Your top stories on Wednesday: Homebuyers face affordability gap of €80,000 outside Dublin; prisoners hospitalised after suspected drug overdoses (2024)

Homebuyers face affordability gap of up to €80,000 outside Dublin

More than 80 per cent of Irish estate agents believe property prices are either “expensive” or “very expensive”, according to a new report by the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI).

Despite this assessment, the report predicts house prices will increase by a further 4.5 per cent in the coming 12 months on the back of limited supply, high construction costs, population growth and “persistent delays in the planning”.

News in Ireland

• Ten prisoners hospitalised after suspected drug overdoses at Portlaoise Prison: Ten prisoners have been taken to hospital following suspected drug overdoses at Portlaoise Prison, the Republic’s maximum security jail.
• Landlord’s move to pressurise and evict 92-year-old tenant ‘unconscionable’, says RTB: A landlord’s move to evict a 92-year-old woman so he could increase the rent beyond rent pressure zone caps has been described as “unconscionable” by the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB).
• Consumers being denied redress due to outdated rules, watchdog says: Many Irish people who have been mistreated, ripped off or otherwise let down by businesses are being denied access to any form of meaningful legal redress because supposedly low-cost avenues are blocked by outdated rules, the consumer watchdog has warned.
• Landlord not responsible for money scammed from Brazilian tenants, RTB tribunal rules: Two women from Brazil who rented rooms in a four-bedroomed apartment in Brunswick Street, Dublin 7, are not entitled to be compensated by their landlord for being scammed by the “lead tenant” to whom they paid the rent, a Residential Tenancies Board tribunal has ruled.
• Daniel Wiffen homecoming: ‘It’s so good to have the whole village backing you’: Daniel Wiffen’s homecoming to Magheralin in Co Armagh – and/or Co Down, take your pick, as it straddles the Border – on Tuesday evening was the biggest thing that happened the village since the Vikings came up the Lagan some1,500 years ago, reckoned Caitriona Hughes.
• Weather forecast: Any mist or fog patches will soon clear to leave a largely dry morning with sunny spells and just the chance of an isolated shower in Atlantic coastal counties. There will be cloudy and sunny intervals during the afternoon with a few light showers, mainly in the west. It will become overcast across the western half of the country by evening with patchy rain and drizzle edging in from the Atlantic. Maximum temperatures of 17 to 21 degrees. Tonight will see outbreaks of rain in western and northern areas, extending southeastwards overnight, turning heavy in places. Lowest temperatures of 13 to 16 degrees.
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The Big Read

• How Irish farmers were won over to white-tailed sea eagles: Seventeen years ago when the first white-tailed sea eagles landed from Norway at Kerry Airport in Farranfore, they were met with placards and protests. Farmers feared their lambs would be plucked from the Macgillicuddy’s Reeks by the return of the biggest birds of prey in Ireland.

Opinion

• Kathy Sheridan: Post-Olympics comedown can leave athletes feeling exhausted
• Prof Donal O’Shea: Plain packaging for sweets and confectionery vital in fight against obesity

Business

• Buying a home on your own: Here is how to navigate the perils and pitfalls: About 30 per cent of first-time buyers last year bought on their own. Borrowing hundreds of thousands of euro by yourself is a big deal. It is likely to be the biggest financial commitment you will ever make, and paying back this loan may shape your finances for decades to come. If you’re thinking of buying solo, here’s how to weigh up the choice.

Sports

• Sick swimmers not make a good look for Olympic organisers: Ask yourself, would you swim in the river Seine? Visually, it looked much like the river Liffey does from O’Connell Bridge. Peering down at the start/finish point for the 10km marathon race at Pont Alexandre III last Friday, the water varied in colour from green to brown depending on how the light hit the surface, writes Johnny Watterson.

World

• Ukraine keeps pounding Kursk in incursion Biden calls ‘real dilemma’ for Putin: Ukraine kept pounding the Russian border region of Kursk with missiles and drones on Wednesday, as Kyiv said it had made further territorial gains in an incursion that US president Joe Biden called a “real dilemma” for the Kremlin’s leader.

• As an Irish person in Australia, I can try to think of myself as suave and worldly, but I’m not: You can try to seem worldly as an Irish person living abroad. You can go to the National Gallery and stare knowingly at a fire exit you have mistaken for a piece of modern art, nodding sagely as people stroll past you and you murmur “challenging stuff” in a serious tone, writes Laura Kennedy.

Podcast Highlights

• In the News Podcast: Charlie versus Garret part two: Grotesque! Unbelievable! Bizarre! Unprecedented!

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