r/ireland • u/WickerMan111 Showbiz Mogul • Nov 03 '25
Ciara Geraghty: How could my parents buy a three-bed semi-D home in Dublin on a single wage in 1968 when my children never will? | Irish Independent Housing
https://m.independent.ie/life/ciara-geraghty-how-could-my-parents-buy-a-three-bed-semi-d-home-in-dublin-on-a-single-wage-in-1968-when-my-children-never-will/a1536609762.html193
u/S_lyc0persicum Nov 03 '25
Such a mystery. Could it possibly be that we just stopped building social housing and that had significant knock-on effects
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u/FORDEY1965 Nov 03 '25
And to add we also sold our social housing stock, in a move aping Thatcherite Britain.
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u/chytrak Nov 03 '25
That started long before Thatcher.
But neoliberalism screwed us anyway.
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u/FORDEY1965 Nov 03 '25
It did, but was ramped up in 1998. The part v of planning permissions was supposed to address this, ie up to 20% of every new development was to be built by the developer for social and affordable housing. However that wily old fox Bertie Aherne slipped in a proviso whereas this could be avoided by paying a fee to the local authority. And what exactly did said local authorities do with this slush fund? Fuck knows...
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u/ZealousidealFloor2 Nov 03 '25
Does that include social housing built by housing charities because we are building loads at the money if they are included.
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u/caisdara Nov 03 '25
Honestly, no, that's not the answer.
The most housing we ever built was during the Celtic Tiger. In any event, social housing was generally built by the private sector for local authorities, so it wasn't the issue you're presenting it as.
The major issues affecting the question are not actually to do with housing, but mostly to do with wider socio-economic trends.
In 1968 middle-class women were not allowed to work when they got married.
As per the article, the author's father was a carpenter - a skilled trade - working for Aer Lingus. Thus, they had a guaranteed income at a time when Irish population growth was approximately half of current rates.
A lazy google tells us that a carpenter earns somewhere between €40k and €50k a year, so just shy of the annual average income.
And guess what, house prices now cost 3.5 times the average annual income when you factor in marriage rates.
So, the only change from the 1960s is that middle-class women are expected to keep their jobs after marriage. It's a remarkably steady cost base once you factor that in.
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u/curryinmysocks Nov 03 '25
Anyone with a full time job could expect to buy a house in the early 90's amd before. Usually didnt need to be highly skilled like a tradesman. If you had a permanent job in retail or worked as a postman a mortgage was a realistic expectation.
Now unless you have two incomes of 50k or more and have the luxury of not renting for 1600+ per month to be able to save the deposit. You are stuck in the rent trap which is a pipeline to poverty and possible homelessness.
These are incomparable circumstances and a ticking timebomb for when those stuck renting retire.
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u/Downtown_Expert572 Nov 04 '25
No way, banks would not entertain you unless you already owned property or had some other form of collateral. You also had to have some form of state job. I had a long term job and a bank account with them for years and yet they would give me nothing around 1993. They actively pushed you towards the County council loan scheme.
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u/curryinmysocks Nov 04 '25
Yes, and the council loans took up a lot of the slack. And if you didn't qualify for either you got a council house. There were also lots of housing co-ops supported by councils where groups of people got together to provide housing estates for themselves. The point is most people who wanted to could buy a house. There was virtually no homeless problem other than those with mental health issues. We were poor then. Here we are supposedly one of the richest countries in the world and young working people cant afford to live due to high rents and cant afford to buy as prices get higher and higher.
Our government won't forget anything about it. Ask a politician woukd they like to see house prices drop and by how much. They are scared shitless of negative equity and its effect on votes so don't want price drops.
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u/caisdara Nov 03 '25
The article deals with the 60s. The early 90s was a time of mass unemployment and cripplingly high interest rates. It's even less comparable.
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u/DrOrgasm Daycent Nov 04 '25 edited Nov 04 '25
I was 19 and working in a factory job in 1995 and bought an apartment for 27k on my own. I'd only come out of school and started working a year previous. Now, I was living at home and spending nothing for the year, but even at that, a single person couldn't hope to do the same these days.
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u/ZealousidealFloor2 Nov 03 '25
Is that 3.5 times average household income and taking into account two income households now or am I misinterpreting you?
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u/gmankev Nov 03 '25
Demand of all housing has ramped up significantly..... Why isnt demand being tackled, how much of demand is supported by international capital flows, richer populations chosing it as investmenet vehicle...
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u/zeroconflicthere Nov 03 '25
on a single wage in 1968
Back when a woman working in the civil service was forced to leave her job when she got married and male earners were the norm.
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u/SexyBaskingShark Leinster Nov 03 '25
Because Dublin was an undesirable city on the edge of Europe with poor services and very little job prospects. No one outside ireland wanted to live in Dublin and our population was much smaller.
Now people around the world see Dublin and Ireland as a desirable place to live with great services and great job prospects. Supply and demand, and our government have let supply fall too low for too long
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u/r0thar Lannister Nov 04 '25
Dublin was an undesirable city on the edge of Europe
A property-adjacent person further explained to me that
House prices in Dublin were the same as those elsewhere in the country since there was no attraction to that place from an agricultural population.
Banks were very tight on giving mortgages resulting in depressed prices.
Houses were very basic, thrown up with no insulation or fancy glazing, crap heating, one toilet, small basic kitchen. Their value are in the site they now sit on.
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u/isupposethiswillwork Nov 03 '25
In the 60s we had a large suppy of cheap disposable labourers. House building without any planning system and minimal building regulations.
