Only the top 20% of Irish earners can afford to rent an apartment, according to the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland. It also includes high earning but not yet wealthy younger people and the squeezed middle is mainly urban, middle-ground. As Taylor notes “this concept of the “squeezed middle” in the Irish housing market was identified by the Commission on Housing, whose 2024 report put it as applying roughly to households earning between €40,000 and €90,000”. [ What does the housing market have in store in 2026? Along with earning too much to qualify for social housing, as Taylor notes “middle earners do not receive many of the supports available to the less well-off, such as medical cards, welfare payments”.

Source: The Irish Times December 14, 2025 15:52 UTC