It’s a common refrain, but the figures just don’t bear it out, writes Mick Byrne of the Dublin Tenants Association.
Author Archives: Mick Byrne
Dr Michael Byrne and Professor
Posted inOpinion
Mick, Michelle and Anna: Our Housing Policy Is Built on a False and Dangerous Premise
The idea that large social-housing developments are doomed to dystopia is rarely challenged. But it is wrong, write three housing experts.
Posted inOpinion
Mick: Perhaps the Government Doesn’t Want to Fix the Rental Sector
“If we look at the major policy initiatives over the last two years, it is hard to draw any other conclusion,” writes Mick Byrne.
Posted inOpinion
Mick: The Residential Tenancies Board Is a Good Idea, Flawed in Practice
Ultimately, the RTB is based on the logic that the most vulnerable actor within the rental sector – the tenant – should be tasked with ensuring landlords play by the rules. This simply does not work, writes Mick Byrne.
Posted inOpinion
Mick: Austerity Has Left Our City’s Infrastructure Creaking
The scaffolding of our city is suffering from systematic disinvestment, writes Mick Byrne, a researcher at UCD’s School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice.
Posted inOpinion
Mick: Housing Inequality Means Eternal Renting for Some, Profits for Others
Today, tenants in the private rented sector again find themselves at the sharp end of housing inequality, and again ignored by those whose decisions create that inequality.
Posted inOpinion
Mick: We Are Selling Off Social Housing and It’s Madness
Most debates about the housing crisis lead back to one place: the acute shortage of social housing. Tenant purchase schemes are making that shortage worse.
Posted inOpinion
Mick: How Finance is Shaping Dublin’s Ongoing Housing Crisis
What has been driving the housing crisis in Dublin is the absence of credit within Ireland’s financial system – in other words, from Irish banks, writes Mick Byrne, a researcher at UCD.
Posted inOpinion
Mick: Why Aren’t We Building More Housing in the Docklands?
We are witnessing another round of finance-driven urban development, a fact which speaks to the current poverty of imagination and ambition among those who hold the levers of power.