Owning a home is becoming an ever more distant dream

Owning one’s own home in Ireland is, and has been, the ambition of the vast bulk of Irish people over generations. However, it’s an ambition that is becoming ever less likely to be achieved, writes Paul Mills

There was a time, in the dim and distant past, before the boom, when some of us believed that the Government had an agenda to boost the supply of apartment buildings and coax more people to rent rather than to buy. Apartment buildings, with only room to swing a proverbial cat, were springing up all over Dublin.

The upside was that it would have many benefits for the landlord classes and, at the same time, free up people from spending large sums on homes. Their need to save vast sums to pay a deposit and pay the stamp duty tax, and then fit out and maintain a property, could be prevented.