Housing in Ireland for young people is “severely unaffordable”

36% of people aged 25-29 lived with their parents in 2020.

Housing in Ireland has become "severely unaffordable" in Ireland, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office. The description was published in a report on Wednesday (12 January). Between 2012 and 2020, house prices nationally increased by a whopping 77%. This is despite national average wages only increasing by 23% in that same time frame. From 2010-2020, Dublin property prices were, on average, 1.55 times higher than properties outside of the county. There were only 820 homes available to rent in Dublin on 1 November 2021, and 1,460 homes available to rent nationwide. 6,551 people are currently residing in emergency accomodation, 4,568 of which are in Dublin alone. Rent prices have increased by 5.3% every year for the past 10 years. The report also says that rental accommodation availability is currently at its lowest since the Celtic Tiger. 36% of Irish people aged between 25 and 29 lived at home with their parents. "This has all culminated in the deterioration of Irish homeownership from 77% in 2007 to 68.7% in 2020," the Parliamentary Budget Office said. "The high cost of housing can lead to deprivation, exclusion, and poverty at the household level and to lower levels of consumption and economic growth at the national level." Minister for Housing Darragh O'Brien said in October that he is hopeful the rise in house prices will "level off" in 2022. "I hope to see this level off and we're seeing some slowdown in the acceleration of house price increases already," O'Brien said. "Supply will increase substantially next year and I hope we would see a requisite tapering off of the level of increases that we're seeing. "There is no doubt that the restricted market that we have there and restricted supply, particularly over the last two years with Covid, has had a real impact," O'Brien continued. "What we need to see is more supply, frankly. And the indicators for next year are good."