International Social Housing Festival 2025 - Creating Social Impact for Dublin
The International Social Housing Festival 2025 in Dublin demonstrated how business events can drive social impact by centering tenant voices, fostering collaboration, and influencing housing policy through storytelling. The event delivered both economic benefits (€3M impact) and lasting social outcomes, including increased awareness of tenant experiences and a replicable model for community-engaged, impact-driven conferences.
Destination Profile
About Ireland
Ireland is a world-class destination. It is defined by its deep 5,000-year history, lush landscapes, and winding rivers. The authority actively organizes the country into four vibrant regional experiences: Wild Atlantic Way, Ireland's Ancient East, Ireland's Hidden Heartlands, and Dublin, the capital city.
Destination Organization
Geographical Location
Ireland is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean in Northwestern Europe.
Destination Population Size
5,458,600
Organization Budget Size
0
Destination Challenge
In 2025 Ireland unveiled a bold new vision for its business events sector with the launch of Business Events 2030; a national strategy that represents a fundamental shift in how Ireland approaches business events. Business Events 2030 is a product of collaboration between the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Fáilte Ireland, Tourism Ireland and industry leaders. The social ambition of Business Events 2030 is clear: to build stronger communities — locally, sectorally, and nationally — by making a positive impact on host communities, delivering long-term legacy benefits for sectoral networks and contributing to national goals and objectives.
The International Social Housing Festival 2025 (ISHF) embodies this ambition. As Fáilte Ireland’s first intentional impact pilot project, ISHF showcased how business events can serve as catalysts for social change. Hosted by the Irish Council for Social Housing (ICSH) and supported by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Co-operative Housing Ireland, and Housing Europe, the festival created a powerful platform to amplify tenant voices and strengthen collaboration across the sector.
The Project
The International Social Housing Festival (ISHF) welcomed over 2,300 delegates to the Convention Centre Dublin in June 2025, bringing with it an opportunity for Ireland to contribute to Housing Europe’s mission - to provide access to affordable, quality, and decent housing for all across Europe. The Irish Council for Social Housing (ICSH), partnered with Fáilte Ireland, the National Tourism Development Authority, on an intentional impact project to define, implement and measure the positive impact of the International Social Housing Festival, and to leverage the opportunities that the event brought to Ireland.
The event’s central theme, “Storytelling,” transformed Dublin into a living laboratory for housing innovation and social dialogue, and underscored the power of lived experiences in shaping housing policy and practice. The festival was hosted across multiple venues, including community housing developments, civic spaces, and university campuses, each highlighting Ireland’s diverse housing ecosystem. As a core element of the ISHF intentional impact project, the Irish Council for Social Housing (ICSH) aimed to centre the voice of the tenant at ISHF 2025 by adopting a principle of “not about us without us”, demonstrating the power of lived experience. In advance of the event, a broad group of stakeholders were consulted to co-create the impact project, ensuring that impact goals were aligned with stakeholder interests as well as national priorities. The impact intention defined by the stakeholders was to "Increase awareness and understanding of tenant perspectives to help support more tenant centered decision making by social housing organisations in the future."
The group set out to achieve the following short-term outcomes.
1. Delegates to increase awareness of tenant experiences
2. Tenants to be given a platform to share their stories
3. Shift in perceptions of social housing In alignment with the festival’s theme of Storytelling, an Oral History Exhibition titled from “House to Home” was curated, and situated at the entrance of the Convention Centre Dublin, featuring personal narratives from individuals living in social housing in Dublin.
Six tenants gave their personal accounts and experiences, empowering them to share their insights and allowing them to access a platform where they could feel heard. Delegates actively engaged with their stories, thereby increasing awareness and shifting perceptions.
Results and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Economic Impact
1.
The influx of over 2,350 delegates from 48 countries generated an approximate economic impact of €3m for Dublin,
benefiting local businesses, venues, hotels, restaurants, and services.
2.
The project accelerated Ireland–Europe knowledge exchange, positioning Dublin as a hub for social housing innovation.
3.
Dublin’s visibility increased through media and digital reach, including online publications and social media.
4.
Evidence from the impact project supports Fáilte Ireland’s Business Events 2030 strategy and assists future bids for high impact association conferences.
Social Impact
1.
The festival actively involved the local community, including tenants, service users, children’s choirs and advocacy groups.
