A new report containing Eurostat data shows that while “purchase prices, rent, and utilities – particularly for heating and lighting – have been on an upward trajectory on average across the EU27 over the last three years, the gap in household incomes has continued to widen, leading to high levels of indebtedness.”
The report released by Feantsa, the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless, notes that during the first year of the pandemic 8% of Irish households were in arrears on debt. That’s a 36% increase since 2019. Ireland is second to Greece in this regard.
That year, 17.8%) of poor households in Ireland were in arrears on repayments. That’s almost one in five, and over twice the rate of the general population. What’s more, these households have the sixth highest level of children under the age of 18.
As far as being able to sufficiently heat domestic homes is concerned, Ireland is at 22 out of 27 member states so doing comparatively well in this regard.
“In contrast to the 2008 financial crisis, the successive waves of Covid-19 and lockdown measures had no dampening effect on house prices and mortgages in European Union Member States,” the report states.
The report notes that “the proportion of poor households experiencing severe housing deprivation increased to an alarming extent between 2019 and 2020 in Greece (up 17%), Spain (up 100%), France (up 12%), the Netherlands (up 27%), Ireland (up 87%), and Finland (up 100%).”
In addition, the supply of affordable housing “became increasingly tight due to the continuous withdrawal of public authorities from housing production between 2010 and 2017″.