The amount of people aged 65 and over who are living in rented accommodation has increased by 83 per cent since the last Census.
This significant increase brings the number to almost 17,000 households, according to the Census 2022, released by the Central Statistics Office on Thursday.
Speaking about the increase, Nat O’Connor, policy specialist at Age Action Ireland said that Government policy needs to change from a short term view to long term in response to renting.
“We haven’t put in place the kind of law we need for long term tenancies where you might move into a place and live there for 20 or 30 years, you might live the rest of your life as an older person, for example,” Mr O’Connor said.
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“We don’t have the legal protection and we don’t have the certainty of rent that allows that to happen,” he added, saying that this regulation is urgent, as many older people would struggle to pay private rental rates on a pension, but would be considered as too well off for social housing.
Ireland’s average weekly rent has increased by 37 per cent to €273 between the 2016 and 2022 Censuses.
“I’ve personally spoken to someone in their early 60s who said to me ‘I have no idea how I’m going to pay the rent once I stop working’, we’ve now spoken to people who are concerned about compulsory retirement, that they would be forced to retire at 65 and at which point they wont be able to pay their rent so they lose their home,” Mr O’Connor said.
The highest weekly rent in the country was in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown at €442, up 32 per cent since 2016, whereas the lowest average weekly rent in 2022 was in Donegal at €134, up 29 per cent since 2016.
Mr O’Connor also said that he is concerned about older people being “pushed out of cities” if they cannot afford rent, causing them to be isolated with only half of women over 75 having a driving license.
“It’s like a row of dominoes, if you see people being pushed into living in rural areas who are not prepared for that, then soon we’ll find they don’t have the transport, they don’t have the social connection, they might have difficulty finding a GP in rural areas,” he said.
“One thing leads to another and it can be a very damaging set of circumstances for someone and it’s all because there isn’t long term leasing and rent protection.”
The amount of accommodation owned without a mortgage or loan increased by 11 per cent to almost 680,000, the statistics show.
Mike Allen, director of advocacy for Focus Ireland said the Census confirms that “a great polarisation in people’s housing experiences.
“We have a housing crisis, but there’s a huge number of people who own their house outright in Ireland who are completely outside of that crisis. It’s not evenly shared, their children may well be in the crisis but there’s a bit generational pattern.”
Mr Allen also criticised the government for their lack of policy in terms of how elderly people will pay rising rents when they retire, and “how we’ll deal with the poverty that often goes with that, how landlords will deal with older tenants who are becoming infirm.
“There’s no policies to deal with it even though this has been entirely predictable for the last decade that this is going to be an emerging trend,” he said.
He also added that there has been an increase in older people coming to Focus Ireland with housing worries, something that was further mentioned by a Threshold spokeswoman.
“Since 2020 roughly two per cent of new clients contacting Threshold were aged 66 and above. Between 2020 and 2022, there has been over a 250 per cent increase in the number of those aged 66 and above reaching out to our advisers, increasing from 89 to 315,” the Threshold spokeswoman said.
“Looking at the data for the first half of 2023, this is the highest level of queries we have received on record from this age cohort (177 in the first two quarters) and would in this case be a threefold increase since 2020.”
Ireland’s average weekly rent has also increased by 37 per cent to €273 between the 2016 and 2022 Censuses.
The highest weekly rent in the country was in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown at €442, up 32 per cent since 2016, whereas the lowest average weekly rent in 2022 was in Donegal at €134, up 29 per cent since 2016.
The amount of accommodation owned without a mortgage or loan increased by 11 per cent to almost 680,000, the statistics show.
The number of rented dwellings also increased in 2022, up nine per cent since 2016 to 513,704, however the amount of dwellings that were owner occupied with a mortgage or loan were down one per cent to 531,207.
Co Donegal and Co Tipperary recorded the largest reduction in the number of properties owned with a mortgage or loan.
The amount of dwellings rented from a private landlord went up by 15 per cent in Co Carlow and Co Waterford, the highest of all counties.
The age which at least two thirds of householders owned their homes, with or without a loan, was 44 in the 2022 census, slightly later in life than the previous one.
“In the three decades since Census 1991, the age at which more than half of householders owned their home, with or without a mortgage or loan, increased from 26 to 36 years,” CSO statistician Brendan Murphy said.
Housing stock increased in every county from 2016-2022 up to 2,112,121 statewide, with the fastest growth recorded in Co Meath and Co Kildare, over 11 per cent, and the slowest in Co Tipperary, of two per cent.
Population growth still however, was higher than that of housing stock, at 8.1 per cent and five per cent respectively.
“This trend started in Census 2016, reversing the pattern seen in the 20 years from 1991 to 2011 when the number of homes went up by more than 70 per cent while the population grew by 30 per cent,” Mr Murphy said.
In the census period from 2011 to 2016, the total population growth was 3.8 per cent.
In South Dublin, Co Kildare, and Co Meath, the number of occupied dwellings built between 2016 and 2022 was more than three times higher than the total number of occupied dwellings built between 2011 and 2015.
More than 655,000 dwellings had three bedrooms, accounting for over a third (36 per cent) of the occupied housing stock in Ireland.
The area with the highest proportion of three-bedroom properties was South Dublin while County Galway had the largest proportion of four-bedroom dwellings.
There were 9,271 households with an average of more than two people in a room, and 58,869 dwellings with an average of more than one person per room.
Households headed by a person aged 35 to 30 were the most likely to have more than one person per room.
“New questions from Census 2022 revealed there was no working smoke alarm in nearly 72,000 occupied dwellings, 4 per cent of the occupied housing stock, with detached houses more likely than any other dwelling type not to have a working smoke alarm,” Mr Murphy said.
Vacant dwelling numbers fell by 11 per cent to 163,433 and occupied dwelling numbers increased by eight per cent to 1.85 million. Just under 48,000 homes that were vacant in the 2016 census were also vacant in the 2022 census.
“The vacancy rate dropped fastest in Waterford where the number of properties unoccupied on Census Night was down 25 per cent from six years previously,” Mr Murphy said.
“Galway City had the highest proportion of vacant rental properties in the most recent census (35 per cent). Overall, rental accommodation made up just over 20 per cent of the vacant dwellings identified in Census 2022.”
“Looking at potential long-term vacancy, there were nearly 48,000 homes that were vacant in both the 2016 and 2022 censuses and 23,072 in all three censuses, 2011, 2016 and 2022,” he said.
One in five households headed by someone aged 65 or over had no internet connection of any kind, and of 1.8 million occupied dwellings, 1.5 million or 83 per cent had an internet connection.
Meanwhile, the number of homes in the country with solar panels was 119,300, or six per cent of occupied dwellings, the highest proportion of which was in Co Meath, which had 7,629 and amounted to 11 per cent of all occupied dwellings in the country.
The region with the lowest proportion of solar panels in the country was in Dublin City, where they were reported by 6,197, or three per cent of all homes.
