Irish housing costs were more than double the EU average last year, thanks largely to more than a decade of rocketing rents and high prices for utilities.
Yet Eurostat data shows that Irish people used up less of their disposable income on housing last year than the EU average 15.5pc in Ireland compared to 19.6pc in the EU.
Data from the EU’s statistics agency published today also shows that Ireland has the lowest rate of apartment dwellers in the EU and the highest rate of “under-occupation”, meaning households have more space than they need.
Irish homes are also the third-most polluting in the bloc as a result of high carbon emissions from heating, emitting 1.347kg per person in 2021, compared to an EU average of 733kg. Only Luxembourgish and Belgian homes fared worse.
Irish housing costs which include, rentals, purchased homes and water, gas and other utilities are now 112pc above the EU average.
Rents have risen by more than house prices in Ireland over the last decade, the opposite of the trend in the rest of the EU.
Irish rents have risen by 84pc between 2010 and 2022, the third-fastest increase after Estonia (where rents more than tripled) and Lithuania (where rents more than doubled).
The EU average increase in rents in the decade was 18pc. Irish house prices, meanwhile, have risen by 55pc since 2010, above the EU average of 47pc but well below the hikes seen in Estonia, Hungary and Luxembourg, where prices have more than doubled.
Irish house prices collapsed by the largest amount in the EU in the aftermath of the financial crash, but have climbed sharply since 2013. Rents, which were well below the EU average in 2010, overtook the rest of the bloc from 2015 onwards.
That is despite overall Irish inflation during the period coming in at the EU’s joint second-lowest level of 16pc slightly higher than Greece and the same as Cyprus.
Despite skyrocketing prices, Irish people tend to spend less of their income on housing. Separate Eurostat data shows that net earnings in Ireland are at the higher end in the EU. And recent research by the economic and Social Research Institute found that generous government rental supports help to shield the worst off in Ireland, while those making more tend to spend more of their incomes on rent.
The Eurostat data also reveals that around nine in 10 people in Ireland (89pc) lived in a house last year, the highest rate in the EU. The average in the bloc was 52pc.
Ireland has the third-highest rate in the EU of under-occupied homes, at 67.3pc, double the EU average and just behind fellow island nations Malta and Cyprus.
Ireland has the eighth lowest rate of home ownership among 26 EU countries, with 70.4pc owning their own home here and 29.6pc renting. Home ownership rate has fallen slightly since 2010, when it was just over 73pc.
The EU average for home ownership is 69pc, with the highest rates more than 90pc in Romania, Slovakia, Croatia and Hungary.
Owning a home is more common in all countries except Germany, where 53pc of the population rent. Austria and Denmark also have high levels of renting.