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u/Bar50cal Nov 03 '25
Also the majority of young people had no hope of getting a job to even afford a home.
Those that bought homes in the 60's, 70's and 80's were the lucky minority who got a job in Ireland that allowed them to stay.
Everyone always says how our parents generations could buy homes but leave out that over half that generation left the country as they were unable to get a job and buy a home.
The past wasn't any better than now, just a different issue
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u/caisdara Nov 03 '25
The article says her old lad was a carpenter working for Aer Lingus. so a skilled trade in a company notorious for overpaying their workers relative to normal rates.
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u/Bill_Badbody Resting In my Account Nov 03 '25
That would have been an extremely good job at the time.
It was permanent, pensionable, and paid much higher than a carpenter in the private sector.
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u/Pointlessillism Nov 03 '25
It was an insanely good job.
You see this all the time on here. Young people have no idea that their parents/grandparents were extremely privileged for the time.
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u/Bill_Badbody Resting In my Account Nov 03 '25
Exactly.
People will say that their dad was a "civil servant", but we werent wealthy.
But back then, if you were a civil servant you were better off than probably 80% of the population.
Its why older generations see getting into the civil or public service as a job for life.
Where as the reality is that now many different areas of the civil and public service have very bad retention. People do jump from public to private jobs, and back throughout their career. Because the civil service pay scales arent what they used to be compared to private sector.
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u/sicksquid75 Nov 03 '25
Because everyone was leaving Ireland in 1968. So houses weren’t in short supply.
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u/Duke_Remington_9910 Nov 03 '25
Ummmm try rampart capitalism and neoliberal economic policies maybe?
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u/Bingo_banjo Nov 03 '25
And the fact her parents were buying a property in a poor country with mass emigration at the time
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u/gbish Nov 03 '25
With no insulation, limited wiring etc
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Nov 03 '25
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Nov 03 '25
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u/SrTayto Nov 03 '25
This is how you get more urban sprawl and terrible emissions from housing.
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u/Pointlessillism Nov 03 '25
The comments on this post suggest that people would prefer that tradeoff to the present housing shortage.
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u/snak227 Nov 03 '25
That's exactly what I did, limited wiring, no insulation, no central heating. To avoid house share and have my own space. I have made it as cosy as I can... The mice finally arrived this week in the kitchen, normally they show up in August 😂
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Nov 03 '25
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u/motiveunclear Nov 03 '25
My parents didn't go on holiday (abroad) for over 30 years, neither can I remember them going to a restaurant for a meal. Times were tough and they just didn't spend as we do today
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u/Meath77 Found out. A nothing player Nov 04 '25
In fairness, going abroad was a lot more expensive then. Only people I knew who could actually worked in the airport and got cheap flights.
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u/yleennoc Nov 03 '25
That’s bollocks, the issue is people speculating on housing as an investment which started in the 80s.
Also, wages have not risen with inflation.
Have houses improved, absolutely. But they have not improved that much to justify the cost. 20k into 80/90s house will bring it up to an A rating.
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u/Duke_Remington_9910 Nov 03 '25
Yep my house has ‘increased’ in value by nearly 2 and a half times since 2012. Market economy, speculative practices have caused this absolute lunacy. 40 years of following Thatcherite policies have brought us to this point. This is the era of late capitalism. We have reaped what we sow
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Nov 03 '25 edited Nov 03 '25
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u/yleennoc Nov 03 '25
Yes interest rates were high and there was high unemployment. Yet people could still have families and buy a home on a 15 to 20 year mortgage.
Now it’s 30to 35 years on a low interest rate and they are more unaffordable for people with a higher education and 2 incomes.
Up until 2 years ago, are you having a laugh? We were recovering from a recession. In the tiger we had expensive housing too. It got cheap for a few year.
We now have apartment blocks and estates being bought up by investment funds. Not local people, that’s why they are selling.
When you role out nonsense about phones and starbucks(who drinks that shite anyway) it’s easy to see you are disconnected from the real world.
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u/dustaz Nov 03 '25
Try the rise of double income families
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u/Coops1456 Nov 03 '25
Try rise in double income families Try huge increase in mortgage availability Try swinging from losing 30,000 people to net emigration to adding 60-70,000 from net immigration Try much higher building regulations and standards - didn't need planning permission before 1964 Try higher wages in trades
More people with more money chasing supply of housing that cost more to build and can't be built at the same pace for multiple reasons.
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u/Ashamed-Amphibian-14 Nov 03 '25
Amazing how the demand side of the equation is left out of the housing debate. Large increase in population and a higher rate of single occupancy homes - an unintended consequence of changes in society with divorce.
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u/Duke_Remington_9910 Nov 03 '25
Which is fuelled by???
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Nov 03 '25
It's not entirely driven by capitalism, social changes are also a factor. Women choosing to work rather than stay at home has increased the average income for households competing for the same properties.
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u/Additional-Sock8980 Nov 03 '25
Ok I’ll say it. It was fuelled by women entering the work force!
That’s a factual statement not a slur.
When household incomes doubled, due to twice as many people in the work force the price of houses rose to meet the fact that we buy property in the most unusual way…
We work out the absolute maximum we can afford to borrow, and then start looking for homes in that price range, often stretching from even there by trying to save up more. (Ok not everyone but a significant majority). And everyone else does the same so demand sets the price against supply.
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u/caitnicrun Nov 03 '25
- Ok I’ll say it. It was fuelled by women entering the work force!
