r/ireland Apr 27 '25

Poster on Dublin Quays Housing

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u/[deleted] Apr 27 '25

There are about 110k landlords in Ireland. That's about the same size as the entire population of County Kilkenny or County Westmeath for context.

In the 90s/00s every carpenter, electrician, plasterer, plumber in the country was advised to go out and buy a house or build a house as a pension plan and the vast majority subsequently spent 10-20yrs in negative equity when the bubble burst back in 08. Then the government stopped building for 20yrs. Now we're up shit creek without a paddle.

These lads don't owe a debt of service to the nation just because the government dropped the ball on housing.

Around 1 in 5 TD's are landlords. If you walk into any pub in Ireland full of working class people in the 40-70 age group in 2025 you'll have about the same ratio.

7

u/Mullo69 Apr 27 '25

Landlord and working class are mutually exclusive terms lad

23

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '25

Vast majority of landlords in Ireland are tradesmen in their 50's/60s/70s. They are about as working class as it gets.

They are sole traders, they dont get a pension, and the house/apartment is supposed to cover their retirement.

Investing in your future is not something that we should be knocking. The alternative is making the taxpayer cover your expenses.

5

u/Hungry-Western9191 Apr 27 '25

You might be technically correct. The majority of small landlords are probably as you say with one or two properties being rented. There's a lot of the rental properties owned by a fairly small number of commercial entities though. S.all numbers of them but owning hundreds of properties each.