The Last Post

Housing our ageing population is about to become a serious issue

By 2030 one in five people living in Ireland will be aged 65 or over, but even modest proposals to build suitable homes for them have run into planning problems

Dermot Bannon, architect and presenter of Room to Improve, suggested older people should downsize and free up their homes for growing families. Picture: Marc O’Sullivan

A few years back, Dermot Bannon, the architect famous in Ireland for his television show Room to Improve, proposed an interesting partial solution to our housing shortage during a television debate I was chairing.

He suggested that too many older people continue to live in houses that are too big for them after their families have grown and moved out. He cited older couples or widows or widowers who continue to live in three-, four- ...