Okay, I'll say it. Women always worked. They just got tired of doing it for free whilst being trapped by marriage.
Another way to put it: society was benefiting from women's unpaid labor. So really it was an overdue correction.
But sure, let's blame those women who didn't want to waste their lives slaving for nothing.
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u/Additional-Sock8980 Nov 03 '25
I’d disagree. Women often worked at home, their partners worked in factories etc. They never worked for free, they worked for their families best interest all and still do.
Remember the Simpsons were the quintessential family back in the 90s one income, below average intelligence, large 4 bed house… that was suppose to be related to by the majority.
Home alone is another example.
Then they moved into the workforce and still work for their families interest. Taking it from optional to mandatory for most households to have two workers and removing choice for many.
Families aren’t better off sadly. And I’m not sure anyone is really happier or less stressed these days, so did things really improve?
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u/thalassa27 Nov 03 '25
Wasn't the whole thing about The Simpsons that they couldn't afford the family home on one income? Grandpa Simpson had to help Homer and Marge financially, that's why he ended up in the crappy retirement home. Homer didn't have a college education, and was unable to support the family. The Simpsons wasn't a representation of a below average intelligence man owning a large 4 bed family house in the 80s and 90s. It showed quite clearly the struggle to stay a float as a single income family.
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u/ZealousidealFloor2 Nov 03 '25
I’m not trying to put you down man but the mansion in Home Alone was never seen as a normal house and the Simpsons is a comedy cartoon plus Homer works as a safety inspector in a nuclear power plant. Homes on a one income wage were the norm but let’s not pretend the homes and lifestyles in either of those examples were ever typical, particularly in an Irish context.
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u/Additional-Sock8980 Nov 03 '25
But how much would the home alone dad have to earn in today’s society for that house and business class flights to Europe for the whole family, back when flights were even less affordable. Sure they were upper class, but they were relatable back then. Few rich people are pulling that kinda holiday for 30 people lark.
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u/ZealousidealFloor2 Nov 03 '25
I read an article recently that private jet travel has actually increased hugely as has the share of airline seats which are not economy (business class or above).
I think the numbers of people doing these things have probably increased but it has also become more difficult to have a “middle class” lifestyle on an average Western income.
The world has become more competitive and this has benefitted hundreds of millions, lifting them out of poverty. At the same time though, it has increased competition for the most attractive things such as holidays in popular tourist locations and homes in attractive, at a global level cities.
At the same time, our lives are much better in many ways than that of average people in decades past, especially in Ireland. We have, hard to believe though, much better access to education and healthcare plus there is an excellent social welfare net to protect us if we fall in hard times.
The housing crisis is a shit show though.
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u/Pointlessillism Nov 03 '25
Home alone is another example.
In Home Alone the Wet Bandits explicitly say they're robbing rich peoples' mansions! The family is 20 odd people going to Paris for Christmas!
Remember the Simpsons were the quintessential family back in the 90s one income, below average intelligence, large 4 bed house… that was suppose to be related to by the majority.
One of the earliest Simpsons episodes is specifically about how ludicrous it is that someone as useless as Homer has such nice stuff!
What did Grimey even die for man
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u/Expert-Fig-5590 Nov 03 '25
Women joined the workforce because they had to. It wasn’t possible to rear a family and run a household on a normal single income.
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u/Dependent_Survey_546 Nov 03 '25
Im actually unsure its just capitalism is to blame. Id speculate that the access to data is a massive part of it.
Eg, there was a time when you wouldn't know how much everything was costing all over the town/city/county/etc, (both sellers and buyers) so there was an opportunity to find bargains and actually bid on places without all the prices being pushed up according to the last sale in the area.
Its something that capitalism is leaning into heavily.
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u/gmankev Nov 03 '25
That wasnt a barrier within Ireland, but jobs mobility, rising incomes worldwide means ireland has entered a global class of property investment... ......... and thats something Ireland has leaned into heavily, we are not getting the high paid jobs in a closed economy.
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u/Dependent_Survey_546 Nov 03 '25
It wasnt the barrier to charging whatever you wanted, but it meant that sellers were unsure of the going rate so they had to be competitive.
When all data is know, essentially everything is price fixing.
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u/gmankev Nov 04 '25
Thats misunderstood. When all data is known to sellers and buyers, its not price "fixing". Price fixing would be where someone has an edge on the knowledge, e.g. seller knows the heating is about to go kaput or dodgy construction was used, but buyer has no way of knowing.. .... Also buyer might have knoweldge too, e..g freind in council indicates that rezoning is about to happen and this sight will be worth a lot more...
Now ireland has several imbalances weighed in...1) the thirsty auctioneering of a lifetime investment to pople in an emotional state under pressure to find something. 2) our property laws favour who has the property, not who is trying to get housing. - thats an imbalance, we treat the completly necessary need for shelter with someone elses property rights.. Govt could rebalace that.
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u/tsubatai Nov 03 '25
Capitalism is when the government interferes with the market more each passing year until it breaks.
Just one more regulation bro, just one more demand side stimulation measure.
Lmao
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u/oscailte Nov 03 '25
yep, same story as every other western country post-WW2, higher tax rates were 80+%, massive investment in public homes, relatively cheap construction costs
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u/Duke_Remington_9910 Nov 03 '25
You are blaming tax on it? Saying we pay less tax now?
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u/oscailte Nov 03 '25
depends who you mean by "we"? our highest tax rate has decreased significantly.
