The 1966 Housing Act allowed public housing tenants in Ireland to purchase their homes, and by the early 1990s 220,000 of 330,000 public housing units had been sold to tenants. In the 1970s, the average building society mortgage turned over every 10 years, allowing people to buy multiple homes in their lifetime. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, various policies encouraged home ownership and the mortgage market expanded beyond building societies to include commercial banks. By 1991/92, owner-occupancy in Ireland peaked at 79%.

35. 1966 Housing Act
- allowed local authority tenants in urban
areas to purchase their homes
- by the early 1990s, 220,000 of the
330,000 public housing units in the state had
been sold to tenants

36. From a housing market to a mortgage market
“One of the old ghosts in the residential market was laid to rest this week by Mr.
Edmund Farrell, chairman of the Irish Permanent Building Society, when he
revealed that the purchase of a new home is not necessarily the biggest single
lifetime investment – simply because the average building society mortgage has
itself a lifetime of only about ten years.
The significance of this information is considerable, and it does much to explain the
frenzy of activity both in the residential market and in the £150 million Irish building
societies’ movement. If the average mortgage is ‘turned over’ once in a decade, the
average man can buy not one, but two or three different homes in his working life.”
Irish Times, 10 February 1973.

37. 1974 Kenny Report
1975 – Commercial banks enter the mortgage market on a wide scale
1984 Surrender Grant Scheme
1988 – Section 23 Tax Relief reintroduced
1988 – Local autorities bow out of residential mortgage provision
1991/92 – high-point of owner-occupancy in Ireland – 79 per cent.
1999 – Rural Renewal Scheme – Shannon area

51. [Lehman collapse, 15 September 2008 - headlines 16 Sep 2008]

71. Rather than being a modest helper to the capital
accumulation process, [finance] gradually turned
into a driving force. Speculative finance became a
kind of secondary engine for growth given the
weakness in the primary engine, productive
investment.

72. Rather than being a modest helper to the capital
accumulation process, [finance] gradually turned
into a driving force. Speculative finance became a
kind of secondary engine for growth given the
weakness in the primary engine, productive
investment.
The result was an acceleration of the process of debt
build-up – going beyond mere speculative orgies
that historically came at the peak of business cycles,
becoming instead a permanent, institutionalized
feature of the economy.

73. Rather than being a modest helper to the capital
accumulation process, [finance] gradually turned
into a driving force. Speculative finance became a
kind of secondary engine for growth given the
weakness in the primary engine, productive
investment.
The result was an acceleration of the process of debt
build-up – going beyond mere speculative orgies
that historically came at the peak of business cycles,
becoming instead a permanent, institutionalized
feature of the economy.
The search by capital for profitable outlets for its
surplus despite the stagnation of investment
opportunities within production, coupled with the
belief that asset prices as a whole went only one way
– up – generated a secular financial explosion. (p.18)

75. Financialization refers to the increasing
importance of financial markets,
financial motives, financial institutions
and financial elites in the operation of
the economy and its governing
institutions, both at the national and
international levels.
Gerald Epstein (2002) Financialization, Rentier Interests,
and Central Bank Policy’

76. “In the case of the United States,
financialization during the 1990s led to a closer
alignment of large industrial and financial firms
in the U.S., leading to a greater emphasis by
Alan Greenspan and the U.S. Federal Reserve
in financial asset appreciation as a goal of
monetary policy.”
Gerald Epstein (2002) ‘Financialization, Rentier
Interests, and Central Bank Policy ‘

81. “As understood by the Financial Regulator, ‘principles-based’
regulation relied very heavily on making sure that appropriate
governance structures and systems were in place in banks and
building societies.
Honohan Report on the Irish banking crisis, May 2010, p.44.

82. “As understood by the Financial Regulator, ‘principles-based’
regulation relied very heavily on making sure that appropriate
governance structures and systems were in place in banks and
building societies.
To this extent, the underlying philosophy was oriented towards
trusting a properly governed firm; it was potentially only a short
step from that trust to the emergence of a somewhat diffident
attitude on the part of the regulators so far as challenging the
decisions of firms was concerned.
Honohan Report on the Irish banking crisis, May 2010, p.44.

83. “As understood by the Financial Regulator, ‘principles-based’
regulation relied very heavily on making sure that appropriate
governance structures and systems were in place in banks and
building societies.
To this extent, the underlying philosophy was oriented towards
trusting a properly governed firm; it was potentially only a short
step from that trust to the emergence of a somewhat diffident
attitude on the part of the regulators so far as challenging the
decisions of firms was concerned.
[Also], legislation set as a statutory objective of the [central
bank and financial regulator] the promotion of the financial
services industry in Ireland, the situation was ripe for the
emergence of a rather accommodating stance vis-à-vis credit
institutions.”
Honohan Report on the Irish banking crisis, May 2010, p.44.

88. One company –
200 employees
One employee–
200 companies