Driven to despair

SQUEEZED out of residential city centre property markets during the boom, thousands of young people eager to get a foot on the property ladder ‘leapfrogged’ to cheaper newly-built housing estates stretching deep into the commuter belt.

But now with political unrest in Libya sending petrol prices soaring, are car-dependent commuters already struggling to cope with dwindling incomes and increased mortgage repayments regretting the move to suburbia?

In 2006, the leading market research company Experian conducted a nationwide survey of Irish households. Of the 11 distinct household categories identified they found that the newest and youngest demographic was the sizeable segment of the population “prepared to put up with a long car journey to work in exchange for a less expensive or larger house” in towns and villages far outside the main urban centres.