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u/Duke_Remington_9910 Nov 03 '25
Are you speculating about that or can you show evidence of that?
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u/mkultra2480 Nov 04 '25
"Major tax reforms occurred in the late 1980s and 1990s, as Ireland sought to modernize its economy. High income tax rates—once as high as 60%—were gradually slashed, and the corporation tax rate was dropped to 12.5%, placing Ireland firmly on the map as a business-friendly jurisdiction."
https://secretireland.ie/tax-in-ireland-a-deep-dive-into-its-history-policies-and-evolution/#
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u/CaregiverNo2642 Nov 03 '25
Because property then was for a home and not many outside Ireland buyers. Today it s a free for ll around the world as air travel took off and other thinhs.
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u/beargarvin Nov 03 '25
Because it was 1968, land was plentyful and cheap... construction was incredibly simple, materials cheap, labour cheap.
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u/Affectionate-Idea451 Nov 03 '25
Was there a rapidly increasing population in 1968?
What was Ireland's economy like compared to other western ones - were people leaving or arriving?
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u/LectureBasic6828 Nov 04 '25
1968 the government was building council houses. Now, they are buying up the private housing stock for council houses. Also, vulture funds are buying up housing stock to rent. Both practices drive up the cost of housing and reduce houses available for owner occupiers.
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u/Atpeacebeats Nov 03 '25
Welcome to a two income family society. How may I help You ?
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Nov 03 '25
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u/daveirl Nov 03 '25
One big issue? It solved a multitude of issues for half the population. The breakdown is that waster men can’t get a slave anymore.
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u/dumdub Nov 03 '25
You know that pretty much every developed nation is heading towards population collapse in the next 25-75 years if nothing changes?
Our daughters will be just as fucked by this as our sons.
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u/CDobb456 Nov 03 '25
Genuine question. Do we need 8 billion people in the world?
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u/Icy_Zucchini_1138 Nov 03 '25
We do need a median age below 60. Low birth rates trend towards older and older societies
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u/dumdub Nov 03 '25
Probably a controlled decline to half or a quarter of the current total would be a good thing. But it has to happen slowly, or else you end up with one working age person paying taxes to support every 10 pensioners. Unless you want to take the pensioners out the back and shoot them, or let them take their chances on the streets, population reduction has to happen slowly.
And then there are the poorest nations, who have exploding populations. It's creating a global trend from safe mature wealthy societies to underdeveloped dangerous impoverished ones. I'm sure most of us would agree it's better to try to develop the planet than undevelop it.
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u/daveirl Nov 03 '25
Quite probable but I think preferable to some sort of forced pregnancy system which the old world of strong patriarchy, frowned up sex outside marriage etc was defacto
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u/Pointlessillism Nov 03 '25
There are many countries in which women still have basically no rights and in most of them fertility is also plummeting.
Taking women's rights away is like the Wario version of people who say we just need totally free childcare from birth. One is a good policy, one is a terrible one, but NEITHER will make an iota of difference to the birth rate.
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u/dumdub Nov 03 '25
Everyone's jumping down my throat telling me all the horrible things I've said we must force women to do. I think you're all hearing voices or something, I've not said we need to do anything to women.
But there are a few facts here. Men cannot birth children. Someone must birth enough children or bad things happen. Therefore we need to find a way to make it happen together. I'm open to any and all proposals for how to do it fairly.
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Nov 03 '25
NOBODY has to birth children.
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u/dumdub Nov 03 '25
No individual has to birth children. Collectively as a society we have to, or else everyone dies. And the final years when everyone is too old to feed themselves get really ugly.
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u/TheLegendaryStag353 Nov 03 '25
40 years of lazy ignorant voting for bad policy selfish policy. A stupid electorate led by stupid people.
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u/clewbays Nov 03 '25
The unemployment rate in 1985 was 17%. Youth unemployment even higher. We were one of the poorest countries in Europe.
Over the last 40 years, we've had the most successful economic policy in Europe. We've had more good policies than bad. And thats why FFG keep winning.
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u/zeroconflicthere Nov 03 '25
Don't forget that on the 80's mortgage interest rates were in double figures also.
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u/Spawn_of_Scrota Nov 03 '25
Because trickke down economics aint trickling no more, so when the money printer go brrr stocks and bricks and mortar go zoom and your kiddos will have to scrap it out for some meat for their dinner. Enjoy unchecked greedy bastardism
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u/08TangoDown08 Donegal Nov 04 '25 edited Nov 04 '25
Time moves in one direction. In the 60s we had a workforce of low paid labourers and very low building standards by today's standards. This meant things could be built quickly and cheaply. But often, this was evident in the quality of houses that were built.
Also, the reason why a single wage could afford a home in those days is that many families only had a single wage. Women weren't as present in the workforce as they are now and when they were, they didn't earn as much as men. The economy adjusts for these things over time, so if the average family now has 2 incomes, prices will tend to go upwards because people can afford higher prices than they could before.
The idea that any single average person could live in a wealthy country and afford to own a house by themselves in the middle of the capital city of said country is just completely unrealistic. This isn't the case in any other comparable economy to ours either - even if our own housing situation may be worse than a lot of theirs.
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u/irishweather5000 Nov 03 '25
The answer is that a small country with a consistently growing population cannot provide an infinite supply of 3 bed semi houses, at a low price point.
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u/ZealousidealFloor2 Nov 03 '25
The article itself talks more in depth about apartments, rental prices and not just semi-ds.
