Full coverage: Housing

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.

Prop-tech probably prompts thoughts of things like smart fridges or being able to control all the electrical elements in your house through one device. In reality, it’s a growing industry that focuses on planning, development, asset management and more. This piece aims to provide a comprehensive overview of how Ireland is embracing prop-tech.

We have witnessed a historic political realignment. But it has been driven by a radical realignment of expectation from a generation who feel they are victims of a growing economic divide beyond young and old.

The housing charity is increasingly working with property developers and investors to provide much-needed supported housing. But Francis Doherty, the man in charge of its housing portfolio, says more landlord incentives are needed to stop tenants losing their home in the first place.

Sustainable building materials, carbon-neutral homes and quality housing represent one sector where Ireland could set the global pace for the implementation of new technologies. All we need is a designated experimental town.