A new report has suggested that an incentive programme asking older people to downsize their homes to accommodate families could help to alleviate the housing shortage in the Republic of Ireland.

 

The idea was put forward in a report by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), which used data from the Irish Longitudinal Study On Aging, analysing 8,000 people aged 50 and over.

 

In the course of their research, ESRI found that 30% of older couples are living in houses with seven or more rooms. They went on to suggest, in the Housing and Ireland’s Older Population report, that encouraging these couples to downsize could help with the much-publicised housing crisis affecting families all over the country.

 

Moving outside of this particular statistic though, ESRI was sceptical as to just how effective such an incentive programme could be on a broader scale, given that research also showed a large proportion of older people are actually living in relatively smaller houses with four rooms or fewer.

 

The report also suggested that, should this incentive plan be seriously considered, experts would have to consider the potentially negative ramifications for the people being moved, including community isolation.

 

Do you think this would be a good idea?

 

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