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IRELAND IS ONE of seven EU countries that saw the biggest increase in young adults (25-34 years old) living with their parents between 2010 and 2019, according to research conducted by EU agency Eurofound.
The study’s publication coincided with the publication of census findings that show a drop in overall homeownership of 4% between 2011 and 2022.
Although the study shows that Ireland is among the worst performers in this area, the difficulty young Irish people have moving out of the family home fits into a wider trend across the EU in recent times.
“The age at which at least 50% of people in the EU were living outside their parental home increased from 26 to 28 between 2007 and 2019,” the report read.
In the EU as a whole, 29% of 25 to 34-year-olds lived with their parents in 2010, according to Eurofound. This share had increased to 31% by 2019.
For Ireland, the increase in this area was significantly higher than most of the EU, with the number of 25 to 34-year-olds living at home in Ireland, alongside Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Spain, rising by 6% or more in the same period.
The topic of young adults’ difficulty moving out was the subject of a debate in the Dáil yesterday, when Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns blamed the problem of decreased home-ownership among young people on the government and, in particular, Fine Gael.
“We’ve gone from young people aspiring to home ownership to finding it increasingly difficult to move out of their childhood bedrooms,” Cairns said during Leaders’ Questions.
“And yet you still claim with a straight face that Fine Gael is the party of home ownership. I don’t honestly know who you think you’re kidding but people have had enough of that kind of spin.
“You’ve now been in office for 12 years. At what point do you think you’d take some responsibility for the fact that your approach isn’t working? It’s difficult to know when you’ve yet to even acknowledge the fact that your approach isn’t working.”
She pointed to statistics which showed that the share of 25 to 34-year-olds who own their own home more than halved between 2004 and 2019, plummeting from just 60% to 27%.
However, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar defended the Government’s action on the issue and insisted he was a believer in home-ownership.
“I am somebody who believes in home-ownership. I believe no form of housing security is batter than home-ownership,” he said.
Varadkar did concede, however, that it is particularly difficult for young people to buy their own home in Ireland at present.
“Yes, I acknowledge that home-ownership has fallen in the period of the census between 2016 and 2022, but at 66% it is still the case that two-thirds of people in Ireland own their own home,” he said.
“I want that figure to go back up again. I would like to see it going back up towards 70%.
“I know that there is a generational divide and that many people in their 20s and 30s and even 40s are unable to purchase their own home at the moment.
“What we have seen in the past couple of months… is a very major uptake in the number of people buying their first home.”
Speaking to The Journal, Cairns claimed that housing was the most common issue brought up by her party’s constituents.
“Housing is the biggest issue that we, as politicians, are contacted about. You learn about some incredibly sad and upsetting cases when constituents, at the coal face of the housing disaster, contact constituency offices. The worst thing is – it doesn’t have to be like this. All of these people are being failed by the State.
“One of the most basic requirements in a functioning society is the provision of secure and affordable housing. Housing is supposedly this government’s biggest priority. It is also its biggest failure.”
When asked what the Social Democrats would do to change the situation for the better, Cairns said her party would “introduce a punitive tax on vacancy” and “dramatically increase the supply of social, cost-rental and affordable homes.”
Additionally, she said:
“We would boost the powers of state bodies to compulsorily purchase land; stop investing public money into private rental only developments and boost investment into affordable homes; increase the number of construction workers by reforming apprenticeship schemes; make much better use of modular technology, introduce penalties for developers who sit on planning permissions to boost land values and impose a windfall tax on profits when rezoned land is sold for huge private profit.”
“The Social Democrats would also actually spend the full housing budget. Incredibly, the government failed to spend €1 billion of its housing budget – in the middle of an unprecedented housing disaster. That kind of mismanagement would not happen on our watch.”
The debate around the subject of homeownership and living arrangements for young adults comes against the backdrop of an ongoing housing and homelessness crisis that has dominated much of the country’s political debate of late.
One of the key points of contention in the arguments over the situation has been the ban on no-fault evictions, which was lifted earlier this year.
A number of opposition parties have called for the ban to be reinstated but the government has insisted that doing so would not substantially alleviate the situation.
The cost of rent is another major factor in the debate and Census data published yesterday morning shows the increase in average rent paid to a private landlord between 2016 and 2022 was 37%, going from €199.92 to €272.91.
Homeless charities have consistently warned that more and more people from walks of life not usually associated with homelessness are availing of their services.
When the eviction ban was lifted, some of those charities predicted a “tsunami” of evictions.
That has not come to pass though as the number of eviction notices received in the first quarter of 2023 (4,753) was similar to the previous two quarters.
However, as the debate was at its height, other homeless charities predicted a slower rise, arguing that many people do not go directly into homelessness upon eviction, but instead end up staying with family or friends on a temporary basis.
Speaking to The Journal at the time the ban was being lifted, Focus Ireland’s Mike Allen said:
“For the single people with families, they go and live with somebody for a week or a month or several months. They didn’t immediately end up in homelessness the day after the eviction ban ended.
“We’re going to see slowly but steadily a rising tide over a period of five, six, seven months.”
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But at the end of the month we’ll be told, it was the hottest June on record
@Max: just said the same. Sure, we need a good auld global warming scare story to keep the plebs in line and paying taxes, and now apparently, we need a green energy surcharge on our energy bills to subsidise renewable energy.
@Mike Carson: Did you know that it being locally cool in Ireland doesn’t mean that the average global temperature is cooler? That nuance means that although it may well be a cool June for Ireland we could also have the hottest June on record globally? Mind-blowing isn’t it.