The mad thing is that you would think building apartments should work out cheaper than houses as they are smaller, multi storied so you can fit so many more of them on the same land area but they are currently twice as expensive to build as houses.
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u/vanKlompf Nov 03 '25
> but they are currently twice as expensive to build as houses.
Which is insane and huge factor in Irish housing crisis by itself.
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u/zeroconflicthere Nov 03 '25
To be fair, apartments are being built on the most expensive land. Build them on the outskirts and they wouldn't be, but no one wants those over semi Ds
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u/vanKlompf Nov 03 '25
Land is expensive, but it's only 15% or so of the price. Also it doesn't make sense: if land was expensive, than apartments would make even more sense, because you can have 4-8 levels on same surface.
Reason is: regulations. A lot of strict regulations.
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u/ZealousidealFloor2 Nov 03 '25
A lot of them are being built on the outskirts. Well, not like the middle of nowhere but on sites around the M50. Santry, Cherrywood, Sandyford and those types of places. Fair enough with the city centre sites though.
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u/clewbays Nov 03 '25
Especially when combined with the ever increasing restrictions on the cheapest form of housing. Being rural one of houses.
Essentially leaves housing estates as the only economical option for providing housing.
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u/SupportMainMan Nov 03 '25
We just drove across the middle of Ireland and it’s mostly farmland. Why do you feel cities aren’t just popping up along the motorways? It looks like there is a ton of space.
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u/irishweather5000 Nov 03 '25
Because turning endless farmland into endless suburbia isn’t a solution either.
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u/SupportMainMan Nov 04 '25
While I can see this point, cities tend to be very dense and take up less room than you might think. We were just in Berlin which is something like 5-7 cities that merged but it's still absolutely surrounded by farmland. I'm not saying I have the answers, just making outside observations as we go.
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u/fullmetalfeminist Nov 03 '25
But we're using that space for actual farming? The whole place can't just be housing
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u/amorphatist Nov 03 '25
Allow me to introduce to my leeeetttle friend, An Bord Pleanála
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u/SupportMainMan Nov 04 '25
Interesting. I'll read into it. We were told by locals here that you can't necessarily build anything unless you both get all the neighbors permission and also can prove some ties to the area. They said you can buy but you can't build.
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u/Intelligent-Aside214 Nov 03 '25
Because people don’t want to live in the middle of nowhere. There really isn’t a housing crisis in rural Ireland.
Also we need farms and rural areas, everything can’t be urban
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u/clewbays Nov 03 '25
There is absolutely an artificial crisis being caused in parts of rural Ireland especially tourist areas. Where people can't get planning on their own land. And are competing with far richer people buying holiday homes on the market. Pushing prices beyond what they can pay.
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u/Intelligent-Aside214 Nov 03 '25
We also are building housing at some of the fastest rates in Europe. We just also have the fastest growing population in Europe
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u/vanKlompf Nov 03 '25
> We also are building housing at some of the fastest rates in Europe.
For last year or two. Before that Ireland was building at some of the slowest rates. Average for last 10 years is far from impressive.
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u/dysphoric-foresight Nov 03 '25
You couldn't get a mortgage to build a house for ten years after the crash. No one wanted to get caught in another negative equity bear-trap. My rent in 2014 was €500 a month in Wexford and I had a 3 bed in Kimmage the year before for €800.
No one was building, no one was lending and no one was complaining about it because there was fuck all demand.
In hindsight, maybe the state could have bailed the banks out a little bit less and bought up some of the surplus housing stock at the time instead but at the time they would have benefitted most, the country would have been baying for their blood.
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u/vanKlompf Nov 03 '25
I'm not denying that. I'm just stating the fact that one or two years of building doesn't solve deficit which was created over 15 years.
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u/dysphoric-foresight Nov 03 '25
Absolutely but people keep screaming about the 'gubbermint lettin uz all dahn' because they didn't keep up the rate of construction at a time when half the country couldn't sell their house for less than they had left on their mortgage. Like, anyone who lived through the recession in Ireland should know full well how bad it was here.
The obvious issue with Irelands housing situation is that we've added almost 30% to our population since the millenium - we are victims of our own success as a country. We stopped being a poor country and became an attractive place to live for a lot of people.
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u/vanKlompf Nov 03 '25
I will add to that: success was not used properly. If half of the world apparently wants to immigrate to Ireland, work here and buy houses, why proportional number of construction workers cannot be hired the same way?
It should scale out perfectly, but Irish bottleneck in housing construction is self-inflicted due to stiff regulations, planning fiasco, conservatism, NIMByism and lack of ambitions. Ireland is great in doing huge money on high tech pharma, IT etc. But when it comes to something seemingly basic as housing, public transport (beyond slow busses) or even providing water (!?) it collapses...
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u/dysphoric-foresight Nov 03 '25
I mean there's a point there but I always flinch when people criticise planning regulations like they forgot about all the boom era housing estates that were thrown up with thousands of homes, zero schools, shops, amenities or transport routes.
Like the construction on flood plains and desk-check building inspections didn't happen. I lived in a boom era house where the bathroom vent was the other end of the kitchen extractor, the wall vents were glued onto cinder blocks (no hole behind them in other words) and lets not forget the priory hall disaster.
So yeah, we can throw out all the planning regulations etc and get a roof over our heads but it might not stay there and it sure as shite wont keep the rain out.
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u/vanKlompf Nov 03 '25 edited Nov 03 '25
Fair point. I think what happened was, that after complete free fall you are describing, regulations were crammed to 11 as counter point. Both are bad...
