Wicklow Sinn Féin TD John Brady offered his support and congratulations to the National Youth Council of Ireland following the launch of their ‘State of Our Young Nation: A Report into The Lives of Irish 18-29 Year Olds’. The report examined the experience of life for 18 to 29-year- olds living in Ireland, along with their priorities, desires and hopes for the future, and the challenges they face.
Amongst the array of findings offered by the report, it provided details of the top issues that concern young people today. With housing, cost-of-living immigration, mental health, and unemployment being identified as the top five issues of concern.
Brady said:
“The research report launch by the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) last week, offers an extraordinary insight into the attitudes, concerns, and hopes for the future amongst young people in Ireland.
It is in fact an incredible insight into the impact of government neglect and mismanagement of the housing crisis on young people and their hopes and aspirations for the future.
Unsurprisingly, housing emerges as the primary area of concern for young people in Ireland.
With 52% reporting that they live with their families. A figures which rises to 74% amongst 18-22 year olds. In 2022 the figure for 18 to 34 year olds was even higher at 68%.
We now have the sixth highest level of of adults living with their parents in the EU.
Of the 13% of 18-29 year olds who have bought their own home, more than half surveyed have received financial assistance from their parents, which for more and more young people is an essential step if they want to purchase their own home.
35 is the average for home ownership, with that number rising year on year as costs increase, in 1991 the average age was 26. It is becoming the norm that as people are getting older the aspiration to own their own home is getting pushed back further and further.
One fact that hit home to me was the fact that we have young people in their late 20s who are unable to start a family, because smply cannot afford to, with the crippling cost of housing, childcare, and cost-of-living.
Young people are missing out on life milestones. Aspirations like mortgage, marriage, and starting a family are something that they believe that they have to wait to achieve.
There is a distinct and very real lack of optimism amongst young people, particularly in respect of home ownership. Almost half of young people (44%) are worse off than their parents. Every decade we should expect to see a new cohort of young people who feel better off, but in reality the reverse is happening.
69% of young people renting are dissatisfied with their rented property, citing overcrowding, faulty heating, vermin, broken showers and structural issues amongst some of the factors cited.
The two single factors that young people would like to see changed are more affordable housing (31%) and a reduction in the cost-of-living (28%).
Brady concluded:
The findings in the NYCI research are heavily impacted by the years of bad government housing policy. The current government, like those before it, is not delivering a sufficient volume of affordable homes at prices that young people can actually hope to afford.
The government current housing plan targets for affordable homes are too low, they are not meeting these targets and in many cases the rents or house prices of those homes that are delivered are unaffordable for the vast majority.
Sinn Féin has a plan to deliver the thousands of genuinely affordable homes that working people need. Only a change of government, housing Minister and housing plan will give the locked out general a chance to have an affordable home of their own.”