I AM IN full-time employment in my late twenties renting in Dublin, and I have no kids. Despite the “budget bonanza” for every worker announced by the government today, I know that many people of my age and situation are feeling very… left out.
You know when a group of old workmates that you weren’t even good friends with organise a night out and you find out about it via an Instagram story? That’s kind of how I feel on budget day – like, I didn’t even WANT to watch Jack Chambers and the gang at 1 pm in the Dáil, but it would have been nice to be included.
My demographic – under 30s – is one of the demographics with the lowest voter turnout in every Dáil election. It’s no surprise then, that when looking at the measures in Budget 2025, that people like me – childless, earning under €45K, and renting under the table (my landlord is not registered with the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) and in this housing climate, you take what you can get), scarcely stand to benefit even by anything more than a negligible amount.
Full disclosure – the reduction in USC should net me about an extra €80 a month. That’s almost enough for a mortgage deposit – in 30 years, give or take. The government should focus on the murky area between Budget days, and save the confetti for the achievement of long-term, sustainable goals, like social housing that is actually afforable, rent caps and maybe, fewer examples of chronic overspending on vital infrastructure projects.
As a renter who pays cash in hand to my landlord, my tenancy situation is illegal – though that does not mean it is rare. Anecdotally, I can recall off the top of my head at least a hundred or so young people (work colleagues, people at my sports club, mutual friends I’ve spoken to on nights out) that are living in precarity, the very stability of their lives at the behest of a landlord that loves this housing crisis.
Census researchers are struggling to find out the discrepancy between census respondents who say they are renting, and the number of tenancies properly registered with the RTB – and it believes that number could be at least 73,000 tenancies.
This government (many of them landlords themselves) has absolutely no incentive to think of people like me in unstable and unregistered tenancies. Why would they? It’s easier instead to cheer on the landlords and investors who charge exorbitant rents while offering tenants a token boost in the form of a rent tax credit.
People like me who pay income tax properly while our landlords skirt the rules are angry. So angry that it’s easier to uproot your whole life and move to Australia rather than again beg the government to include us in their plans, please. What is clear to me today, and the other 364 days of the year, is that the current government does not understand the stark power imbalance in this country between renters and landlords.
The rent tax credit (now upped to €1,000 per year from 2024 and for 2025) last year was claimed by fewer than 50,000 of the estimated 400,000 people eligible for this. Do renters hate free money?
Back when the measure was first announced, a friend told me that the members of her share house (spearheaded by the most anxious ones) had unanimously decided not to apply for the renter’s tax credit, as they were so worried the landlord would remember there were actually tenants living there and would end their lease as a retaliation tactic. This was due in part to the time they texted him about doing a repair, and they got the classic landlord response: “Which rented house is this?” before being given a textbook ghosting. No, many are in precarious situations where it’s a landlord’s market, and even claiming something that you’re legally entitled to could lead to that dreaded text “I’m selling up, you’ll have to move on”.
When I look at all of the budget measures, there’s no doubt that a significant segment of the population will do quite well – and that’s people with children. While I am in a happy and long-term relationship, I have no children and I don’t plan on having any. Truth be told, even if I wanted to I wouldn’t be able to afford them, and it would be financially irresponsible of me to bring a child into the world when my fiscal situation is less of a portfolio and more of a plastic pocket with a crumpled twenty euro note in it.
I wonder does the government realise or indeed, care, that one of their legacies will be depriving adults in their 30s of the freedom to make life’s most important decisions? My generation is barrelling towards our 30s feeling no more adult than we did a decade ago; sure, we all have full-time ‘good’ jobs now, but we still occupy mouldy share houses with multiple other almost-30-year-olds, where your cash-in-handlord pops by unannounced to check on the place like a weird, surrogate dad.
Between the free primary and secondary schoolbooks scheme, two double child benefits before Christmas and a €420 ‘baby boost’, parents have been given significantly more than their childless counterparts.
I welcome these measures for children’s advancement and am convinced by the numerous studies that indicate that every €1 spent on children results in returns of several more euros into the economy, as well as the fact that treating children equitably is the moral thing to do. However, the lack of any sort of similar provision for the child free seems pretty unfair. In the year 2024, are we to be punished because we choose not to have children? Are young couples stuck in a spiral of rented accommodation who desperately want to have children but can’t afford them?
The short answer is yes. The housing crisis is talked about all the time, but more often than not from the perspective of mortgage holders or those struggling to get on the property ladder. What about those of us in our late twenties or thirties that would need more than a few of Jack’s magic beans to usher us up within spitting distance of home ownership?
The fact of the matter is that people our age are taken utterly for granted by this government, and our TikTok Taoiseach won’t even give us a shoutout, let alone a digout. It would be, at least, refreshing, to hear from the current government of how dire the rental crisis is. As a young voter in the upcoming elections, I implore Simon Harris to spend less time on TikTok and join the rest of us in the Daft.ie rental trenches. Yes, a crappy 1-bed apartment in Dublin really is €2,000 a month now.
The fact of the matter is that my generation has done exactly what we’ve been told by successive governments and the free market to do in order to secure financial stability: we went and got multiple degrees and qualifications, we got our first jobs when we were 16, and just like the people Leo Varadkar claimed to represent, we get up early in the morning.
No amounts of paltry USC reductions will sweeten the deal: Ireland deserves a government that genuinely puts low and middle income earners first. Budget Day is awfully reminiscent of a bad boyfriend who doesn’t help out around the house 364 days of the year but presents a bouquet of wilting Maxol flowers with a flourish on Valentine’s Day. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Greens, we’re asking you to do better: or we’re breaking up with you.
*** Author name withheld for privacy.
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