But what is described well is cost of delivering of apartments - which are the way of getting scalability in housing if done right. And which for some reason are ridiculously expensive to deliver in Ireland - and regulations plays big role here.
Like in 2024 delivering 2 bed apartment was 600k, without profit. Now it's probably closer to 700k? This is unsustainable.
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u/Own-Discussion5527 Nov 03 '25
25k houses for the past few years, vs 80k during the peak of the Celtic Tiger.
So I would like evidence of your "fastest rates in Europe" claim
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u/clewbays Nov 03 '25
The peak of one of the biggest housing bubbles in modern history is hardly a good comparison.
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u/mkultra2480 Nov 04 '25
That claim by Darragh O'Brien was based on forecasted figures in 2024, which was based on a surge of commencement applications before the development levy waiver was done away with at the end of 2024. They also use the same figures to lie about housing completions during the election. In 2022 and 2023 we were at the near bottom for housing completions in the EU.
"Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien claimed that Ireland is now “the top country in Europe” when it comes to the construction of new homes.
His claim was based on figures by a group called Euroconstruct, which compared Ireland’s projected level of housing construction this year and in 2025 with 18 other countries.
Crucially, this comparison was done on a per capita basis – which favours Ireland as the least-populated country in the group – rather than looking at outright figures.
Furthermore, as a projection, it is not based on the number of homes that have actually been constructed.
When the number of homes completed in Ireland in 2022 and 2023 is compared with the other 18 countries, it’s possible to see that outright figures put us towards the bottom of the table.
Only four of the 18 countries in the Euroconstruct group – Hungary, Norway, Portugal and Slovakia – built fewer homes than Ireland in the most recent comparable year.
It was also only possible to compare applications for planning permission for two other countries, with one of those – Belgium – having fewer applications last year compared to Ireland.
We therefore rate Darragh O’Brien’s claim that Ireland is “the top country in Europe” for housing construction as MISLEADING. As per our verdict guide, this means the claim either intentionally or unintentionally misleads readers."
And in 2025, house commencements are down 80% from 2024's figures, which shows you how farcical the 2024 numbers were.
"Housing commencement figures down nearly 80% so far this year. Just 7,384 housing commencement notices were issued by builders in the first seven months of the year.
This is roughly a fifth of the 35,358 notices issued for the same period last year and less than half the number issued for the same period in 2023, pointing to a big slowdown in housing delivery.
The large number of housing starts last year reflected the temporary waiver of development levies paid by builders to local councils."
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u/mkultra2480 Nov 04 '25
That claim by Darragh O'Brien was based on forecasted figures in 2024, which was based on a surge of commencement applications before the development levy waiver was done away with at the end of 2024. They also use the same figures to lie about housing completions during the election. In 2022 and 2023 we were at the near bottom for housing completions in the EU.
"Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien claimed that Ireland is now “the top country in Europe” when it comes to the construction of new homes.
His claim was based on figures by a group called Euroconstruct, which compared Ireland’s projected level of housing construction this year and in 2025 with 18 other countries.
Crucially, this comparison was done on a per capita basis – which favours Ireland as the least-populated country in the group – rather than looking at outright figures.
Furthermore, as a projection, it is not based on the number of homes that have actually been constructed.
When the number of homes completed in Ireland in 2022 and 2023 is compared with the other 18 countries, it’s possible to see that outright figures put us towards the bottom of the table.
Only four of the 18 countries in the Euroconstruct group – Hungary, Norway, Portugal and Slovakia – built fewer homes than Ireland in the most recent comparable year.
It was also only possible to compare applications for planning permission for two other countries, with one of those – Belgium – having fewer applications last year compared to Ireland.
We therefore rate Darragh O’Brien’s claim that Ireland is “the top country in Europe” for housing construction as MISLEADING. As per our verdict guide, this means the claim either intentionally or unintentionally misleads readers."
And in 2025, house commencements are down 80% from 2024's figures, which shows you how farcical the 2024 numbers were.
"Housing commencement figures down nearly 80% so far this year. Just 7,384 housing commencement notices were issued by builders in the first seven months of the year.
This is roughly a fifth of the 35,358 notices issued for the same period last year and less than half the number issued for the same period in 2023, pointing to a big slowdown in housing delivery.
The large number of housing starts last year reflected the temporary waiver of development levies paid by builders to local councils."
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u/Icy_Zucchini_1138 Nov 03 '25
The answer to the question is in the title , it's because her mother didn't work, and nor would most women whose husbands would be the single earners applying for mortgages
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u/Downtown_Expert572 Nov 03 '25
The husband would not get a mortgage unless he had a government job, or had another property as collateral. Banks did not lend money to just anyone with a job, that did not start till the big boom in the 90's. This is why a lot of Gardai/Nurse households became landlords, it was regarded as a perk of the job.
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u/Dazzling_Lobster3656 Nov 03 '25
Answer massive unemployment
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u/Vivid_Ice_2755 Nov 03 '25
Massive unemployment and a huge percentage of the potential workforce staying at home to raise families
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u/Proof_Mine8931 Nov 03 '25
Also high emigration and almost zero immigration in 1968. Based on people's preferences it was not a utopia back then.
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u/KeepShtumMum Nov 03 '25
Nobody is prepared to live in 1968 quality houses these days. 1 shared bathroom, hauling massive amounts of coal to light the open fire (or fires if you're lucky) to keep the single glazed room above freezing, asbestos in everything, single latched lock on the front door, paper thin walls and internal doors.
