Renting in Ireland is “only going to get worse”, the former chair of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council has predicted. 

CSO statistics have revealed a slight drop in construction in the final quarter of 2022 and Seamus Coffey, a Professor of Economics at UCC, predicted things would not improve this year. 

“Ultimately, it’s only going to get worse and in particular in the rental sector,” he told The Hard Shoulder. 

“The three key sectors for housing in Ireland - owner occupiers, social housing with local authorities and we‘ve the private rental.

“The private rental sector is getting squeezed, maybe with more units going to the owner occupier sector. 

“People finding somewhere to rent are finding it very difficult and it’s only going to get worse.” 

P83NHF Housing construction Ireland. Terraced houses in Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland.

Other statistics painted a picture of a “reasonably robust” economy - with consumer consumption and employment both rising. 

“We’re spending about 10% more money - that is a lot more money,” Professor Coffey said. 

“But because of inflation, we’re only getting about 5% more stuff. 

“Given the headwinds that the economy is facing, given the headwinds the global economy is facing, actually to have consumption rising at that rate is pretty healthy.” 

The global economy has already suffered from two so-called ‘black swan events’ in this decade with a pandemic and a war in Ukraine putting a major strain on people’s livelihoods. 

Ireland’s GDP rose by 0.3% in the final quarter of 2022 and Professor Coffey said this was a middling performance. 

“Based on the figures, I think we’ll go for the middle of the road between your recession and your boom.” 

A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth.

Main image: Housing in Ireland. Picture by: Alamy.com