This week,  Dublin’s Rory Hearne –  author, podcaster, housing campaigner and university lecturer – joins the Filmmaker and The Advocate to explore how big capital came to dominate such a small nation.  

The impact of the Global Financial Crisis in ’08 was particularly severe in Ireland, triggering a recession, a huge drop in GDP, high unemployment, and housing precarity. The government’s response was to save the banks by selling off foreclosed mortgages – of which there were many - to hedge funds and global private equity firms. Since then, these actors have dominated the housing sector, lured in by Ireland’s “tax haven” status. In the last year, 95% of new apartments built in Ireland were purchased by institutional financial actors. The impact of all of this? Rental housing costs have skyrocketed and have become unaffordable, young adults are stuck at home living with their parents, and family and child homelessness has become entrenched.

But we couldn’t end the conversation there. Rory picks up on our 2021 challenge to provide listeners with inspiration, detailing the actions and campaigns underway to pushback: grassroots campaigns against the selling-off of public lands, the emergence of a new tenants union, and growing energy to have the right to housing included in Ireland’s Constitution. 

Rory Hearne is the author of Housing Shock – The Irish Housing Crisis and How to Solve It and the co-host of Reboot Republic.  

Support the show