Getting a Gaff
The scarcity of housing accommodation condemns nearly a hundred thousand families, in the city of Dublin alone, to dwell in flats and apartments, mostly situated in decaying and depressing surroundings. The happy pride which young folk take in a pleasant cottage home is denied to thousands of our citizens... instead of healthy gardens or fields, the streets, full of squalid sights, are the playground of young Dublin’
-- Mrs. Hubert Barclay, (Central President of the Mothers’ Union, May 1925)
Individualism vs Collective Cooperation
Monopoly is a real-estate trading board game where players aim to bankrupt their opponents by acquiring properties, building houses and hotels, and collecting rent from other players who land on their spaces. Its just a game, but underneath the hood, it tries to teach us something about real life. Distribution of a nations wealth matters...Lets imagine you have finished work and its your birthday. Imagine you have 30 euro and you want to go to a steak restaurant for your birthday dinner, but the cheapest steak costs 35 euro. Now imagine your friend Simon wants to join. He also wants a steak but also only has 30 euro. Simon mentions that Jeremy would like to come too, but Jeremy only has 25 euros to spend. Individually going to the restaurant, none of you is getting a steak. But if two of you go to the restaurant you can split a steak. And if all 3 of you go into the restaurant you can get two steaks between three. Its true, Jeremy is getting a bit more bang for his buck than the other two, and we all have that friend who will point that out, but you get the idea.
When we pay taxes, we fund services that everybody gets to benefit from. We can fund things like swimming pools, better libraries, football pitches, more doctors, childcare spaces, gardaí and community centres for teenagers. But sometimes, when we prioritize the protection of private wealth above all else, these services start to suffer from a lack of investment or worse, public squalor.
When we are planning for our future, or buying a house, we tend to look at the game quite individualistically in terms of how we can win, or get ahead. Coming back to our friends Simon and Jeremy, society has told us they are our competitors. But instead of all 3 of you waking up every morning and soldiering on with the game from where you left off, it can be helpful, particularly if things arent going so well for any of you, to take a pause sometimes and look at the rules of the game you are playing. You might be surprised to see that they have changed.
Features of Irelands housing system
No Public Housing Body
Neoliberal governments left housing to the private commercial market instead of building homes for its people.
Lack of affordable supply
Build-to-Rent Favouritism
Developers avoid stamp duty while scooping up land and apartments, prioritising investor profits.
Locks potential buyers out
Tax Cuts for developers and inheritances
Inflationary tax cuts and higher thresholds for inheritances hurts meritocracy
Pushes prices upward
Limited Additional Stamp Duty on bulk home purchases
In the UK buyers now pay an additional 5% stamp duty after buying a second or third home. This is up from 3% previously.
Fewer homes for first time buyersHow We Got Here
Baby boomers and many of those born before 1980 acquired property in a post-war age of large scale property construction, social housing expansion and wage increases. These elements are now gone. Since the 1990s, Ireland has built very little public housing. This was coupled with stagnant wage growth particularly since the recession, low corporation tax. That was not an accident — it was a deliberate political decision, to leave housing to the private market. The result? Hundreds of thousands of adults now live in their childhood bedrooms, unable to afford a home of their own in what is supposedly one of the richest countries in the world.This has been going on for years on end, and while some modest improvements have occurred in areas of renter protections, and the legislating for cost rental, the situation is still massively unfair. Below, a short documentary of the situation way back in 2017? Do you think it has improved since?
The Generational Divide
The saying that millenials and Gen-z in Ireland will be the first generation to be poorer than their parents is very much still true today. In many cases, renters can expect to pay over 50% of their montly salary to keep a roof over their head. In order to escape this, you either have to continue to live with your parents (assuming this is an option), or emigrate. We know that people/companies (not all) with extreme wealth tend to reinvest their wealth by buying up property, often cash buyers with deeper pockets. This in turn leads to less opportunity for ordinary people to compete, adding another factor to the pie-chart of factors that have lead to and are sustaining irelands housing crisis.
When grocery prices rise 3%, it’s headline news. But when house prices — a core cost of living — rise 10% in a year, it barely makes the front page. That’s because in our current system, homes are no longer just places to live — they are wealth commodities, and wages simply havent kept up.
A fair wage for workers
We don’t want our real-life social workers, teachers etc. to end up like Edna Krabappel from The Simpsons, who had her own parody board game to make ends meet.
Teachers already do so much more than just teach—they mentor, update course material, provide feedback, run extracurriculars, handle emotional and social support, and engage with their communities.
Expecting all of that on a salary that doesn’t cover living costs forces them into “side hustles,” which detract from their core mission. Any full-time employee engaging in such work should do so out of choice, not necessity.
—RIP, Marcia Wallace
Profits for investors first, sky-high rents for tenants, and little path to ownership.
Profits Over People
Legislation in recent years made Ireland more attractive to build-to-rent developers. This didn’t just fail to help young people buy homes — it actively locked them out.OECD Study Findings: Sept 2025.
Across OECD countries, homeowners wealth makes up most of national wealth. Younger generations are falling behind: Baby Boomers enjoyed rising wages and secure pensions. Millennials face slower wage growth, high debt, and unaffordable housing. While house price inflation may appear to enrich homeowners, it impoverishes future generations. Many who do buy homes carry crushing debt. A key measure is ownership equity by age — how much of their home a 30-year-old owns today compared to their parents at the same age. The gap is stark.The relentless rise in house prices, while seemingly “beneficial” to homeowners, ultimately impoverishes younger generations and those struggling to enter the market. Those who do manage to buy often do so with escalating debt. Ireland must pursue policies that promote equal opportunity while accepting inevitable economic disparities. However, without significant reforms in housing (particularly public housing provision), taxation of big wealth, and measures to improve social mobility (equal access to public healthcare, housing, education etc..), the future looks increasingly bleak. The lessons from the UK and USA should serve as a warning: failing to address systemic inequality will lead to long-term economic and instability, both social and political.
🗳 Register to Vote
📊 A study by Adrian Kavanagh (Maynooth University) looked at voter turnout across Ireland. Here’s what he found:
- 🏡 Homeowners vote more – constituencies with higher levels of homeownership see higher turnout.
- 🏙 Renters vote less – despite being hit hardest by the housing crisis, renters are less likely to turn out.
- ⚖️ Urban & working-class areas also tend to have lower turnout rates.
👉 When renters and disadvantaged groups don’t vote, housing policies skew toward homeowners. If you care about fixing the housing crisis, don’t just rant — act.
Register to vote, know who you´re voting for, and hold them accountable.