The Workers Party is committed to:

• Large scale construction of local authority owned housing through a state construction company and direct labour schemes.
• Allocating the necessary resources to local authorities for an immediate and substantial programme of social housing construction.
• Establishing housing as a basic and essential human right. Without fair access to suitable housing the supposed rights to family life, to healthcare, and to education are hollow.
• Ensuring that planning should provide the transport links, childcare facilities, local amenities, and stability that allows for vibrant and inclusive communities.
• Strictly controlling the price of building land. For almost five decades successive governments have refused to implement the recommendation of the Kenny Report.
• Guaranteeing that all housing built must reach the highest international building standards.
• Strengthening and enforcing the Derelict Sites Act so as to stop dereliction and speed up the regeneration of brown field sites.
• Implementing a windfall tax on all profits from land rezoning. • Ending the privatisation of social housing.
• Ending all property related tax incentives as these have proven to be economically disastrous for this country.

The Private Rented Sector

There is a crisis in the private rented sector of the housing market. Thousands of individuals and families are being forced into this market by the refusal of successive governments to invest in social housing and by the policy of the deliberate sell-off and run down of local authority housing stocks. The Workers Party believes that individuals and families in the private rented sector are entitled to decent living conditions, fair rent, protection against exorbitant rent increases, security of tenure, and protection of deposits against illegal or unjust deductions. In government the Workers Party would:

• End the subsidy to private landlords by the phasing out of rent supplement and its replacement by local authority owned property.
• Implement a comprehensive package of measures to ensure that tenants in private rented accommodation have fair rents, security of tenure, decent standards and conditions.
• Immediately legally implement deposit protection by ensuring that all deposits are held by an independent body like the PTRB in an independent and self-financing fund.
• Introduce legislation to control not only rent increases within tenancies but also between tenancies and set out clear guidelines by which rent levels can be established. This must be accompanied by legislation to ensure security of tenure for tenants whose properties are being sold as a result of landlord mortgage arrears.

Northern Ireland

There is, and has been for some time, a serious housing crisis in Northern Ireland. The formation of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) in 1971 was one of the early, and significant gains, of the campaign for civil rights. The Executive took over sole responsibility for the building, allocation, maintenance and upgrading of public housing. It was a landmark decision which was to have a profound and positive social impact.

In less than twenty years the NIHE had transformed the public housing stock in Northern Ireland with a portfolio of over 80,000 homes and providing financial assistance and grants to upgrade homes and those deemed unfit for purpose.

In 2002 the Stormont Executive revoked the NIHE’s role as sole public housing provider and transferred those powers to private housing associations – a joint enterprise between the DUP and Sinn Fein as they sought to deregulate and privatise the housing sector.

At that point there were 25,000 people on the housing waiting list. In 2024 there are more than 45,000. Almost half are officially in housing stress and almost 16,000 are officially homeless. In 2023 local Housing Associations had set themselves a target of starting to build around 2,000 houses. Only 570 were built.

But housing is about much more than bricks and mortar. Good quality, affordable housing has a significant bearing on our health, our wellbeing, our life chances and our job prospects. Yet, under the capitalist economy, it is treated as a commodity, is even called a ‘housing market’ and this basic human right is exploited as yet another opportunity to accumulate capital and make profit for the few while failing to guarantee the construction and maintenance of acceptable and affordable housing.

Sectarianism also plays a role in the housing crisis. Over 90% of families in public housing live in segregated areas. Sectarian trade-offs between political parties further exacerbate the crisis and the housing shortage.

The development at the former Girwood army base and the stifling of shared housing on the former Mackies site, both in Belfast, are cases in point. Only when sectarian parties and paramilitaries are forced to end their dictating of the geography of Northern Ireland can any real progress be made. The State has a clear responsibility to all of its citizens to ensure that, not only is housing provided, but that it is accessible, affordable, of high quality and meets the physical, emotional and recreational needs of the population.

What progressive forces there are in our society should be coalescing around a basic set of demands.

Immediate Housing Priorities for Northern Ireland

• The building of at least 6,000 units of public housing in Belfast alone, in the next four years
• An immediate cap on rents in the private rented sector
• The re-establishment of the NI Housing Executive as the lead housing body
• A comprehensive and effective homelessness strategy
• A qualified, low interest, Government mortgage scheme for owner occupiers to replace the exploitative profiteering of the big six banks and the buy to profit landlords.