Generation Rent: How Housing Costs Are Exporting Ireland's Future

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1:08To understand the economy, you have to understand human nature. This podcast is powered by Acast. How are you doing there? It is time for the podcast. And today we're going to be talking about the new Irish immigrant experience. because emigration out of Ireland. People talk a lot about immigration, but emigration is running at record levels. And it is largely, largely Irish young people who are leaving because of the housing market. Now, many years ago, John, there was a book. I don't know if you remember, Johnny Boy. How are you anyway, Head? I didn't see you there. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good, as always.

1:54Rarer to go, Mac. Rarer to go. Rarer to go. I'm listening for tales on and off screen so that we can actually catch up for the week. But you might remember, John, Leaving Cert, a book called Deal on Jury, written by a fella called Donal Pather Mock Owliff. Nah, it doesn't ring a bell at all with me. Okay, right. Okay, so Swatty Pants here remembers it, right? Yes, of course you do. And Deal on Jury was a book that was maybe, maybe it's on the Irish, I don't know, I can't remember. Anyway, it doesn't matter, John. It doesn't matter. It was a very, very brilliant book written by this fellow called Donald Pader Mokalaf, who was from Galway.

2:35Yeah. And he went to England in the 1950s to work as an Irish navvy. So Díl-Anjory means The Diary of an Exile. Yeah. And it's an extraordinary book. Well worth, well worth. If you're interested in this stuff, just Google it. It still, I'm sure, is available. It's still in print. And it's in print in Irish and in English. Well, I remember the Peg Stairs book. That was the book I did for the Leaving Cert, which was another story of, well, it was a miserable story, but it was all her kids emigrating as well, all heading off to the Mary Kay and all the rest. Mary Kay emigrating and dying. And dying, yeah, yeah.

3:14Oh, yeah, there was lots of kids. They were always dying. They were always dying, falling off cliffs, standing in the baskets and doing all sorts of carry-on, right? Yes. Okay? Miserable. But I mean, well, do you know what it's, John, because you remember what it starts with the word? The opening sentence of Peg, John. Ta cuss a wan er an thallav agus ta cuss ela in sun relic. Which means I have one. Think about the melancholy attitude of this lady. I have one foot on the land and one foot in the grave. How do you remember that shit? Because my brain is a freaking sponge of mad things. Anyway, the point is, it's just full on.

3:55That's right up there with the best of times and the worst of times. It's brilliant, though, isn't it? It's brilliant. Chosawan, Aaron, Talaf, Augustan, Chosela. In Sun Relic. Anyway, brilliant stuff. So, but Dilan Jory was also a very book. And I read the book. And it really had kind of a profound impact on me because then we subsequently went to London. And it was about the generation before us. And they were largely working class lads, country lads and lassies who went over, started at the very, very bottom, definitely suffered racism, lots of anti-Irish feeling, lots of anti-immigrant feeling, all that sort of stuff.

4:33And this was all about the sensitivity, the networks, the good people he met, the bad people he met, the living conditions of the Navis, the way they had to forge bonds together, all that sort of stuff. And it was the traditional, one would describe, experience of Irish immigrants. Now we have a new tribe of Irish immigrants who are much more likely to be highly educated, much more likely to be highly mobile, much more likely to move around between foreign destinations and immigrant centers, and maybe even much less likely to be plugged into specifically Irish networks because they're basically citizens of the world.

5:14But all of them, all of them still have a residual yearning to come home. And most of them, John, talk about the impact of house prices on their lives, not just on their economy and their economic life, but on their emotional life, their relationships, their spiritual life, all that sort of stuff. And today we're going to talk to one of them, but I want to put it against the background of what we were talking about last week. Remember last week we talked to Patrick Walsh of Dogpatch Labs? Yes, yeah, yeah, that was a great interview. We got loads of response and comments on that. But remind us again of what he was actually saying, what his key points were.

5:56So Patrick was making the point very eloquently and I think very passionately about the notion that Irish innovators, people who do things for themselves, who set up companies on their own, which is the elixir of modern economics, are not being given a fair crack of the whip. There are far too many impediments. It is too difficult to set things up. It is too expensive to set things up. It is too risky to set things up. And ultimately, a lot of young Irish people who would set up businesses here and have a go backing themselves either don't, either they get a well-paid, paying job as an employee, or they leave the country.

