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A FORMER OFFICE on Clare Street in Dublin 2 has been converted into a residential property, with up to 22 bed spaces available to let for up to €890 each per month.
It is one of many examples of multiple-person room sharing being advertised across rental sites and social media as housing supply remains critically low across Ireland.
The owner of the Clare Street building, well-known Dublin nightclub and music venue owner Nicholas Toppin, told The Journal he bought the property to let as it presented a strong business opportunity.
Some rooms in the house, which is located on a Georgian street connecting Trinity College Dublin and Merrion Square, contain four beds. The remaining rooms are triples or doubles. Each bed space costs between €690 and €790 a month, plus a flat rate of €100 in bills.
Toppin explained his deposits were making no money “in the bank”, and a friend told him he’d get a good return on investment if 12 Clare Street was let out in this manner.
It’s understood that residents are offered licences rather than tenancies, which is a common feature of the room-share trend.
Other examples of room shares have been recently advertised on a Facebook page called Easy Stay Dublin. Its administrator told The Journal that the landlords it shares posts for also use licensing agreements.
Licences are used in specific situations, such as when someone rents out a room in an owner-occupied house or stays with a tenant in existing rented accommodation. The Residential Tenancies Board said that some room-sharing arrangements are legitimate, but the classification depends on “the reality of the arrangement”.
“Merely labelling something as a licence does not mean it is one,” it said, noting it cannot comment on individual cases.
Determining whether an arrangement should be a tenancy or a licence is often only possible if a formal dispute arises.
“The RTB and the courts will look at the actual terms and substance of the agreement, not just the title, when deciding whether it is a licence or a lease,” a spokesperson for the RTB explained.
The Journal has viewed dozens of ads for shared rooms across rental sites and social media, with male and female ‘bed spaces’ widely advertised across Dublin.
Analysis of 20 ads on Daft.ie for bed spaces in double or triple rooms showed an average of €620 per bed space. Bunk beds were the cheapest, while some single beds placed in living rooms were advertised for over €800.
Room sharing, once largely associated with student housing, is increasingly being taken up by workers.
Eviction rates in Ireland have spiked since the second half of last year, and room rental supply is shrinking while prices continue to climb. Last week, Daft reported the number of homes available to rent nationwide stood at 2,461 on 1 April (between 2015 and 2019, the average number of homes available to rent nationwide in early spring was around 4,366).
And, according to the Daft.ie Room Rental Report for Q4 2025, the average cost of a double room in a shared home was €775. That’s up 34% from pre-Covid levels and 77% above the Celtic Tiger peak.
In Dublin, a double room without an en-suite averaged €876 in a house and €1,005 in an apartment.
Sinn Féin finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty believes the trend shows workers are being “driven back into tenements” while paying “more and more just to survive, without any living space or quality of life”.
Toppin, who founded The Sugar Club in the 1990s after working with the Eddie Rocket’s and Abrakebabra franchises, has owned 12 Clare Street since 2021. The property was previously used as office space but received change-of-use planning permission in 2022 for a five-bed residential unit.
The Journal, presenting as a prospective tenant, went to view a bed space in a triple room as part of its reporting on this increasingly common rental situation. A man called Dermot O’Connor facilitated the viewing.
He said there would be a rent of €740 per month, plus €100 in bills, for the bed space. The Journal understands that other people living in the house were paying more than the amount quoted on the day. We were asked not to tell any future roommates the exact monthly payment.
A request for a cash deposit of €500 on the day of the viewing to “hold” the bed space was accompanied by a warning it would be taken quickly as another person was due to view it.
Inside the property, communal space was limited. Beyond the kitchen and dining area, the only living space shown was a wooden cabin at the rear of the property, built with shed-like materials.
Toppin told The Journal planning permission was not sought for this addition, but that he plans to apply for “retention”.
Washing facilities comprised a shower room with three showers, with individual doors, installed side by side.
O’Connor is a former author and acupuncturist who appeared on RTÉ’s Nationwide in the early 2000s. His role in relation to 12 Clare Street is unclear, and he told The Journal that he is not in a position to clarify the nature of his involvement.
Asked for a statement about the living arrangements, he said:
“We are not renting any bed spaces. Guests stay lawfully under licence agreements. As such, these arrangements do not require registration and cannot be registered with the Residential Tenancies Board,” O’Connor wrote.
He added that “wherever a formal tenancy does exist at the property it is and will be registered with the RTB”.
The Journal understands that no tenancy in relation to 12 Clare Street has been registered with the RTB.
Toppin, while speaking to The Journal, claimed he is not involved in the day-to-day running of 12 Clare Street. He said he was encouraged to purchase the property so it could be rented out to generate about a 7% return annually.
Based on the €1.45m asking price for 12 Clare Street at the time it was put on sale, around €100,000 per year would be required to reach that return.
At advertised rates, the building could exceed that figure even without full occupancy. Toppin said the figures have been realised since purchase.
He said he had not previously been involved in property, adding that “it’s a very difficult time in Ireland to make money”, and that his businesses “aren’t making any money”.
In 2019, Toppin’s penthouse apartment in Dublin city went on the market with an asking price of just under €1 million.
Willogrove Limited – the company he owns 12 Clare Street through – has a working capital of over €3 million and employs over 60 members of staff. It is currently a loss-making venture.
The Sugar Club Limited, of which Toppin is also the majority shareholder, has no involvement with 12 Clare Street.
Asked if €740 plus €100 in bills for a bed in a triple room was fair, he said, “It’s a very comfortable house”.
Room-sharing listings are now widespread across Dublin, including on Instagram accounts and Facebook pages, with the most popular having tens of thousands of followers.
Some are popular with specific communities, such as Brazilian workers and Indian healthcare workers.
Multiple ads viewed by The Journal in recent weeks showed single beds placed in living rooms on either side of fireplaces, with other living-room style furniture visible in the rooms.
Three ads did not specify how many people would share the room, stating only that tenants would be sharing with two or more people.
One listing offered a bunk bed space in Clonsilla for €550 per month in a room shared with two or three others, in a house with another room that had two bunk bed spaces.
Days later, the same link to that ad led to a new listing for a similar bunk bed space in Blanchardstown at the same price, being advertised by the same person.
Several people advertising these rooms describe themselves as ‘property management agents’, operating across multiple platforms.
The administrator of Easy Stay Dublin explained to The Journal how the page works. It “simply shares room listings submitted by users/landlords”, they said.
“I don’t act as a letting agent or intermediary, and I’m not involved in the selection of tenants or in any agreements between landlords and prospective tenants. All arrangements, including contracts or agreements, are made directly between the tenant and the landlord.”
They added that to their understanding tenants are being offered “licenses” by landlords advertising on the page.
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