Confused about the number of houses Ireland needs to build each year? You aren’t the only one. Estimates range from as low as 33,000 to as high as 80,000 plus. How on earth do we make sense of this? And what does it mean for policy in this vital area? There are two specific reasons why it is so difficult to calculate housing demand and why it is vital to understand what different estimates refer to.
Housing needs depend on the population size. Here, forecasting focuses in large part on trends in births and deaths which change slowly over time and are relatively predictable, within a certain margin of error. However there is another much less predictable factor – net migration. This refers to the balance between emigration and immigration which has had a vital impact on the Irish population over the years.
One is the average size of households. At around 2.74 in 2022, average household size in Ireland is high by international standards and can be expected to fall. How quickly is the question. There have been a range of estimates of this backlog – or deficit as the commission calls it – and by its nature there is no way of arriving at an exact figure. Generally researchers look at international trends in house size and at the slowing in reduction in this figure since 2011, the year when house building fell off a cliff.The ESRI forecasts have set off something of a debate, which underlines the key issues.
ESRI researcher Dr Adele Bergin, one of the authors of the report, said that the goal of the report was to look at what is called “ structural demand” – which is future demand based on population growth and other trends and that this was clearly spelled out in the document. The deficit issue would also need to be considered in setting national targets.
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Source: IrishTimes - 🏆 3. / 98 Read more »