OVER TWO YEARS ago, I decided to move home to live with my parents in Waterford after spending most of my previous 10 years of adulthood living independently – studying, and then working abroad in Scotland and in Spain.

My reasons for moving back into my childhood bedroom were quite specific: using what little money I had saved up to run for local and general elections in order to try to change things for the better and to help hold those in power to account. But the general story of moving back to live with parents in your late twenties is one told increasingly throughout our country.

Alongside the skyrocketing levels of homelessness and worsening quality of life for tenants, the large numbers of young adults forced or pressured to move back to their childhood bedroom is one of the clearest and most tangible effects of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael’s catastrophic failure to uphold their end of the social contract.

Due to successive government decisions to enact policy which worsens the housing crisis that they caused, so many of us are being deprived of the opportunity to live independently as adults.

It’s no wonder, then, that this government’s recent ‘dystopian’ video has caused such outrage.

In the video, two young adults provide suggestions on how to live more comfortably with your parents when moving home as an adult. While the tips themselves are good ones (I definitely didn’t find it easy moving home as an adult and losing my independence after a decade living independently in other countries), the context of the video is key.

Moving back in with family after living out of home can take some time to get used to. It’s okay to need & ask for support. For resources and advice see Supports Guide for Young People https://t.co/7lKHQW8wYo pic.twitter.com/shjtp0TsxQ

— Department of Housing, Local Government & Heritage (@DeptHousingIRL) December 6, 2025

This government, like every Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil government before it, are unable to take responsibility for the systemic failures that they cause, and instead focus on educating people to change individual actions as a distraction tactic.

We’ve seen it before with their focus on individual behaviour change with climate, and we saw it recently with our government’s gaslighting of Irish emigrants in Australia with their ‘build back home’ advertising campaign.

While a proactive and responsive government would listen to what the overwhelming proportion of young people want – systemic moves to end the housing crisis through proper rent controls, public housing built on public land using public construction companies, and reduced rents and house prices – this government instead focuses on telling us what we can do to make the most of the dire conditions that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have forced upon us.

As many have pointed out, the video amounts to this government giving up on even pretending to care about us and what we need to thrive.

This comes after months of our government lowering the bar of what we are allowed to expect in a home, by worsening building standards for new apartments, gutting rent controls, and encouraging retrofits of family homes to create ‘granny flats’.

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Government video on how to cope with moving back in with parents slammed as 'dystopian'

Now, this video tells us how to come to terms with our worsening quality of life amidst a hopelessness that things will only get worse due to the callous and/or incompetent decisions of those in power.

Instead of our government gaslighting us with explainer videos on how we need to come to terms with our dire situation and lack of opportunity, maybe Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael could start making systemic changes which ensure we aren’t forced into this situation in the first place.

Unless a radical shift happens soon towards universal public housing and a definitive end to the speculation, privatisation, and financialisation at the heart of the housing crisis, time is ticking for this government as they clutch to power.

With Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael’s combined vote share plummeting in recent elections as part of a longer term trend which has seen them drop from 85% in 1987 to just 43.1% last year, the next election will likely prove key to whether the century of FF-FG rule has finally ended. Videos like this are indicative of the attitude which is hastening their collapse.

Killian Mangan is a computer game designer from Waterford who is interested in urban design, accessibility, housing and climate. He is an independent who ran in the recent local and general elections on a platform to Democratise-Decentralise-Decarbonise.