ABSTRACT
In Ireland, the promotion of home ownership has been evident for many years. Polices such as the abolition of residential rates in 1978, the abolition in 1994 of a residential property tax which had been introduced in 1984, the absence of capital gains tax on the sale of the households principal residence, no stamp duty on new houses for owner occupiers, interest relief on mortgage repayments, a first-time buyers grant (which was abolished in 2002), a generous tenant purchase scheme for local authority tenants, grants offered to local authority tenants for the surrender of their dwelling and moving to owner occupation, all testify to the centrality of promoting owner occupation over the past thirty years (National Economic and Social Council, 1988; Downey, 2003). As Table 13.1 shows, collectively these policies have aided the expansion of homeownership to the point where almost 80 per cent of households own their own home, one of the highest rates in the European Union (European Union, 2002). The encouragement of owner occupation has been seen as a political and social priority by successive governments, and while there may have been differing emphases on the degree to which this should be promoted and conversely, the degree to which other housing tenures should be encouraged, no government in the past 30 years has seriously articulated, still less promoted, an alternative to the domination of home ownership. As a result, social rented housing and private renting have very much taken a secondary role in housing provision and housing policy (Drudy and Punch, 2001, 2002).
