Today, Leo Varadkar stated that getting money from your parents was a viable way to make up the cash needed for a deposit on a house in Ireland.
He also mused that “going abroad” for a few years to make some money might also be an option worth considering.
Speaking in the Dáil, he said:
“It has always been the case that a person needs to raise a deposit to buy a house.
“People do it in many different ways. Sometimes people go abroad for a period and earn money. Others get money from their parents. Lots of us did.”
Lots of us did, indeed.
The issue here is that Leo’s “us” is very different to the “us” that a lot of other people are familiar with.
And although the Taoiseach eventually clarified his statement later on (or rather, said that he didn’t even get money from his parents for a house at all and that he, in fact, got a 100 percent mortgage), the comment had been made, the gap had been widened, and people had become very, very pissed off.
The prospect of owning a home is becoming an increasingly unimaginable concept for many young people living in Ireland at the moment.
When rent is taking almost half of your monthly income, landlords are taking the piss, and there are more properties on AirBnb than there are on Daft, having a home to call your own just isn’t something that’s on a lot of our radars.
And if it is, the future’s not looking all that bright.
Thankfully though, Leo’s got the answer to our woes in the form of the bank of mammy and daddy – and thank god because things were looking fairly bleak there for a minute.
The only problem is, of course, that not all of us can simply delve into the depths of that money pit so easily… or at all.
So, to really emphasise how unlikely it is that I’m about to ask my parents for the money to put down a deposit on a house (in Dublin of all places!), here is a comprehensive list of things (7, in total) that will probably happen before that.
1. I actually find the money to rent somewhere
Never mind putting down a deposit on a house lads, I’m in my mid-twenties and I can hardly afford to live anywhere even vaguely close to Dublin city centre.
On average, you’re looking at about €600 (excluding bills) to get a place that’s half decent and not an hour and a half’s commute away.
And that’s if you’re lucky enough to even get the chance to view the place.
2. RTÉ do another 8 investigative programmes about the state of the rental market
If you didn’t catch the one that was on there a few months back, you’d want to get on it.
The Prime Time report saw 16 people living in one room in a house in Kilmainham. A building in Crumlin had a grand total of 64 occupants.
There’s was overcrowding, poor sanitation, and many, many bunk beds.
It was grim, and it’s only set to continue.
3. UCD send more students to do undercover snapchat stories about the state of student accommodation
See above.
4. The new bill that forces landlords to give 90 days notice before giving up a property passes
A welcome introduction, and a long-overdue one.
The new bill, put forward by the Social Democrats, will not only give tenants more time to sort out a subsequent place to live, but will also give renters a bit more peace-of-mind and stability.
The bill is currently being backed by Fianna Fáil, Sinn Fein, Labour, the Green Party and many major housing charities too, so at least while we’re scraping together our last pennies for that housing deposit, we might have somewhere stable enough to rent in the meantime.
5. Hell freezes over
Self-explanatory.
6. Leo announces that he is in favour of removing the eighth amendment from the Irish constitution
The way things are looking now, this event will probably occur somewhere between April 2018 and November 2025.
The eighth amendment will be long gone, a mere glimmer in collective public memory, a throwback to a darker time when men were men and women didn’t have bodily autonomy.
We will all have moved on with our lives, choosing to become mothers or not, not being forced to travel to the UK for healthcare… it will be then that Leo will make his stance known.
Finally.
7. No more donut shops in Dublin
One day, lads.
One day.
