Full coverage: Housing

Major new data on housing delivery and costs reveal just how weak supply really is. But to fix the problem, we need to focus on land, the role of public housing and the vexed issue of construction costs.

Fiona Cormican has been instrumental in turning the non-profit into Ireland’s largest private landlord. From the era of grant-funded council homes to the brave new world of investment funds and cost rental, she details what has happened to Ireland’s housing market – and what needs to happen now.

Startling new data on house completions, prices, and costs over a 50-year period paints a stark, sobering picture. To achieve the government target of 30,000 new completions a year, prices must either increase by 24% or construction costs will have to fall by 40%.

In the decades preceding 1916, British rulers subsidised homes to dampen the demand for Irish independence – with long-lasting consequences. What the Free State did next with this social housing stock helps explain the national property psyche.

Most Irish households are small. Very few Irish homes are small. This mismatch is our most pressing housing need.

In an in-depth analysis of Ireland’s rental market, Ronan Lyons charts how many properties must be built to curb spiralling rents. Demographic data also reveals what type of properties must be built, and where they should be be located.

The response to the student accommodation crisis needs to be based on the reality of life for students, writes Rebecca Moynihan.

The planning system in the UK and Ireland is complex and uncertain, which makes it hard to justify small renovation projects. Four Dublin school friends have built a product to help navigate the system.

Under the us-versus-them approach favoured by conspiracy theorists, no policy decision can ever be made. Yet it underpins a lot of the reaction to the Government’s Housing for All plan among those who won’t settle for a step in the right direction – only a full leap into Nirvana.

New data shows how Covid has taken a problem that had been concentrated in Ireland’s urban rental markets and exported it to the rest of the country. But it has also changed the sales market too – from where people are buying to what size of property they want.