Rents now above Celtic Tiger rates; Soc Dems blame FF/FG for “disaster”

Rents in Ireland are now over €2,000 a month, a 7% increase from the same time period in 2024.

The latest rent figures published today by daft.ie are a “social and economic disaster,” according to Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne.

The Dublin North-West TD was reacting to the latest figures from daft.ie, who found that rents are now 51% higher than before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, and up 100% since the Celtic Tiger era.

The average open market rent is now over €2,000 a month, a 7% increase from the same time period in 2024.

“At these rates, rents have become completely unsustainable and paint a deeply depressing picture of our worsening housing emergency,” the Social Democrats housing spokesperson said.

“Today’s figures will be met with despair by students who will be anxiously trying to find accommodation as they start into college life. Sadly, some will be forced to defer their third level education because of unaffordable rents and will be denied the student experience of living away from home that many of us enjoyed.”

“The generation stuck living in their parents’ homes will also be left wondering when they will get to start their independent lives,” he said.

“For years, our calls for a rent freeze – something that still needs to happen – have fallen on deaf ears. This has significantly contributed to the skyrocketing rents we see today.”

Hearne noted, “a point that often gets lost in this debate is that many people do not want to be renting but, through no fault of their own, have found themselves locked out of the housing market. They are stuck in a dysfunctional rental sector simply because they have nowhere to move to.”

“To structurally tackle this crisis, we need see to see the State lead on affordable housing delivery instead of being reliant on a small number of large developers and institutional investors. This could be done through not-for-profit Approved Housing Bodies, the Land Development Agency or direct builds at scale by local authorities.

“Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have let the housing crisis spiral to this point where it is a social disaster. We urgently need radical measures that will treat it as the emergency that it is,” he stated.