@Diarmuid Hunt: they will say highest temperature in Ireland like before
@Diarmuid Hunt: Did you know that Ireland has a maritime climate as one research topic among many?.
If you believe climate is one this, in this case long-term weather, you are a good candidate to having your mind lost.
Last month’s announcement was a low point, yet society is no longer slavish to the ‘trust-the-science’ slogan after the discovery that the experimentalists were messing around with more infectious viruses at that lab in Wuhan.
It will take quite an effort to undo the damage inflicted on the Earth science of climate yet it can be done.
@Gerald Kelleher: If you dispute the climate models, then please tell us yours.
You have been asked this many times, but have yet to do so.
And yes, we all know that Ireland has a maritime climate.
As does Jamaica.
@Diarmuid Hunt: Well said
@Gerald Kelleher: Yes, I know that you can’t understand that climate changes over time and that although there is a natural occurrence of this we can measure that humans are and have been rapidly accelerating this change because…. God. Understanding something and trusting it is one thing, not understanding something and having blind faith in it is another.
@Gerald Kelleher: (Galileo and Darwin’s secret nazi plot.)
Coldest most depressing June that I can ever remember, and I’m no spring chicken. Freezing cycling into work in the morning, more like March than June.
@The Firestarter:
Wonder would the government give us a voucher for a holiday in the sun to boost our health,and vitamin D.
Hotels are so scarce,and the prices in Ireland so outrageous that most people can only afford 2 or 3 days and that’s at a big stretch.
Mind you ,the weather would not entice you anywhere.
Interesting to hear feedback from foreign tourists.
@The Firestarter: better have a hosepipe ban all the same just in case we get one hot day next month just as well ya cycle they will probably not let us wash cars either
Global warming must be every other part of the globe but here
Worst. Summer. Ever.
@Brian Dunne: summer hasent started,,,20th june i was told by some expert on here a while back,,,dont mock the messenger,
@james rowan: longest day of the year next week so days getting shorter front there
And they will tell us next month that it has been the hottest June on record.
@Mike Carson: if it turns out to be hottest June on record, yes they will. Why wouldn’t they? If it’s not, they won’t. Simple really.
Do you actually believe that they are faking the data? Worldwide everyone is in cahoots, faking the data?
@Soundy Sound: would you like to buy some magic beans?
@Old Jim: you really think that there’s a worldwide conspiracy faking weather data? Really? Who is behind it? How have they gotten everyone on board to corroborate this? How do they agree on the fake data? Think about for one moment and you’ll realise how dumb it is to believe this. It is genuinely worrying that people think like this. People with votes. People with responsible positions. The mind really boggles!
Damn you Climate Change. If we stop reclying our coffee cups for the next few days will it get a little warmer?
@David Field: Just make sure to return your overpriced plastic bottles to tesco instead of putting them in your green bin. That’s apparently way better for the environment, even though those machines are out of order half the time. I don’t understand how it works exactly, but I “trust de science”.
Irish summers are just so depressing
Ok a dull June not much sunshine However it’s the Cold I’m shocked at!!! Unreal for June ..
Its a disgrace, they should do something about this..I bet people are sorry they didn’t vote for SF in the recent elections. They’d sort this out if they got a chance.
Lovely weather in May, paying for it the rest of sumner.
@Trevor Schmitt: Was it really that nice, or was it because Met Eireann said it was the hottest May ever. From what I remember it wasn’t bad, certainly noting to get overly excited about.
@The Firestarter: May had one good week here with us been cold ever since.
@Trevor Schmitt:
I was a child when I last witnessed a full summer of sunshine.
One good month now,and you get penalised .
@Mary.E.: The effects of climate change – die to increasing global temperatures – on Ireland is not yet known.
It could result is much more cloud cover, with less sunshine and more rain, during the summer.
It could result in bitter, bitter winters, if the Gulf Stream (which scientists call the AMOC) weakens a lot, or shuts down. The Gulf Stream which keeps us warm in the winter has already weakened by 15%. Without it we would have winters comparable to Labrador.
There are many possible outcomes for Ireland.
Why is it so cold? I have the fire lit
It must be cold in D4. It’s quite nice in my area. But I suppose the weather outside the Pale is irrelevant.
@Patrick MC Dermott: 16C in Cork.
It’s very upsetting that we are now in the middle of June with the longest day of the year approaching and we are witnessing obvious signs of an ever worsening situation with global warming. Sadly we are not the beneficiaries of the warmer weather.
Why too expensive rip off Ireland here to stay especially current government looking likely to be voted in for another fews years of hardship for lots of Irish people.
Bad summer hard if trying to grow veg though . Definitely see why people going abroad ors not the weather more the costs here
@martin finnegan: If you are finding it difficult to grow “veg” and I presume you mean root vegetables, it’s because of climate change, our springs are colder have been for 10 years, adapt add 4 weeks to planting what you need , or put half in as you did normally and compare . I didn’t harvest early spuds last year until the end of August, ……
The message from the EU elections is that there has been a reaction to political parties driven by the academic conviction of climate change modelling. With the belief that they are also left-driven politics, the swing to the right registers this imbalance in society as there is nowhere else to go.
The conviction of controlling the weather by controlling human behaviour is contrary to a civilised society. Although the majority will rightfully be concerned for cleaner air, rivers, and countryside, that is the limits of human influence.
Dealing with the scientific method subculture behind it all is an altogether different priority as the comments here in support of that disruptive subculture testify.
@Gerald Kelleher: it’s apparent that you never really recovered from not getting your degree.
Fianna Gael at it again with the Immersion!
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