Industrial Relations

House prices will have to fall if we don’t want our kids to emigrate

Owen Reidy of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions says homeowners must be prepared to take the possible hit on property values, as current spiralling house prices are creating a situation where we are ‘exporting our kids’

Owen Reidy, general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions: 'We engage with the government . . . It seems that the housing issue is quite frankly beyond them.’ Picture: Bryan Meade

One of the country’s leading trade unionists has said that homeowners need to “take a little bit of pain” on the value of their properties to stop the country “exporting our kids”.

Owen Reidy, the recently appointed general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu), said that the state had to make “huge swathes” of public land available for housing for everyone, regardless of the impact on current house prices.

In an interview ...