6:40Now, you will know that the economist in me has always alighted upon or settled on the idea that what makes the economy actually move isn't fiscal policy or government deficits or the rate of inflation or all those things you hear economists talk about, but is the Shumterian idea of the relentless scales of creative destruction. And what that is all about is how new companies supersede old companies, how new ideas are better than old ideas, how there is an evolutionary dimension within the economy which propels us forward. And that evolutionary dimension is not too dissimilar from Darwinian ideas.

7:22And Darwin didn't say, by the way, the survival of the fittest. He actually said the survival of the most adaptive. So it is the person or the individual or the country or the company that adapts to the world. And in order for a society to become the type of economy that generates the opportunities for people, innovators need to be not only celebrated, but they need to be given space. And an interesting thing, the key ratio, the key, key ratio is not the number of innovators for the population, the number of entrepreneurs, the absolute number. But it's actually the attitude of the rest of people towards those entrepreneurs, those risk takers, those people who back themselves.

8:06If the general attitude of the society is biased towards them, well, they will do their thing. If the general attitude of the society puts up impediments for those people to take risks, well, then they will go off and do it somewhere else. But that was the general topic of our discussion with Patrick. Yeah. And then on Wednesday, I think it was, I got an email out of the blue from Brisbane in Australia from a young Irish man called Matthew Ruddy. And Matthew said to me, I have been listening to the podcast for a long time. I've never, ever written an email to anybody like this, but I was so moved or in a way so touched or so triggered to use a millennial term that is a term that John and I don't use that I wanted to write to you about my story about being an Irish innovator having a go in Ireland and then finally throwing the towel because it was too difficult and this is an experience that many many thousands of young Irish people feel and many of Matthew's contemporary.

9:13So we are going down to Brisbane. And before we say that, Matthew, I am going on a book tour to Australia. So you said at the end of the email, I'll see you in Australia. I actually will. I'm going on a book tour in October to Australia. We will have to figure it out as to whether we do a gig or not. But that's just marking your card. Matthew, lovely to see you. How are you? I'm good, thanks. How are you? Great, great, great. So tell me, tell me about your reaction to the podcast last week, but more importantly, your own story. Sure. So my story begins in Dublin, where I was born and raised. Throughout my time in school, I always had a secret interest in computers, didn't quite tell friends, trying to remain cool.

9:56John had the same problem. Yeah, nerdsville. Exactly. But secretly, I was actually eyeing up my first car. I really wanted to purchase my first car around the age of 17, having done my driving test and whatnot. And I thought, this is a great idea. I can use my skills to try and make a bit of money to pay for my first car. At the time, my auntie was a photographer and she needed a website done. And she had built her first website on a platform called WordPress. So she brought me in. She paid me, I think, the sum total of 150 euros to build a website for her. And one of the big issues we had was that she couldn't get her photography on the website to show in like a slideshow format.

10:40So I took it upon myself to write code that would build out software that could do that for her in WordPress and decided that it was worth open sourcing it to see if anyone had any interest in using it as well. Thankfully they did. I made a bit of money and I think from there onwards managed to buy my first car, but not only that, managed to make enough money to live. I very much contemplated not finishing the Leaving Cert at the time, much to my parents' detriment. They really didn't appreciate that. I can imagine. I can imagine. Yeah, I did though. And thankfully I did because I think, you know, those backup auctions are incredibly important.

11:16I went through with that. I got a place in Trinity for computer science, but decided to defer it for the year to see if I could do anything in this space or with what I had already achieved, which in hindsight was very small, but to somebody of that age was immense. I outreached to a friend of mine, a guy called James Welton, who was... Oh, I remember him. I know him. Yeah. He started a thing called Coder Dojo, which was coding clubs for kids. There wasn't anything like that when I was in school, but had there been, it might have been great. And he was in Dogpatch Labs, the original Dogpatch Labs, which was run by a venture capital firm based in Dublin in the old Mason Hayes building.

11:58So he said, why don't you sit beside me? Let's do some work. Let's see what we can do. So I was petrified, but went in for, I think, maybe two or three years, worked alongside him and other companies in that space, just as a young consultant. I'm sure they were all delighted to get really cheap labor out of me. And it was great for me because I was getting experience. John gets out of me too. Don't worry about it. It never ends. yeah I don't think you can get that kind of experience any other way so it was great to get it and uh it was it was fueling my appetite right I thought at some point in time I was going to be in a position to do something myself I think later the years went on my my sentiments changed a bit but at the time I was very excited to be young and ready to give it a go so yeah I did that for a bit until Dogpatch Labs and it's in that form shifted into Dogpatch Labs in the IFSC run by Paddy hence So I was delighted to hear he was on the call.

