Full coverage: Housing

A high-stakes row over the future of the North Lotts and Grand Canal Dock Strategic Development Zone planning scheme now looks set to go to court.

Stalwarts of the Irish middle class like teachers and psychologists can't compete against Chinese, Russian or UK funds hunting for yield. So mandating that a percentage of actual owners live in their actual houses seems the only way to turn an internationally traded asset into a home.

Following the resignation of a former housing minister, Dublin Bay South voters will set the stage for a housing election – pitting wealth against income.

As Ireland searches for a more sustainable housing model, the group that spearheaded greener living in Cloughjordan is often held as an example but it wasn’t spared by the recession’s credit crunch. Through sheer willpower, its inhabitants have kept it afloat.

Mairead Mackle left a career in podiatry over 25 years ago to set up a business that focused on providing home care and housing services. She discusses the expansion of Homecare Independent Living, the impact of the pandemic and her commitment to empowering women in the workplace.

While official sources imply that private market rents increased 22-fold between 1948 and 2018, new research we have conducted over the last number of years found it to be a 90-fold increase. The data also reveals startling new number on yields and house prices.

Online property bidding engine Beagel has carried out new research into how Covid-19 is impacting the level of bidding on properties – and the level of time it is taking to close a deal.

Official figures show that the delivery of new social housing is increasingly reliant on the purchase of “turnkey” units from private developers. Sinn Féin Housing Spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin argues that the draft Programme for Government offers no solution to replace them with direct development by social housing bodies, which would be cheaper and more suitable.

Following on from the recent debate between Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin surrounding proposed 100-year leases for social housing, Sinn Féin's spokesperson on housing Eoin Ó Broin publishes a full costing for the measure – and maintains that it would not deliver value.

Irish policymakers have been ignoring inconvenient truths for decades. Over the next three weeks, I will be looking at the real data in a range of issues including the national accounts and the labour market. But today, I am starting with housing.