2.
The Oral Histories project engaged tenants, allowing them to share their experiences and contribute to the festival’s content and insights. This initiative sought to create impact by raising awareness of tenant experiences, fostering improvement ideas, and influencing housing policies.
3.
At a European level, a living library of oral histories and an oral history toolkit will be shared with future ISHF host cities to shape discussions across Housing Europe member countries, and beyond.
4.
The Oral Histories Exhibition created a replicable national asset adopted by the Irish Council for Social Housing and used at multiple Irish conferences post-event.
5.
Ireland demonstrated a model for cross-government collaboration between the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, local authorities, Approved Housing Bodies, and community partners.
6.
Ireland strengthened its positioning as a European leader in housing policy debates.
Lessons Learned
1. Planning for the International Social Housing Festival began 12 months in advance—seemingly a generous timeline. However, as is often the case with large-scale events, time accelerated quickly as the delivery date approached. Impact-led initiatives require sustained, long-term thinking, while conference delivery demands agility and responsiveness in the short term.
2. The festival brought together a diverse set of stakeholders, each with distinct expectations and objectives. Aligning these perspectives with the overarching goals of the impact programme required careful communication and collaboration. While this added complexity, it ultimately fostered a sense of shared ownership and strengthened partnerships across the ecosystem.
Actionable Advice
1.
Start early and plan in advance. Begin planning well in advance (ideally 12–18 months out), but recognise that timelines will compress as the event approaches. Build in clear milestones that separate long-term impact planning from short-term delivery. This helps maintain momentum on both fronts as pressure increases closer to the event.
2.
Embed the impact project in the overall planning - Acknowledge early that impact initiatives require dedicated time and effort alongside core conference planning. Be intentional in allocating budget, team capacity, and ownership. Treat the impact project as an integrated priority—not an “add-on”—to ensure it receives the focus it needs to succeed.
3.
Prioritise and Stay Flexible - Expect competing priorities and shifting demands. Establish clear decision-making frameworks to help balance operational needs with impact ambitions. Flexibility is key—being able to adapt while staying aligned to your overall purpose will strengthen delivery.
4.
Cocreate with key stakeholders – Engage early and clearly communicate the vision and benefits of the impact initiative and create opportunities for collaboration and co-creation. Building shared ownership not only eases delivery but also enhances the long-term legacy of the project.
5.
Redefine How You Measure Success - Go beyond traditional event metrics. While attendance and satisfaction are important, also identify ways to capture less tangible outcomes such as partnerships formed, ideas generated, and actions inspired. Consider follow-up mechanisms to track longer-term impact where possible.
Top Takeaways
One of the biggest lessons for the project team was the power of involving the community from the very beginning. When we brought a diverse group of stakeholders into the initial workshops, it completely changed the direction of the project—in a good way. It meant we were building something that reflected the needs of the ecosystem, and it helped us get early buy-in from stakeholders.
Ireland
Ireland is a world-class destination. It is defined by its deep 5,000-year history, lush landscapes, and winding rivers. The authority actively organizes the country into four vibrant regional experiences: Wild Atlantic Way, Ireland's Ancient East, Ireland's Hidden Heartlands, and Dublin, the capital city.
53.347577233135, -6.266313845206
Paul heads up the Commercial development division at Fáilte Ireland (The National Tourism Development Authority), the State Agency responsible for guiding and supporting the sustainable development of tourism in Ireland.
He leads the Fáilte Ireland teams responsible for Business Events (Meet in Ireland), Dublin Convention Bureau, Leisure Business Development, Golf Tourism (Golf in Ireland) and trade FAMs & Platforms. Paul also provides advocacy and leadership to Ireland’s Regional Convention Bureau as well as international platforms such as Convene4Climtae, The Iceberg and Destinations International European Stewardship Council. Paul is a champion for the sustainable development of tourism and an advocate for the potential impact and legacy from hosting business events for communities, destinations and sectors.
With over 25 years of tourism experience in the private and public sectors, having worked with companies right across the industry from aviation, visitor attractions, regional development, convention bureaux and a regional development agency prior to joining the leadership team of Fáilte Ireland and taking over a national role in 2013.
He lives in Co. Clare on the west coast of Ireland with his wife and 2 daughters. His passions apart from family life, include, golf, sport, laughter and great food & wine.