Ronan Lyons

For younger adults in Ireland, the gap between how they expected to live and how they actually live has become stark. New European research shows that this experience is not uniquely Irish.

Unlike the Celtic Tiger boom, today’s price rises are matched by rising rents. That tells a different story – one of chronic shortage, institutional rigidity and mounting social costs.

Inflation in housing in 2025 was about twice that in the rest of the economy. This is a symptom of a housing system under pressure.

Long before antibiotics or mass vaccination, better homes saved lives. New evidence from Ireland’s labourers’ cottages shows how improving light, air, and space quietly reshaped public health – and why housing quality still matters far beyond shelter.

The Metrolink challenge, now in mediation until Christmas, highlights an uncomfortable truth: Ireland’s planning and review processes are so fragmented that even broadly supported projects can be frozen by legal disputes, not planning substance.

The Government’s latest five-year blueprint sets big targets but misunderstands the scale of the deficit, overestimates what builders can deliver and all but forgets the rental sector.

From housing to energy to reunification, Ireland’s challenge is no longer what to believe in, but how to build it. Astana’s story shows that state capacity — not politics — is the true test of national ambition.

Future-proofing society means preparing not for a world of many more people, but for one where there may soon be far fewer.

Ireland does not suffer from too many homes. It suffers from too few. Vacancy is not the challenge. Scarcity is.

The minister for justice is right to target judicial reviews but if the goal is more housing, the key lies not just in faster decisions but in more predictable ones.