Irish people most concerned in EU about housing, survey finds

Irish people are the most concerned about housing in the European Union, according to the latest Eurobarometer survey.

Asked to identify the two biggest issues facing their home country, 61 per cent of respondents in Ireland identified housing. This compared with an average of 10 per cent across the EU’s 27 member states.

Luxembourg was a close second with 56 per cent of respondents listing housing as one of the two biggest issues facing their country, followed by the Netherlands at 30 per cent.

Inflation and its effect on the cost of living was the second biggest concern of Irish people, with 44 per cent of respondents to the European Commission survey listing it as one of their top two issues. This was just below the EU average of 45 per cent.

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Looking towards the EU, one-third (33 per cent) of Irish people said immigration was one of the two most important issues facing the union. This compared with an EU average of 24 per cent. Irish people were also more concerned about the union’s energy supply (23 per cent) than the 16 per cent average across the EU as a whole.

Asked about the EU response to the war in Ukraine, 79 per cent of Irish respondents said they agreed with the EU financing the purchase and supply of military equipment to Ukraine, and 94 per cent said they agreed with the EU providing humanitarian support to the people affected by the war.

Nearly three-quarters of Irish respondents (72 per cent) said they were in favour of a common defence and security policy among EU members, compared with an average of 77 per cent across all member states.

Other member states recorded higher levels of concern about the environment and climate change as well as lower levels of satisfaction with their governments’ response to the war in Ukraine, the EU average being 54 per cent, with 78 per cent being satisfied in Ireland.

The fieldwork for the spring Eurobarometer survey, conducted by Kantar Public, was made up of 1,008 interviews with Irish people during June and a wider sample of interviews with more than 26,000 respondents across the EU.