12:55I thought that was really cool. And hence why I reached out. That's Paddy, by the way. I call him Patrick because I don't know him well enough. That's Paddy Walsh, who's known as Paddy by his mates, who basically set up this discussion in the sense that he seeded the idea for Matthew to get in contact with us. Tell us, Matthew, so what happens then? Because then, so you're flying along. You said you were working Coder Dojo. You also sent in the email the guys from Intercom, I presume the likes of Desk Trainer. Those guys were probably sitting around close to you. and things were buzzing. So this is, what are we talking about?

13:252012, 2013, those years. Yeah, around that time, I think maybe until it must have been 2014, I think around then, I could be wrong when it changed hands. So I didn't get a lot of it, but I got a few years and enough to inspire a young 18, 19 year old of time. So that was great. So tell me what happened after that, because what we want to get onto is the theme of your email to me, was the cost of housing in particular and the detrimental effect, the explosion in rents and house prices on your generation and on your generation's appetite for risk. Yeah. So given I'd made a bit of money, I mean, again, not a lot in real terms, but enough for me to support myself.

14:13So my parents were off the hook. They didn't have to support me in any of this endeavor, which made it a lot easier to have that conversation with them, given I had already, I think at that point, I had deferred uni for two years. If you don't mind me saying it, it's very Silicon Valley to defer uni or to drop out of uni. I mean, this is a path that has been trod by many, many people before you. Yeah, I'm not sure it's for everybody, but it was for me. I think I learned better on the job, which was just, I think, just a trade of my own. I also think that the sphere that we're in, it's one that you can learn as you go.

14:46I think technology moves so fast, so it could be incredibly difficult to keep up anyway. But to go back to where I was living, I was living in San Diego at the time, supporting myself renting an apartment there. And I continued to do so throughout when Dogpatch moved to the IFSC. I was still living there at the time, but it was coinciding with a difficult time. I think at the very beginning, my rent was, I guess you could consider reasonable or very reasonable by today's standards at about 1200 euros a month for a two bed. and I think within four or five years finishing up it was closer to two grand and beyond.

15:20It immediately pushed me out which was a really difficult situation to navigate at the time but I think the thing that I struggled with was how it affected my decision making, my risk taking, it affected how my risk of aversion began to kick in. I started thinking this is not really a good idea what am I doing what am I sacrificing you know at that point in time I was using a lot of the money I was making to live and I think that that started to really creep into to me I didn't I think some people continue to take risks to be have a tolerance to their not much tolerance to that but that's me I think my logic started to kick in and it really it really began to affect what I was doing and the risk that I was taking and so you you said to me also in the email a lot of people you knew or a lot of people you said, look, hold on a second.

16:14It's far safer to me, given how much rent I'm paying and given that the years are clicking by to get a well-paid job if I possibly can or a job if I possibly can and forget this idea of innovating and going out on your own and being an entrepreneur and a business starter and actually just basically say, look, I'll just take the gig elsewhere and I'll become an employee. Exactly. I mean, at the time I thought, okay, I committed to the two grand rental increase. I just worked harder. I made more of an effort to take on consultancy work and less time maybe developing my own skills or trying to pursue what I originally wanted to do, which was do something on my own.

16:58I felt at that point I was probably gaining enough confidence to give something a try. And I think I knew enough people in the space to at least have some emotional backing, if not financial. But it really, it got tough. And I think I can't recall exactly at what point in that year that things really started to fall undone. But I think I took a bit of a go with some projects at the time. Things weren't really going very well, very quickly. And I'd taken an income hit as a result. So I started to freak out. and you know at that point it was it was probably game over for my extreme risk taking in that regard the following year I moved out of the apartment tried to find another one really struggled to find anything it was incredibly difficult and fortunately for me had a family situation that could bring me in you know I could I could live at home again but I don't think everybody has that opportunity and I think at that point time though my my risk taking had had changed.

17:55I was probably approaching 24, 25 at that point. And things start to shift. You start to wonder, is this really worth it? What am I doing? You know, I don't want to start Facebook, but I'd like to do something a little bit different. So what am I doing here? Is this really worth it anymore? It's interesting when you put a timeline that you're 24, we're talking about what, 2016, 17, around then. This is also coincident with the beginning of an increase in acceleration and emigration of your generation out of the country. And when you look across, I mean, John and I are always amazed and really, really gratified when we look at the spread of listeners and the spread of listeners of podcasts, your Dubys, your Londons, New Yorks, Toronto's, Melbourne, yourself and Brisbane.

