

For the rest who cannot wait and are able, they can seek other routes via private housing market be it renting and/or buying. Yet those who may never have a hope but can wait have at least, the prospect of being housed off the local housing list eventually.

Therefore it would seem any delay in social housing provision to those most in need must be due to a lack of supply. Then, if the so-called Government of Ireland (including Local Government) built more social housing this would solve the primary bottleneck.

In simple terms that may have been the case decades past and then sometimes not, but as Cllr Malchy Steenson pointed out, “when we were stupider and didn’t go to college” or words to that affect, we seemed to know how to build housing and house ourselves.

What has changed?

Many things have changed which means the Housing list is not the full story anymore and when it is considered in simpler or former terms it can be more frustrating to understand, especially if you are on the list or are considering getting aboard the list.

Cllr Qunilan’s question was like asking a Bus employee when the next bus was due only to be told in no uncertain terms that such information was not only irrelevant, but could be dangerous if known to the travelling public at large.

The Best Years Of Your Life

To only look at the housing list is like looking at a Buses passing you by permanently full on route – it will only tell you so much.

The social housing adventures of the state have become a very complex enterprise indeed.

Making it harder to encapsulate what it is achieving using the housing list as the functional core of the social housing system. So focusing on what we think we know, i.e. the “housing list” is normal, but after the Fingal council chamber collapsed under the weight off one simple question from Cllr Patrick Quinlan about the housing list something clicked.

A realisation occurred that to understand better the housing list can be achieved if we see it as analogous to a bus route. You are on an over crowded bus and you have no clue when you will arrive home – This is the housing prospect for thousands of Irish people in Ireland, lucky enough to be on the housing list, as well as the thousands of non-irish people too.

Irish people especially those in Dublin probably grew up on a regular bus route. Since families did not move house often, growing up you may have spent the best years of your life on the same bus route.

The route itself might have changed little and when it did usually not without resistance. The bus route was more or less statically incorporated into your daily life. You might even have encountered your future husband or wife standing at a bus stop, anything could happen since the route like a virtual street, made it’s way through expansive residential areas nowhere fast.

Bus routes usually had a terminus but the majority of passengers disembarked before then.

If you found yourself at the terminus it was probably because you fell asleep. Only to be woken up by the driver who was probably eager to get the bus back to garage so to be home in time for tea. Either of two minds to drop you on the way or boot you off the bus there and then. The Nitelink was the most perilous of any bus service for this to happen, those that know, know.

Some find that huge numbers of people have been on the housing list for over 7 years along with thousands still waiting whole parts of their lives to arrive at their final destination with no exact knowledge of when or where that will be – This is a long time to be stuck on a bus.

Source: Summary of Social Housing Assessments 2023

The others have been on the bus but for a few hours, weeks or even months in relative terms. While a lot have come and gone. More arrive hoping to get a seat on the housing list bus. That will in the future transport them to a place called home.

The Bus Queue

What has occurred on the housing list bus route, mainly unnoticed; are new added stops (outcomes), extra bus lanes (poaching private housing for public social housing needs), transfers to other routes (other lists) making it more a spaghetti junction of public and private (operators) interests intersecting with the politically marketed hope of delivering a cohesive social housing policy under the Housing For All (The World) banner.

Include in that picture more people than ever eligible for a ticket to get on the housing list bus.

The National Housing “Bus queue” is substantial. There are 58,824 households in the queue as per the 2023 reported figures.

This is why the housing list is not the full story but a Central Station of sorts. One full of passengers waiting to journey one of many routes leading to a social housing support destination (outcome) for all, which is beginning to leave many Irish people wondering when they do arrive at a home themselves, will it be in a place they called Ireland.

Need a Ticket for the Housing List Bus

You are encouraged to register to vote but register to be housed?

It is the first thing you should have done when you turned 18.

All Irish people eligible should register their housing need onto the housing list as soon as possible. It is after-all open to the world therefore it has become more important than ever to register.

Below are links to the relevant local councils. If you find a link not working or pointing to the wrong place then ping @IreladnIsFull twitter account: