Beware SF’s track record on housing

Despite the party presenting itself as a champion for affordable homes, Sinn Féin’s track record in government in NI is nothing to write home about

Parties seeking power make extravagant promises. When voters consider a party that has never previously been in a country’s government, they are at a disadvantage. Voters have to weigh up the credibility of the promises and the people making them, but without any track record of how that party handled power the last time.

With Sinn Féin, there is a unique way in which the party’s grand promises can be tested. Having governed in Belfast for the best part of 20 years, we have substantial evidence of how Sinn Féin handles power — and southern voters should study that track record.

In the south, Sinn Féin promises to deliver “the biggest council-led house building programme the State has ever seen”. It is this pledge which will be central to the next general election; if voters believe it, Mary Lou McDonald is almost certain to lead the biggest party in the next Dáil. If they don’t believe it, the outcome of the election becomes far less certain.

Writing in this newspaper last Sunday, Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Broin set out the scale of the housing crisis and — as a good opposition would be expected to do — put the blame at the feet of the Government. Implicating the new Taoiseach, he wrote: “Is it any wonder that Simon Harris has nothing to say about housing? He has been in cabinet for the last eight years, during which time the housing crisis has gone from bad to worse.” We can expect to hear that argument repeatedly over the coming months.

Many desperate people will be receptive to it. The housing market has become so grossly unfair, and the ruling parties have proved so ineffective, that it is understandable why people from all backgrounds, even if they aren’t natural Sinn Féin voters, would consider switching to the party.

Housing is one of the most basic human needs, but also involves aspiration and prosperity. If a party can get you a roof over your head, or the chance to buy your own home at a less than exorbitant price, or the chance to use your pension for something other than subsidising your children to buy into this failing system, that party is likely to become popular.

Sinn Féin says it is “determined to end Ireland’s shameful housing and homeless crises”. That is not just laudable, but ought to be at the heart of every party’s manifesto.

This is not just about politics, but about morality and even patriotism. It is shameful that a nation of modern Ireland’s extreme wealth is unable to provide homes that its citizens can afford.

But this is where Sinn Féin’s track record in the North should be a warning to southern voters eager to believe McDonald entering government would mean rents and house prices tumbling. In government at Stormont, Sinn Féin has been relentlessly populist. It’s not alone and so can’t be solely blamed for the ensuing problems, but it’s been at the forefront of stupid policies that have made so many public services in the North worse.

This has a specific application to the housing crisis because populism and an unprecedented house-building programme are uneasy bedfellows. Building houses is popular for those needing houses, but often deeply unpopular for those living where they are being built.

If this was easy, it would have happened by now. Successive governments have known this was hurting them politically; even the most feckless politicians act out of self-interest.

Yet the problem has gotten worse. That alludes to the complexity of the difficulty.

Building houses on the scale Sinn Féin promises would involve a host of interlocking government policies — the labour market, planning law, the relationship between central and local government, environmental policies and the other infrastructure needed to connect new homes to other public services.

Yet in Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin is key to creating a housing crisis that isn’t yet manifesting itself in obscene house prices, but in time will do so. Sinn Féin has repeatedly blocked, and last week emphasised it will continue to block, water charges.

That is a perfectly reasonable political position, if accompanied by the acceptance that money for water infrastructure will have to come from elsewhere. Sinn Féin, however, has refused to bow to a basic linkage between taxation and expenditure. Instead, the party just blames the British government for not sending an even bigger cheque for them to spend.

This has been disastrous, meaning some money has been taken from health, education and other public services to make up some of the shortfall, but it’s not enough. Now there are large swathes of Northern Ireland in which no houses can be built because the sewerage system is already beyond capacity.

The Construction Employers Federation says 19,000 homes can’t be built for this reason. Last year saw a 60-year low in new housebuilding in Northern Ireland. That’s not a statistic you’ll find on Sinn Féin’s southern election literature.

Party has repeatedly blocked, and will continue to block, water charges

Raising more money for water infrastructure doesn’t have to be about privatisation — something that has been deeply problematic in Britain and is ill-suited to such a crucial public service. Mutualisation, whereby the public own NI Water, is a more creative option, but last week Sinn Féin infrastructure minister

John O’Dowd ruled that out.

O’Dowd said this would mean

“you end up charging hard-pressed workers and families directly for water charges”. This ignored those who aren’t far-pressed. What about those driving Ferraris around Belfast? Bizarrely, successive Sinn Féin finance ministers have forced the poorest homeowners to subsidise the tax bills of those in the grandest mansions.

Two days after O’Dowd ruled out dramatic changes to water funding, the Utility Regulator, who independently assesses what NI Water needs, set out what this failure means: there is a 40pc shortfall in the spending required on sewerage to achieve environmental wastewater targets.

The outcome is suitably disgusting. Much of Lough Neagh has been turned into a foul open-air toilet into which agricultural waste, which Stormont encouraged, is flushed, and where 200,000 tonnes of sewage are dumped annually. It’s also the lake from which 40pc of Northern Ireland’s drinking water is drawn.

Everyone makes mistakes, but on the evidence from Belfast, Sinn Féin isn’t just failing to learn from these mistakes, it is making a bad situation worse.