Dermot Bannon said he has been in ‘floods of tears’ over the housing crisis in Ireland — and admitted he feels for people watching Room to Improve who are struggling to get their own home.
The celebrity architect added he is passionate about being a part of the change needed and would like to make a documentary to get to the root of the problem.
The 49-year-old, who has been pulling in more than half a million viewers since his RTE One show returned last month, said: “There is a cohort of people at home and wondering, ‘Will I ever get my own place?’
“And honestly, my heart goes out to them. And it upsets me. In this country every child has a right to an education, we all have a right to health care. But yet, we don’t have a right to a home.
“There’s something fundamentally wrong. I think if that was written into our Constitution, that you have a right to a roof over your head, I think it might change how we do business and how, you know, maybe funds are buying up huge swathes of things.
Drastic
“Something drastic has got to change in how we view property and homes because they’re seen as an asset, they’re being bought, like it’s been bought and traded inter-nationally.
“People are buying housing estates in Ireland and don’t even know where Ireland is, you know, they’re being bought by funds.
“Something I think is fundamentally wrong here.”
At the beginning of the year, stark findings by the Parliamentary Budget Office confirmed a “collapse” in home ownership among young adults.
The report found the cost is “severely unaffordable” by international standards due to rising rents and surging house prices.
Dad-of-three Dermot, who recently renovated his home in Drumcondra, North Dublin, said he’d happily take
a hit to help make the dream of having a home achievable for younger people.
He added: “We need to make a shift. And it might mean some of us who have owned houses for a long time may have to drop in value in order to let other people.
“I’d be happy to do it because I’ve got teenage kids who, you know, in the next five, six years will be looking for their own places. And I’m thinking, ‘how will they ever do it?’
“And like, I’ve listened to podcasts with people in crisis situations and I’ve been in floods of tears in the car.
“This is just not right how we are treating our citizens in this country.
“When I bought a house, it was difficult. I lived at home for years saving. We did it up ourselves, we couldn’t afford to get a builder in. It was a real struggle but it wasn’t an impossibility. And that’s the difference. Nowadays, it’s an impossibility for certain cohorts of society and these are people earning good wages.”
The Dail report, based on an international housing affordability survey, found from 2012 to 2020, average wages grew by 23% while house prices grew by 77%.
Despite a bigger audience share than The Late Late Show and Tommy Tiernan’s Saturday night chat show, some viewers have questioned if there is still a place for home improvement programmes such as
Room To Improve during a housing crisis.
Dermot said: “What can you make of those comments? Like it’s true…
“There’s a lot of hardships out there. Years ago it was they couldn’t afford to buy, now they can’t afford to rent.So like there there’s a whole cohort of younger people and I think it’s desperately unequal, something’s going to have to shift. Something is going to have to change over the next couple of years.
“So like, yeah, I feel for people who are watching it and thinking, ‘Will I ever have this?’
“When Room To Improve started, it was a design show, people took ideas from the show.
“But like, there is such inequality now in housing in Ireland the haves and the have nots.
“I think the space for Room To Improve, in fact there is still a huge percentage of people who are buying old fixer uppers, who are buying second hand houses, because no new houses are being built.
“They’re forced into buying the 1950s house that has had nothing done to it for the last 50 years.
“There’s a place for design shows because there is a big percentage of the population who it does [relate
to].
"But there is a percentage of the population and, unfortunately, that percentage is getting bigger, for whom owning a home is becoming unobtainable. My heart goes out to them.
“I would like to do something on this and take this forward. Like the last six months, I think, it just got significantly worse.
“It’s not right. And there’s nothing I can say. And putting Room To Improve into it, yeah it is kinda ironic.
“But also, we have a crisis right now. And what’s looming, I think, is even worse if we do not try and tackle it now.
“There’s some fundamental questions that need to be asked about what is so broken with our system.”
- Room To Improve airs Sunday on RTE One at 9.30pm.
