Who are buying all the new houses?

I’m curious how you square calling me a xenophobe with the fact that I regularly hang out with friends from other countries. Help me understand your reasoning

Yes, but of there are a dozen factors throttling supply, it's funny how people mainly fixate on one of these factors, especially because this factor has different colour skin.

When services are clearly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people and how unprepared the country is to handle this influx of people (houses/schools/medicine) is not anti immigrant it’s common sense.

We bring people into the country to help fill vacancies which is great for business! (YAY)

We do not have the services to support them which is not great for the general population. (Boo, that’s racist)

Is it that hard to understand? Just stating facts doesn’t make someone a xenophobe. You are part of the problem as you shut down discussion to address the issue.

Anyway we’ll leave it at this.

The bath is overflowing now and there are no buckets left to catch the water. The house is flooding. Let’s leave the tap on. Maybe someone somewhere some day will get us a new house.

The issue isn’t just housing most people here have conveniently left out how hard it is to get a school place or a GP. Now why do you think that is? Are we lacking in GP’s? Ohh hold on. We’re lacking in teachers now too?
Plenty on this cess pit need to give their head a wobble. Housing is one aspect but there are many other aspects to this disaster. Leave the tap on and continue to sink we will. Goodnight 😴

I never wrote anything to imply that. It's impossible to pin declining birth rates on 1 factor. In any case, it's quite clear that raising a large family is less affordable and less likely today (and parenting begins later).

The rental system is a mess and many couples hold off on starting families due to a lack of stable foundations.

The Left should ask themselves if they are being manipulated by neoliberal capitalists into supporting the demographic changes that fuel the housing bubble. The rise in the population is an important factor in it. I don't blame immigrants, but the role of goverment is to manage sometimes competing rights and needs.

Some of those coming in on work permits are high earners. The economist Cormac Lucey had argued in The Late Debate some years ago that it plays some role in the housing demand.

Also the economist David McWilliams has argued we need a "conversation" on non EU immigration because this is where the government has the power to control. He says we cannot house infinite numbers.. He is not exactly a fringe, Far Right figure. Link to article here.

He said on his website that every net 10,000 immigrants brings demand for 4,000 dwellings. He says:

"...How many people is practical? To put things into perspective, every 10,000 in net migration per annum roughly equates to increased demand for 4,000 dwellings (given their smaller average household size of 2.5 people). Using this logic, Ireland will need to build more than 36,000 new homes each year just to stand still – that’s more new homes than we are likely to build for everyone this year. This is a recipe for higher and higher houses prices and rents, angering more and more people...."

Back to my post:

Separately, I think an additional problem is an outdated bias by planners against apartments for singles. They are still planning for large families of the 1980's, a time when you could buy a bungalow for £50,000. The average age of a mother having her first child is 31.6-7, not 25 (on average) like in the 1980s. Link to reports on the age of mothers having their first child below in the Irish Times and Irish Examiner.

The Irish Times+2Irish Examiner+2

Thankfully our tax haven status allows our government to buy 80-85% of all houses in estates being built and government spending spiralling.

All the while Trump is forcing Multinationals to relocate back to the US n tightening up loopholes.

Totally sustainable stuff folks!

I never wrote anything to imply that. It's impossible to pin declining birth rates on 1 factor.

Of course it is possible, we stopped treating women like cattle. It's that simple.

1 factor not mentioned is contraception for example

Yip. That all feeds into not treating women like cattle.

Allowing them to continuing working once they got married, etc, it all stems from around that period. You can see in the graph.

Even developing countries are having less kids.

I'm also being called a xenofobe and I am a foreigner. They simply can't accept that Ireland has reached its breaking point and it needs to drastically restrict immigration just to stop things from getting worse, because getting better is not possible yet.

Recent Danish study clearly showed immigration raised house prices. Basically "more people divided by same # houses = House price increase". Just accept it. No one is blaming immigrants. Its the governments fault.

More people choosing to ignore reality

Supply and demand doesn’t apply to housing for some (still yet to be explained) reason in this context

Shaming others for pointing out practical truths and giving yourself a good pat on the back for how “moral” you are is much better I suppose

It's been stated several times already,but we exist in a free travel area and those that don't are granted visas because they're badly needed obviously.

Stopping immigration would shut down health,tourism, construction, retail, hospitality and several other areas no doubt.

They are not the problem, the problem is them living "in conditions from the 80's - fairly squalid flats with multiple bunk beds and little space"

A lot of landlords prefer overoccupancy i.e. room renting to many people rather than proper renting to a single family. When you rent a house to 18 people paying 500 euros each you get a sum that no family can afford. So that house will never go on the normal renting market and also not gonna be sold. And don't make the mistake to thing this was an isolated case: https://www.thejournal.ie/18-students-in-house-limerick-6816081-Sep2025/

And of course no one should blame them, it's not their fault, but regardless on who's to blame this things need to stop.