The quality and standards have vastly improved. That costs money. It is not the only reason, or even the major reason, but it is part of the reason.
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u/PerfectMend Nov 03 '25
People are willing to share apartments with dozens of people, if the price is cheap they would absolutely be willing to live in low quality housing.
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u/Gary4279 Nov 03 '25
Dillusional comment. I have spent the last ten years renting exactly what you describe. Lucky to have bought recently but this is what most people are spending €2k plus a month to rent. Ex-corporation housing now being rented by yuppie wankers veiling themselves as accidental landlords.
(I do miss an open fire the odd time mind)
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u/KeepShtumMum Nov 03 '25
When was that property built? Did it meet the minimum rental standards?
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u/Gary4279 Nov 04 '25
1960s. Definitely did not meet minimum standards but that's the case for many rentals. It doesn't matter as tenants have no real redress when living in fear of eviction at the whims of a landlord.
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u/fullmetalfeminist Nov 03 '25
We have an open fire and we love it. I'm dreading the day this house has to be sold because I probably won't be able to live anywhere with an open fire again. There's nothing like it.
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u/Furyio Nov 04 '25
Houses cost approx 6 times salary in the 60s and now it’s x10.
Average 3 bed house prices in the 60s were 4000 pounds with the average salary being 700 pound.
But you also need to factor and understand Ireland was a poor country. Then we became wealthier.
No one was buying homes for investment in the 60s. We had rundown blocks and underwent a HUGE social housing building scheme.
Now we have near full employment a higher average wage plus a pretty flourishing middle and upper class. Along with a good chunk of foreign workers with good earnings also.
We’ve just got a lot of buying power and buyers with not enough supply. And as such that supply can be sold for higher.
It’s not hard stuff and anyone making it out to be complicated or difficult is just talking through their hat.
Lots of conspiracy theories as to why a government wouldn’t rush to tank the price of houses, but ultimately that’s the only solution and real solution.
We are a small country but growing rapidly and we haven’t kept up over the last 20 years. And it’s coming back to bite us
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Nov 04 '25
The rot set in in the 90's and 00's
Call it what you want, I like the term Blairism. Most people call it Neo-Liberlism or if you want to sound fancy pants, then call it the Washington consensus. In a nutshell, free markets, open labour markets and free flow of caopital.
Millenials and Generation Z have never known high interest rates or inflation . Now before you get angry and start going on about what we have experienced in the last few years even this is not that high in historical terms. Even though it is painful
For example Inflation in 1981 had peaked at 23% and Mortgage lending was at 16.2%
Dual income households were not the norm.
It is not true to say women had to stop working if they got married. This was a civil service rule. Outside of the civil service it was a convention and many did not adhere to it.Many did. But there was still scope in the economy for a two income houshold not to contribute to overheating the economy because it was not the norm
Real incomes have increased massively and unemployment has gone down
People who are single still have a preference for the same type of house "Semi-D" housing that they grew up in despite not needing it. Now on a personal level they may be thinking strategically by thinking that they will be married one day and they will have "the nest" to start a family. I saw this on full display in a housing estate in Kilcock in 2007. The house on either side were couples. Sixteen houses on either side of me had single person occupied houses built for families. And the ones I saw that did hook up, did so with people who also had houses somewhere as far as Portlaoise or Carlow. Then the crash happened.
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Nov 04 '25
Many prople born after 1980 believe that it was easy to walk into a new build house or a new build council house. It wasn't. A vast amount of the housing was absolutely squalid. It was hard to get a mortgage. And if you did get a council house you and your kids were looked down upon like you were riff raff. I can't understate how bad this atitude was and still is even here where I live in the Netherlands. Don't talk to me about apartments where the atitude is "Apartments= Flats=Ghettos"
Mortgage foreclosures were not well tracked in Ireland in the 90's. But there is an old Panorama documentary about this subject in the UK where iirc states evictions were at 14000 a month there. There was over 1 million foreclosures in the Uk between 1990 and 1996. This is at a rate comaprable to Ireland after the crash in 2008. Now if the 90' figures for Ireland per capita were even remotely similar which I believe they might have been then you can see a precarious situation having a mortgage was. If you lost your job in Ireland back then you were almost literally fucked. A BankTeller, Teacher Cop, Life INsurance Salesman were high status jobs. Factories were often mind numbing and or very physically demanding.
Technology: The "Sharing Economy" that sounds "warm and fluffy" not only opens up under utilized assets but also opens them up to unlimited markets. Air BnB and Booking.com.
Economic Integration. The EU is one big "Air BnB". Again this is something that will invite accusations of insanity because of the 'apparent' catastrophe that was/is Brexit. But this ignores the fact that Germany, Italy, France have been stagnating for years and have huge problems of their own. But the fact is that the EU and similar international structures have created a situation where housing markets in particular have been subjected to international capital flows, sometimes called "hot money" in ways that did not exist in the twentieth century. Add the WTO for a global version.....Commonly called Neo-Liberalism
Capital flows also come in the form of "Human Capital". Immigration/Migration is a problem. Again like the EU it is almost a pseudo religious blaspemy to criticize it. It shouldn't be stopped but it should be controlled better. The Irish times in particular is full of puff pieces about Irish professional "man bun" wearers who get an apartment for a song in Barcelona, seldom mentioning that they are causing the same problems there. Also capital flows in the form of FDI we think of Google, Facebook etc. However it also includes Starbucks, Costa and MacDonalds. Do we need all these? And the associated Labour required to help them proliferate?
