“We’re lacking houses left, right and centre. I have plenty of friends living abroad. They would love to come home but can’t see the benefits when you’re paying through the nose for a property.”

Those were the thoughts of Sinn Féin Councillor Donnchadh Mulcahy when speaking to WLR on the impact the housing crisis is having in rural areas.

“Any of the housing estates I’ve been seeing are going to Dungarvan and Waterford City and it’s really impacting on areas in West Waterford. Nobody can get houses, nobody can build houses and something needs to change drastically because rural isolation is getting worse and worse as the years go on,” he said.

The Tallow based Cllr spoke on issues currently hindering people from returning to Ireland before indicating where he believes things could be improved upon.

“What young people don’t want to do is pay rent. It’s dead money. They want to have something to show for it and we have a thing in Ireland that we love to own our property so maybe we need to loosen our planning laws and the government needs to stop banking on private investors to build our houses and they should take a more direct approach and build the houses themselves,” he explained.

The Dungarvan Lismore district representative elaborated that he lived abroad in Australia and New Zealand across a four year spell in his young adult years.

He now believes there are three different types who emigrate from Ireland.

“You’ve got the person who’ll go for one or two years and come home, the person who’ll stay for six or seven years and come home and you’ve got the people that never come home. The people that never come home I feel is becoming more of an occurrence because they can’t see opportunities in Ireland to put down foundations for long-term living.”

“You see the houses prices. It’s not good value for money. If you’re talking over €400,000 for something in West Waterford in a commuting town, you can’t really justify what you’re spending for what you’re getting.”

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