Context
The Department of Housing recently shared a video created by Spunout Media, advising young people on how to cope with moving back in with their parents, in order to deal with rising rents and living costs. The video features two young adults offering tips such as setting house rules, paying rent, doing chores, and managing potential conflicts while living at home.
The video in itself offers good advice to young adults having to make such a difficult decision during this housing crisis.
However, what attracted a great amount of well-deserved backlash was the State Department of Housing sharing this video on its social media accounts, without taking into consideration the tone-deaf nature of this action (i.e, the government acting like it isn’t directly responsible for worsening the housing crisis).
The video has since been taken down from the official social media pages for the Department of Housing.
To see the video, click HERE.
Ireland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world on paper, yet tens of thousands of working adults cannot afford independent living. Families across Ireland are already forced to absorb the pressure of a broken housing system;
- Spare rooms becoming bedrooms,
- Box rooms becoming permanent homes,
- Privacy sacrificed,
- Careers delayed,
- Relationships and creation of young families postponed.
In that context, a State-endorsed “how to move home to save money” video doesn’t feel supportive. It feels dismissive, it feels like a deflection from its own policy failures, and it feels like the Government is treating a severe structural crisis as a personal budgeting problem.
The outrage reveals something more important – Ireland doesn’t want sympathy. It wants solutions.
And for the first time in a generation, the country has a clear financial pathway to deliver them:
The €14 billion in taxes owed by Apple Inc. – collected in full by the State in July 2025.
This article explores why the government should show some political willpower by mobilising this money to resolve this crisi as soon as they can.
The government has a unique opportunity to permanently fix the backlash, not with PR videos or defensive statements, but with meaningful, direct and large-scale structural action that addresses the reason such a video even needed to exist at all.
Why was the Backlash Inevitable?
Before looking at solutions, we need to address why the reaction to Government sharing this video was so strong:
1. IT SHIFTED RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE HOUSING CRISIS ONTO YOUNG & STRUGGLING ADULTS.
By sharing this video, Government implied that independence is optional, and that those struggling are simply not using “creative” living options like moving back home.
In reality:
- Many families do not have space
- Adults in their 20s, 30s and 40s have already lived independently for years
- The emotional, social and practical impact of moving home is not a trivial matter
- Wages and rents remain wildly misaligned
- Average house prices are 8 times higher than the average annual salary (It was only 4x in 1995).
2. IT TRIED TO NORMALISE AN ABNORMAL SITUATION.
In most functioning housing markets, moving home is a temporary fallback, not a government-endorsed financial strategy.
3. IT TRIED TO IGNORE STRUCTURAL GOVERNMENT FAILURES
Ireland’s crisis is not about individual choices. It is the result of decades of poor Government policies that led to:
- Chronic undersupply of social homes
- Overreliance on the private market to provide homes
- Slow & lengthy planning processes
- Inadequate investment in social housing
- Reactive housing policymaking (i.e RPZ implementation)
A video suggesting otherwise felt tone-deaf because it was tone-deaf.
The Real Fix – Mobilise the €14 Billion Apple Tax to Rapidly Expand Housing Supply
Ireland is sitting on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – €14 billion TAX-FREE money that isn’t of the taxpayer, and can fundamentally reset the housing system. This money was due to be collected since 2016 and the Irish government finally collected the money in full in July 2025.
However, this money is now tied up in the National Development Plan – a well-intentioned but unclear plan that focuses on long-term, less urgent infrastructure projects.
The housing crisis is urgent, and should be treated as such!
This money will not fix the housing crisis, but it can sure as hell put a massive dent in it. If it is deployed strategically, transparently, and intentionally, it can:
- Greatly Expand social housing and stabilise both rents and house prices nationally
- Purchase and refurbish vacant stock for social housing delivery
- Accelerate the adoption of modular & modern methods of construction nationwide
- Reduce Ireland’s over-reliance on private developers
- Eliminate homelessness
- Restore dignity and hope in young Irish adults and encourage them to stay in Ireland
- Reduce the number of young Irish adults forced to move back in with their parents.
- Encourage young couples to fulfill their dreams of starting a family
- Prevent videos like the above from being made in the first place
- And restore credibility after years of crisis management…
Just to name a few.
I have already written numerous posts advocating for the government to allocate this money specifically to fixing the housing crisis and nothing else, as well as suggestions on how and where to deploy it. For more on this, please go HERE.
Final Thoughts – Real Action Speaks Louder Than PR Videos
The public backlash to the videos wasn’t just about optics, but years of frustration.
People do not want adapting and budgeting tips from government.
They want homes.
They want stability.
They want a functioning housing system.
By deploying the Apple tax windfall strategically to resolve the housing crisis, the State sends a clear message:
“We understand the frustration. We hear the criticism. And we are finally addressing the system, not the symptoms.”
Ireland has a historic opportunity to deliver all of the above with the €14 billion Apple tax windfall, it cannot fix this crisis with messaging, but it can fix it with action.
And the power to do so without putting immense strain on the taxpayer, is finally sitting in the State’s hands.
