How do we house the nurse and the guard?
We used to measure affordability in the housing market by the ability of a nurse and a garda to buy a home together. Today, that couple are shut out of the market. Here are three policies that could alleviate a social problem behind the public service pay demands
The social contract of the past was that a nurse and a guard were paid just enough to afford to buy a home of their own. But the rising cost of housing, and the restrictions on how much people can borrow, have completely broken that model.
A nurse on an average pay packet of €51,000 and a garda on average pay of €64,000 can only borrow a maximum of €310,500 under the Central ...