18:40This is a generation of Irish people who have left. So you're seeing a whole host of people of your mates and friends of friends, et cetera, in similar situations. Exactly. I feel like I kind of felt it before them. I skipped a couple of years by not going to uni. I think that, you know, when friends were finishing university, a lot of them in finance, they felt it the years preceding that. So they might've been at home, for example, thinking, what am I going to do next? They might have had graduate jobs at the time. So not particularly highly paid, but on a trajectory that they could see clearly.

19:15but the one impediment was always and for me too and for everybody was always where are you going to live uh i think once you start to get beyond 24 25 26 27 through 30 even mom and dad does it's not so easy you start to think okay uh what am i going to do and and you have to leave really in because most people are not earning anywhere near enough money at the time i figured that i think a bit earlier than everybody else but it took a couple of years for me to really get the courage to go. I think there was a lot of, and a pandemic, I think kind of delayed that a little bit. I was ready to go to London actually at the time.

19:49I felt that maybe it had a better opportunity with work and also with just with living, the opportunity to actually find somewhere to live. Despite the fact that being incredibly difficult to find somewhere to live in London, the more appealing prospect, I didn't get to do that before the pandemic, but I did afterwards, which was great. But very quickly, I think it didn't suit my partner more than me at the time. and it was difficult being there. So we made the ultimate decision to come to Australia, which was not one really based in tech, but more so based in feelings and living conditions and things like that.

20:22So what you're saying is like, there's a whole generation now, maybe two, but certainly one generation that would like, if it were possible, to live in Ireland. But the major factor is rents and house prices. The major factor. Absolutely. I mean, it is the, in my opinion, factor. I think I love home. I think home's a great place. I love spending lots of time there, you know, but like there is nowhere to live. And even if you find somewhere to live, gotta help you. I mean, it's probably rough. If you're lucky, you might find a nice place. But the cost is astronomical too. I mean, I'm approaching now, like I'm 31.

21:04So I'm thinking, okay, like time to, let's get married. Let's start a family. I'm thinking about all these things. I'm thinking, okay, how am I going to set down these routes? There's no hope. And granted, you don't necessarily have to live in a city like Dublin. I get that. But if you're in our space, where I am, that's where the excitement is. Our cities are where the excitement is. So it's very difficult to not want to be there. And also just having been from Dublin, you know, to want to be where you're from. It's a non-proposition. There is no proposition. I don't know how anybody can really manage it.

21:35And Matthew, when you're chatting to mates, you know, in Brisbane or, you know, down in Australia, is this the perennial topic of conversation when you're talking about Ireland and coming home or not coming home as the case may be? Yes, I think that in most circumstances, I think for a lot of people, look, it is true that there is opportunity abroad with work and different, you know, I can't speak for other job types, but it is true. But a lot of people do wish to return home and they won't. It's not something I necessarily felt too much in London, but definitely in Australia, having mixed with expats quite a bit, both Irish, English, Welsh, everything, you know, in terms of like, you know.

22:16There is a Lions tour going on at the moment. Exactly. Maybe that's why I said that. But they're not going to reside themselves to the conditions. I mean, Australia is not a cheap place, by God, no way. but it is possible at the very least to to have you know livable living conditions for a lot of a lot of play but it's manageable right I felt like at home you know I would be going back to the parents if I was lucky unless I made a substantial amount of cash to go in and and suddenly I can I can afford a house but I just don't see it and even then what am I getting myself into right I'm thinking me being someone who wants to take risk who wants to not have stability and security in what I do every day, immediately that financial burden is going to get straight into my thought process.

23:03Suddenly your risk aversion kicks in again. Matthew, just to put some numbers around this, what's the equivalent in terms of rental prices and cost of living in Australia, in Brisbane, where you are? Yeah, that's a very tricky question to answer because the situation here is rapidly changed. aside from the fact that Australia is made up from multiple cities, Sydney being extortionately expensive for a tremendous amount of time. Brisbane is unique in that I think nobody really discovered it until the pandemic. So the cost of living in Brisbane went from being very reasonable to suddenly not very reasonable.

