‘This generational crisis is getting worse’: Kildare councillor says young people are putting lives on hold due to the housing crisis

A Kildare-based councillor has said that young people are putting lives on hold due to the housing crisis.

Labour Party Cllr Angela Feeney has said that the housing crisis is having disastrous consequences in the lives of young people in Ireland, including Kildare.

She pointed to figures from 2022, which show that more than two in three people in Ireland aged between 25 and 29 (68 per cent) are still living at home with their parents.

Explaining her stance, Cllr Feeney said: "These Eurostat figures reveal the stark social consequences of the housing crisis, which represents a lived reality for too many of our young people in Ireland and our own county of Kildare. 

"Unaffordable rents and skyrocketing house prices have meant that young people are living at home with parents for longer, putting off big life moments like living independently or moving in with friends or a partner... and this generational crisis is getting worse."

Cllr Angela Feeney. File pic.

She continued: "The number of those living at home with their parents has doubled in a decade, and Ireland is way above the EU average – across the EU, on average only 42 per cent of those aged between 25 and 29 remain living in their parents’ home.

"There is a hidden cost to this: young people are putting off making big life decisions and effectively 'failing to launch' their adult lives, because they lack the social structures that the State should be providing, like access to a secure and affordable home, as well as access to other social supports like childcare and affordable healthcare."

Cllr Feeney further said that someone having their own home 'is a fundamental human right.'

"It provides a sense of stability and independence which is being denied to this generation of young people," she said: "It is impossible to live a fully empowered life as a young person from a childhood bedroom.

"Despite record employment levels, too many young adults in Ireland today are barely getting by.

"They are working hard, paying taxes and contributing to society, yet for far too many, Ireland feels like no country for young people."

"We need to see a structural revolution in housing; government representatives have displayed dismissive attitudes in response to Labour’s constructive proposals to increase housing supply."

"Time for a change of approach," she concluded.