Irish housing policy, citizenship and Limerick regeneration

Housing is one of the most basic human rights for all citizens. It provides a safe and secure place to live and leads to access to other rights, the right to health, education and privacy. This article will focus on the states' participation in housing policy in Ireland. It will show how the state has come full circle since the l920s when the introduction of large housing estates were created to clear the city slums through the sale of social housing that promoted home ownership that exists to date. It will address issues of inequality through these policies that leads to reduced citizenship and social exclusion of this minority group of social housing tenants. It will address regeneration in Limerick and show that regeneration has not aided the residents of the Limerick estates of Southill, Ballinacurra Weston, Moyross and St Marys Park but has added to the residualisation of the estates. Houses in these estates are not up for sale but are up for regeneration. It will conclude that the state through the promotion of home ownership, the surrender grant and the many tax incentives over the years have led to the serious problems present today in social housing. The state has unintentionally come full circle and has returned these estates in a sense to the slum like conditions of the l920s. The state by placing market value ahead of citizens needs has created a divided society of those who can afford housing and those who cannot (Drudy and Punch 2005).