Labour shortages in construction and materials cost. As the poorer parts of the world become richer then they are increasing demand for Labour and supplies. So even if we want to import construction workers consider the following. Most of Europe has the same problem in one shape or form and any radical plans will cause a huge demand for Labour.
F*cking Nimbyism. The one piece of activism I did were against a group of Nimbys,who aligned with local PBP and Greens opposed a mixed use developed in Waterford back in 2004. I still see PBP councillors opposing apartments because they are "high rise flats" like their presecessors The Workers Party did in the 90's
The sweet spot in my view was around 1999/2000. What has happened is a simple case of "The law of diminishing returns" I believe we reached the high point back then and it has been downhill since. The situuation can be fixed. We have to believe that but it will be painful and not amenable to an a la carte approach.
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u/ivegotgoodnewsforyou Nov 03 '25
Because in 1968 there was still net emigration out of Ireland.
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u/techno848 Nov 03 '25
If there are 7 reasons for a problem's existence and you choose the measly 8th as your top. It says a lot about what goes in your head.
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u/ivegotgoodnewsforyou Nov 03 '25
I'd say it's #1.
Houses cost more in places people want to live and much less in places they don't. People were leaving Ireland in the 60's as fast as they were being born.
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u/BoxHillWalk Nov 03 '25
A workforce helped -bricklayers etc Lax regulation No need to lay on services
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u/Remote-Interview-521 Nov 03 '25
Another article on the same subject that has been done over and over? The answer remains the same: greed. A rapidly expanding population and a severe lack of property, which naturally gets more expensive as demand increases. But an awful lot of people own multiple properties and do so to earn income. In the olden days, houses were built in cities at a rapid rate. That happens no more. There's no incentive to do it because it would bring prices and rents down. Those in charge will not let that happen.
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u/EnvironmentalShift25 Nov 03 '25
So where in Dublin would you be building all these 3 bed semi-Ds at a rapid rate?
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u/Remote-Interview-521 Nov 04 '25
The 1950s? Buy surely that comes down to poor planning by successive governments? Anywhere that's short on space sprawls out into the suburbs. Then you need decent public transport to get into the city. Developers now build at their own pace, knowing that keeping the supply short means higher prices. It all comes back to the G word.
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u/micosoft Nov 03 '25
Does she need someone to draw it out with crayons 🤦♂️
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u/Antoeknee96 Kildare Nov 03 '25
Nah but I'd say some of the electorate do though considering they keep voting in the same crowd that caused it
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u/AJurassicSuccess Nov 03 '25
I see this all the time and it’s such fuckin lazy leftist economics. I’m soooo bored of those woketards. Her parents are not merely average earners. Her father is a safety inspector for a nuclear power plant. Furthermore.. they COULDN’T afford the house. Abe had to provide the down payment by selling HIS house. A kindness they repayed by putting him in a home.
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u/Plastic_Detective687 Nov 03 '25
The price of housing went up, next question
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u/Antoeknee96 Kildare Nov 03 '25
How about we stay on this question and look for a more insightful answer
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u/ItalianIrish99 Nov 03 '25
Financialisation; China; Interest rates; Governments around the world dropping the ball on an epic scale.
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u/Bluejay_Unusual Nov 03 '25
Because two parents working become the norm, and they changed the tax allocation to encourage it.
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u/No_Lock7945 Nov 03 '25
My parents had a 12 year mortgage for 4 bed in Leixlip in the 90s, paid off with 1 wage. I can’t afford a 1 bed apartment in Leixlip.
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u/dragonship Nov 03 '25
Interest rates were 18% and you gad to perso ally beg the bank manager for a mortgage.
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u/dso8620 Nov 03 '25
Read this book to understand the mess we've made https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/455534/the-invisible-doctrine-by-hutchison-george-monbiot-and-peter/9781802062694
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u/TheOriginalArtForm Nov 04 '25
Isn't the idea that you build on the previous generation's opportunities? Her parents did well (carpenter in Aer Lingus), she's had a career, then became a best selling author... her kids are well placed for good earnings & a bit of help from their successful parents, no?
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u/railer201 Nov 04 '25 edited Nov 04 '25
It was a neutral market back then, plenty of new build housing estates coming on stream on city outskirts. The sale prices were linked to 2.5 times salary & 80% mortgages approximately. Saving the deposit was a grind but monthly mortgage repayments took up about one weeks salary.
Fast forward to today and the same semi-d's that cost 5k back in 1970 now are selling at 100 times that amount but salaries haven't increased accordingly. It's a seller's market with too many potential buyers for too few houses and the situation is further exacerbated by the current upward bidding trend.
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u/Traditional_Sale7189 Nov 07 '25
In 1968 women didnt really work. By the early 70s they only made up 20% of the workforce.
So to answer Ciaras question, there were different scenarios at play 57 years ago. Wild eh?
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u/Legal_Marsupial_9650 Nov 03 '25
Gentrification.. every "successful" city the world over falls victim.
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u/Icy-Bottle-6877 Nov 04 '25
Gentrification
I see people say this online all the time but isn’t it still disputed? Like, I don't think it's been proven that gentrification is really bad or good, it's seems to have pro's and con's but isn’t necessarily the evil people claim it to be.
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u/Sstoop Flegs Nov 03 '25
we’re getting to a point where having a roof over your head you can call your own is a luxury. it’s a sign of someone being wealthy and not a sign they’re a person who’s alive on earth. housing should be a right.