Half a million Irish adults are still living with their parents, according to a report published by the Central Statistics Office. That figure includes 300,000 people in their 20s. A third of those in the second half of their 20s, a time when they need to be establishing their own lives in their own places, are still at home with their parents.
Every family situation is different, but we can assume that in the majority of these cases, neither parents nor children regard it as an optimum situation. It is a deeply socially regressive trend, and something policy should be directed at reversing.
The huge numbers suggest that the housing crisis is reaching across all social classes. Of course it is easier to share a large detached house with your parents than it is to remain crammed into your childhood box room; but neither situation is desirable. This is the human consequence of policy and market failure: the lives of people negatively impacted by postponed household formation, relationship pressure and arrested personal development. There is a real cost on people’s lives.
As the Government must know only too well, this social problem is a political time bomb, as the generations priced out of the property market look for alternatives – some of them promising solutions that sound suspiciously simple – to the government parties. Their frustrations are understandable. The surge in support for Sinn Féin as measured by opinions polls since the last election is directly related to the housing crisis.
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All the more reason, then, for the Government to pursue the issue in the coming political term with renewed urgency. This is not just a matter of Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien making announcements and securing Exchequer money; it requires local government, the planning authorities, housing associations and the construction sector to make concerted efforts to accelerate the building of new homes. Too often it seems like these disparate elements operate in isolation of one another and with little concern for delivering projects as soon as possible. That must change. The human cost of the crisis is mounting.