Ireland's Housing Crisis: A Marxist Analysis

Ireland did the impossible during the years of the credit crunch. With less than 1% of Europe's' population, it guaranteed 46% of the total European banking debt. The country was bankrupted and the economy controlled by a Troika of the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, who oversaw a decade of savage austerity. The claim now is that the programme of austerity was successful and that as a result Ireland has Europe's fastest growing economy. Yet today the country faces an avalanche of personal debt centred around mortgage debt, homelessness and an out of control rental sector. The contributors to this work argue that the austerity and the housing crisis are both facets of Ireland's dependent economy and that the housing question cannot be resolved without repudiating ongoing payment of sovereign debt.