John’s changing the narrative

“Our traditional view of social housing is 30, 40, or 50 three bed semi-ds around the green.”

John O’Sullivan, Head of Tenant Experience with the approved housing body (AHB) Respond, said one of the organisation’s goals moving into the future is to move away from the historically narrow conception of what social housing has to be.

“There’s far more of a focus, and rightly so, on single-person accommodation, two-beds, three-beds, some fours. There’s a definite move towards apartment living,” he said.

O’Sullivan, a native of Cork, was recently awarded the Housing Professional of the Year award at the Chartered Institute of Housing’s All-Ireland Housing Awards 2026.

Starting his career as a case worker with Cork Simon, O’Sullivan spent five years there between 2002 and 2007. He then moved to Clúid Housing as a housing officer - and eventually manager - before going to Respond in 2020.

A big change he has noticed in approaches to social housing has been the increased provision of single-person accommodation.

He said previously, people who remained single throughout their lives often found themselves struggling to find accommodation, and when they did find it, it could often be of substandard quality.

“The flat above the chip shop kind of thing,” he said.

In the developments themselves, Respond’s focus has been on mixed-tenure, shared between social and private tenants.

This means one category isn’t given preference over another.

“Having that blend allows us the opportunity to deliver a tenure-blind service - everyone gets a really high level of service, regardless of their income, regardless of their personal circumstances,” he said.

A core outcome of this approach is to take away any negative connotations associated with social housing.

“By virtue of being a Respond tenant, you get a really great service, the same as if you were paying top dollar to a private landlord anywhere in the country,” he said.

The stress on the market nationally is something he said Respond has come into contact with, if not directly.

Last month, the Government introduced new rental regulations under the Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2026.

In the lead up to the act coming into force, a number of mass evictions have been attempted and carried out by private landlords around the country.

Small landlords have also allegedly been fleeing the market as a result of the changes.

O’Sullivan said while no Respond tenants have seen their tenure affected by the regulatory changes, what they have seen is an increase in applicants who have been given notice to quit by their landlords.

However, he said Respond’s approach is very simple with regard to tenure.

“The homes that we rent to people, they’re homes for life,” he said.

The accommodation Respond offers do not have end dates attached, and automatically become Part 6 tenancies under the new rules - tenancies with unlimited duration.

However, he said there is room to develop the existing regulations on what Respond offers.

One of the main challenges facing the housing market generally is volume and turnaround - both building enough accommodation and making sure the right accommodation is available where it’s needed.

“Sometimes we can forget that a social housing unit tends to be a home for life, the one you get is the one you stay in.

“The system is a little bit rigid with that.

“That is regardless of what happens to your family, obviously circumstances change, families grow or they shrink depending on people’s life stage.

“So having the ability to work more independently with that would be beneficial across the sector,” he said.

The other side of that, he said, is management of the social housing that is built.

“For me personally, being able to provide a really high quality of housing has not always been consistent in the provision of social housing in the past, so staying involved in the community is vital for us,” he said.