Aoife Diver, a teacher in Dublin, gets in her car before sunrise every day and drives up to 90 minutes from her uncle’s house to the other side of the Irish capital.
After school, I get back in the car and go back to school. On a recent evening, the 25-year-old diver was sitting in stop-and-go traffic as dusk approached, red brake lights ahead flashing through his windshield.
It wasn’t always like this. She was sharing a house with five of her friends near the school where she worked in south Dublin. But last year, when her rent and bills reached almost half of her monthly salary, she knew she had to return to her family.
“There is very little housing available and what is available is out of my reach,” she said. “Eventually I’ll probably have to move somewhere else, because I can’t afford to buy my own house or apartment in Dublin.”
Rising private rents have meant many people are struggling to afford housing in Dublin and other cities in Ireland, with some having to move abroad and others having to commute long distances. There is. The crisis has left teachers and social workers priced out of the communities they serve, professional couples unable to buy homes, and low-income people fearing homelessness.
Recent xenophobic riots in Dublin tapped into the frustrations of people struggling to meet housing costs and exposed to the world the deep rifts the crisis has created. But experts say the issue has been resolved for decades and remains a driving force in Irish politics.
“Policies created this crisis,” said Rory Hearn, associate professor of social policy at Maynooth University in west Dublin. He named the group the far-right blames for driving up demand for housing, adding: “It’s not about immigrants, it’s not about asylum seekers.” “Housing policies created this housing crisis and completely refused to develop public housing or build affordable housing.”
The housing shortage is a major problem across Ireland, but it is felt most acutely in the Dublin region, where around a quarter of Ireland’s population of just over 5 million people live. Two-thirds of Irish people aged 18 to 34 still live with their parents. According to EU statistics, this is one of the highest rates in Europe, with the continental average at 42%.
According to official statistics, the average standardized monthly rent in Dublin is now 2,102 euros, or about $2,200, double what it was 10 years ago. The average salary in the metropolitan area last year was around 3,285 euros per month, an amount that is out of reach for many people.
Analysts say the biggest culprit is the failure of successive governments to invest in public housing, which was once built by local governments for people who couldn’t afford private rentals. During the Celtic Tiger era of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Irish economy boomed, private construction exploded, and landlords were encouraged to buy up rental properties as investments, attracting less wealthy buyers. Locked out.
Then the market collapsed after the 2008 financial crisis, and the housing project was abandoned half-completed. The house was foreclosed on. Ireland established the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) to acquire portfolios of delinquent loans, which were then sold at discounted prices to so-called vulture funds. Development temporarily halted and prices soared as supply dwindled.
Years before the crash, there had been a shift away from public housing built by local governments and an increasing reliance on the market. In recent years, as construction has resumed, there has been a focus on short-term rental developments and luxury construction.
Dr Hearn said as more people relinquish home ownership and public housing dwindles, those who are not yet on the housing ladder are increasingly being pushed into the private rental market.
Today’s young people often live in expensive rental properties or live with their parents, with no prospects of becoming homeowners, he said.
“I think for the younger generation, the social contract is completely broken,” Dr. Hahn said. “It used to be a time when people were getting married and having children, but now they’re stuck in their childhood homes.”
Low-income tenants find themselves renting privately, with costs subsidized by the government, rather than in purpose-built social housing. Tenant situations can be volatile due to limited tenant protections.
“We have the most vulnerable households, single parents, low-income households living in the private rental sector. If they are evicted, they cannot afford to pay new rent and become homeless.” Dr. Hahn said: Homelessness has reached record levels this year.
John Mark McCafferty, chief executive of Threshold, a charity that supports private renters, said Ireland was “sleepwalking into the private rented sector as a society, which is a result of decades of underinvestment in social housing”. It filled a void.”
“That’s by design, regardless of who has been in power since the 1980s,” he added.
Twenty years ago, many of the people who came to Threshold on the verge of homelessness were single men with mental health or addiction issues. However, in recent years, families and working households have been increasingly exposed to danger.
Mr McCafferty said there were hopeful signs that further development of affordable housing under non-profit housing organizations could ease some of the pressure on the private rental market.
A spokesperson for the Irish Housing Minister said the government was nearing completion of its review of the private rental sector, and said the government was “determining how to strengthen Ireland’s housing system to make it efficient, affordable, efficient and affordable for landlords and landlords alike. “We will report on whether we can provide a workable, safe and secure framework.” I’m a tenant. ”
In December, on Grafton Street, a busy shopping street in Dublin, a middle-aged woman pushes a cart full of belongings, a sleeping bag and tent folded on top of it, past storefronts filled with glittering Christmas displays.
People who grew up in cities are being forced out of the places they’ve always called home. James O’Toole, 49, has lived in Tatony House, a former factory converted into apartments in central Dublin, for 14 years. However, his landlord plans to sell the property.
O’Toole, a community worker, and his wife, Madeline Johansson, 38, a local councilor, said they could not afford to live anywhere else in the city they serve.
The couple and the other tenants legally challenged the initial eviction order and won. But last month, the landlord served another eviction notice.
“It’s like we’re going to have to fight whether we want to or not,” O’Toole said. “And I refused to go to my parents’ house because my 49-year-old son was moving back home.”
Mr. Doyle caused a controversy Speaking last year about his work depicting Irish police officers participating in famine-era evictions, Doyle said the idea of evictions and lack of access to housing is particularly resonant because for centuries Ireland The country was under British rule, during which callous absentee landlords became synonymous with oppression.
More than 100 years after the founding of Ireland, housing is once again a serious issue. “For many people, this feels like a betrayal,” he says.