I love Dublin but Dublin doesn’t love me.
As a young person the future will be always uncertain. But one thing is for sure, I know my future isn’t here.
Dublin has become too expensive, squeezing its young people out, leaving us with no other option but to emigrate.
Last year 27,600 Irish people left Ireland. Not because there is no opportunity here. There is.
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But because there is no hope here for young people. No hope of buying a house. No hope of affording rent. No hope of setting up a life independent of your parents.
While older generations sneer at Gen Z, viewing young people as social media obsessed scroungers, the young who are leaving do have money, just not enough. We have drive too. University College Cork saw that 62 of their 77 medical school graduates are currently practising in Australia. Evidently ambition and a bit of money are no longer enough to survive here.
I have two years of college left but already look around wistfully at Dublin knowing I can’t stay. Rent is extortionate and only getting higher. The European Commission recently found that the average age of Irish people leaving their family home was 27.9 years of age.
I love Mum and Dad but it’s a no from me! I want to live my own life. Have my own freedom. But where? The worst part is that the high rent is Government inflicted. Older generations didn’t face this in Dublin. They had “Flat Land” also known as Rathmines and Ranelagh. Accommodation was plentiful and cheap.
In stepped the Government.
In 1998, led by Bertie Ahern, the Fianna Fáil Government released the Bacon Report. At the time the housing market was on fire and the report was an attempt to throw cold water on the market to lower prices.
The idea was to eliminate tax incentives for investors. Fewer investors was supposed to mean fewer buyers which in turn would lead to lower prices. Well, the word ‘investors’ is just another word for ‘landlords’. Overnight landlords across Dublin sold. Thousands of flats were turned into private housing.
The landlords that didn’t sell passed on the costs to tenants. Rents soared as demand went through the roof. (The Dáil is littered with landlords, 25%, so don’t expect the situation to change anytime soon.) Here I am 25 years later and rental problems have only become worse. But at least house prices fell. Oh, that’s right.
They didn’t.
So, Gen Z adapts to the world we live in. We have prinks at home with Lidl brand wine. We sneak drinks into pubs or don’t drink in pubs at all. While people may say this doesn’t affect them, it does.
Pubs and nightclubs are struggling like never before. Back in the day, young people used to fill bars Thursday through Sunday. Now nightclubs and pubs around the country are closing. A walk down Grafton Street. A stroll through Stephen’s Green. A pint of Guinness in an old man’s pub.
We start to appreciate these quintessentially Irish things, knowing our time here will inevitably come to an end. The worst part is most of us don’t want to leave but as they say “choice is a luxury”.
For most the future is near. For Gen Z the future is far, far, away.
I love Dublin but Dublin doesn’t love me, so now it’s time to say an Irish goodbye.
