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NESC

National Economic and Social Council (NESC)

The National Economic and Social Council (NESC) was established in 1973. Its function is “to analyse and report to the Taoiseach on strategic issues relating to the efficient development of the economy and the achievement of social justice and the development of a strategic framework for the conduct of relations and negotiation of agreements between the government and the social partners.” 

NESC is chaired by the Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach and contains representatives of trade unions, employers, farmers’ organisations, NGOs, key government departments and independent experts. 

In 1986, the NESC formulated an agreed strategy “to escape from Ireland’s vicious circle of real stagnation, rising taxes and exploding debt”.That Strategy formed the basis upon which government and the social partners negotiated the Programme for National Recovery, to run from 1987 to 1990, and subsequent Agreements. 

 

NESC Reports related to Housing

 

The NESC Report Housing in Ireland: Performance and Policy (2004) offered a comprehensive examination of the Irish housing system. It set out a range of proposals, offering thematic approaches in relation to stability of the housing market, the degree of inequality in housing opportunities, the difficulties experienced during the housing boom, as well as the sustainability of existing settlement patterns and neighbourhoods developed in recent decades. The Report pointed out that a significant minority of households experienced affordability problems, while many were insulated from increasing property rises. 

 

Also of interest are the background papers:

 

In the NESC Report –The Developmental Welfare State, NESC argued that Ireland should aspire to create an effective and world-class set of institutions and policies in the social sphere.

 

The "Social Partnership Agreement Towards 2016" adopts the life cycle policymaking framework established inthisreport. This is still being implemented in State policy, although some of its commitments on wages and labourissues have not been honoured. As with previous social partnership agreements, the contemporary NESC Strategy,provided the background for the negotiations.  

 

"Towards 2016" set out 23 high level goals associated with a set of actions based on the NESC developmental welfare state approach. In relation to the housing goal, it set out a new approach to housing policy, with much new language,in Section 13 - "Housing Policy Framework – Building Sustainable Communities"

 

The Department of Environment Report, "Sustaining Homes, Building Communities—Statement of Housing Policy"(2007), endorsed the earlier NESC Report on housing in 2004. Reiterating the challenges set out in the NESC Report, this government report set out three key policy goals: building sustainable communities; responding to housing needs and delivering housing services efficiently and effectively. The Report also draws on the social partnership agreement and the NESC “vision of society".

 

The NESC Report released in 2009, "Ireland’s Five-Part Crisis: An Integrated National Response,"was presented to the social partners in the wake of the global economic slowdown and the collapse of the Irish property market in 2009 and identified the property bubble as a major cause of Ireland economic crisis. The Report accepts that its previous analysis of the housing system did not predict such a dramatic downturn, but maintains that the NESC vision and principles are still relevant. The Report points out that NESC had, in its housing study of 2004, advocated an element of active land management to meet the goals of housing policy, but this had been ignored by the Government.