Renters nationally have faced an increase in rents of 15% in the last three years, but rural renters have faced substantially higher increases. In the last three years they rose, for example, by 37% in Clare (from €785 a month to €1,074), by 27% in Kerry (from €834 monthly to €1,061), by 26% in Waterford (€903 to €1,141), and by 27% in Tipperary. In Roscommon they increased by an incredible 47% and in Mayo by 39%. 

Incomes are lower in rural counties, so the increase in rents is likely to be having a severe impact on tenants in rural Ireland, particularly those who have received a notice to quit and need to find a new place. The problem is a lot of rural Ireland is not designated as a rent pressure zone which means rents can be increased to the market rent every 24 months. We also know there is a lack of enforcement of rent regulation rules on landlords by the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) and local authorities. 

Regarding evictions, in just the 12-month period from Q3 2022 to Q2 2023, 274 notices to quit were issued to tenants in Clare, 454 in Kerry, 437 in Tipperary, and 523 in Waterford. The scale of evictions in rural Ireland is causing a huge amount of trauma, particularly to children and families. 

The issue of lack of rental housing is affected by the increase in short-stay tourist accommodation such as Airbnb. 

Analysis showed there were 14 times more properties available nationally as short-term lets compared to long-term rentals. My analysis for 11 selected rural counties shows there were 37 times more properties available to let on Airbnb compared to Daft.ie (5,960 properties v 161 properties). 

That is significantly higher than the national figure and shows that the short-stay accommodation issue is even more of a problem in rural areas. Again, regulations on short-stay tourist lets only apply to property within rent pressure zones, another reason to include all rural areas as rent pressure zones.

Then there is Generation Stuck at Home. Census 2022 showed 522,486 adults aged 18 years and over are living with their parents, just over one in seven of the adult population (13%). They are not included in housing needs assessments for housing delivery and policy. 

Increasingly they are the new brain drain. Teachers, nurses, guards, construction workers, professionals, IT specialists, Post graduate researchers — all are stuck without the prospect of a home and are deciding to leave this country.

There are other groups even more marginalised who are suffering a permanent housing crisis in rural Ireland, such as Travellers being left in substandard accommodation, victims of domestic violence and those in Direct Provision.

The cause of this crisis lies in a shift in the 1980s away from delivering public housing to the reliance on the private market, the incentivisation of housing as a property investment, and the turn to global real estate funds. 

The policy focus on investor funds as the main housing supply from 2014 onwards has meant that large housing developments have only happened where it is sufficiently profitable to do so, ie in Dublin and its surrounding commuter belt (much of it build-to-rent at unaffordable rents). 

Housing supply has increased in urban areas by 267% since 2016, but in rural areas it has only increased by 58%. Areas not considered financially viable, ie sufficiently profitable to build in, such as rural areas, have not received sufficient Government policy attention.

We can see that while social and affordable housing delivery has increased in the last year or two, the scale is completely inadequate to meet needs in rural counties.

Based on current levels of social housing output it would take 14 years to meet social housing needs — there  are 20,000 households on waiting lists and housing assistance payment (Hap) in these 11 counties. (This estimation is based only on meeting today’s need and does not include the housing needed for everyone else over the next 14 years.)

Some counties are in a worse position than others, for example, to meet the waiting lists and Hap based on current supply it will take 19 years in Waterford, 16 years in Kerry, 12.5 years in Tipperary, and nine years in Clare.

When we look at affordable housing delivery we can really see how the inadequacy of delivery is across the country, but particularly in rural Ireland. Twenty-three counties had no cost rental housing delivered and 19 counties had no affordable housing delivered in 2022. 

Only seven counties — Cork, Waterford, Westmeath, Wicklow, Kildare, Meath and Dublin — have delivered any type of affordable housing (cost rental or local authority affordable purchase housing) in 2022 and 2023. Only four counties have delivered cost rental housing. 

Given that cost rental and affordable purchase are central to Housing For All and Government housing policy, the failure to deliver any affordable housing in 19 counties, particularly in rural Ireland, is of major concern.

To give some examples, in Clare there were 271 social housing units and no affordable housing delivered in 2022, but it has 1,181 households in need of social housing and 12,678 adults living with their parents. Kerry had 253 social units delivered in 2022, and no affordable housing, while there are 4,013 households in need of social housing and 15,306 adults living with their parents. 

In Tipperary, 236 social housing units were delivered in 2022, none of them affordable homes, while there are 2,933 households in need of social housing and 17,683 adults with parents. In Waterford, 176 social housing units were delivered, 65 affordable purchase homes, while there are 3,349 households in need of social housing and 12,689 adults living with their parents.

There are huge social and economic costs of this systemic housing crisis that are not being measured, as it leaves people traumatised living with ‘chronic housing stress’, causing significant mental and physical health impacts.

The key solutions are treating housing as a human right, extending the rent pressure zones to cover all rural areas, implementing rent controls and rent reductions, re-instating the eviction ban, investing an additional €8bn into housing to scale up local authorities and housing associations, and setting up a National Sustainable Home Building Agency to build social and affordable housing (including fast factory build) and retrofit vacant and derelict buildings, across the country, including rural areas.

The 11 rural counties analysed include Carlow, Clare, Kerry, Mayo, Leitrim, Longford, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, and Waterford.

• Dr Rory Hearne Associate Professor/Senior Lecturer in Social Policy Department of Applied Social Studies Maynooth University