23:41And I'm talking like 50 % house price increase in three years. So it's pretty intense. I mean, our rent has gone up about, I think, 15 % in the two years that we've been here. and I would expect it to go up again. I don't think they have the same level of rent control as those other countries. So you're pretty much just take it or leave it. It's quite competitive to find a place. But what I will say is that places exist and finding somewhere is possible. And we do pay, I think, the equivalent of about 1800 euros a month now. And it is a two-bedroom, two-bassroom apartment with a parking space.

24:17And it's relatively big for what it is. I mean, it far eclipses what I ever had in Saniford. And I think that that alone does an awful lot for one's mentality, right? Suddenly, I feel a little bit more revitalized with work because suddenly I feel very secure in where I am. And I think that that plays into my decision making. I feel like I'm probably on the verge of taking a risk with a career and due course. I've been doing a lot of consulting over the past couple of years, but I think now I might actually take a step back and do something different. And I haven't felt like that for a long time.

24:52And I personally put a lot of that down to just feeling security of tenure in the first place. Other than that, I think living costs are probably on par. I mean, food's the same. Everything else really is the same. There's a great incentive here. The public transport's only 50 cents, which I think is fabulous. They brought that in as a cost of living relief. Now they can't get rid of it because it would be political suicide. but um 50 cents for to go anywhere you want on on a bus or a train is it yeah yeah or uh there's a boat on the river which is fabulous you can get a boat every day to work which is a really nice unique piece but uh yeah yeah it's great so it's an easy place to live which has been very nice but i do say like i think a lot of people are trying to find somewhere to live they're trying to find somewhere to be somewhere to raise a family somewhere to have space somewhere to to thrive as opposed to survive.

25:42And they struggled at home and said, no, I don't want it. I just don't want to do that. Well, you know, it's interesting listening to you because, I mean, the macro data. So we're talking about microtestimate stories. So the macro data substantiates exactly what you're saying, which is small businesses in Ireland, small companies in Ireland, startups, people going, trying to do their own thing and actually create what I said at the top of the show, the elixir of economic dynamism. They are not gradually, but rapidly disappearing from the landscape. And what they are being replaced by, or what they are doing, is they're taking a job in big multinational tech, because it's safer, and it can generate X amount of money per month.

26:28That means that the knock-on effect for the small startups is they can't pay the wages of the talented people who are going to the big tech companies. And so there's a brain drain away from what would naturally be the gene pool of startups in Ireland, and it's going to the tech companies. And of course, the tech companies are foreign owned, and it's an employment idea. And I suppose after a while in employment, you become risk averse yourself. You get used to not taking risks. You get used to being part of a greater firm, some security there, etc. And this all has a negative feedback effect on the society because it's taking away the very dynamism that you need.

27:13I mean, is that what you're seeing when you talk to your friends? Is there a resentment? Is there an anger? Or is there just a sort of resignation that this is the way Ireland is run? That's a good question. Depends who you ask. It probably depends on your career. I think in some circumstances, not all, but there is always Irish people. We're curious. We like to emigrate. I think some people were always going to go, but some people feel forced or pushed. And me to an extent, you know, I think probably more on the angry side at times. I think sometimes it's frustrating when you feel, I've been in situations where opportunity has arisen and that floor income level that one would need to just live a comfortable life is way too high for me to even get involved in that situation, to get involved in that opportunity.

28:11You know, I think startup culture is notoriously difficult. I think that it's really, you know, you're generally offered equity as opposed to an income. If you're lucky, you might get a little bit of both. But unfortunately, I can't pay my rent with that. So that's quite a frustrating situation to be in at times. And I think when you're getting on that plane, you can be full of resentment. I think I definitely a little bit was. It's excitement too, of course. It's something different. But there was a part of me that felt like I had, I don't ever consider myself like a failure. I think I've actually done very well for myself.

28:46And I'm very happy with everything that I've ever achieved. Everything I've ever done will work. But there's a part of me that's left a lot behind, right? That's left connections behind. That's left work opportunities behind. I don't doubt that new ones will present themselves, but it's just frustrating that it requires living across the world. And that's not even getting into, you know, being away from family, being away from friends, being away from everybody, trying to essentially, you know, meet new people and make those new connections again. Matthew, this is, I think, a story that thousands of podcast listeners will identify with, be they emigrants themselves, be they parents of emigrants, be they mates of emigrants, you know, cousins, boyfriends, girlfriends, lovers, whatever you have in yourself.

29:28I mean, I think this is a story that is going to be told. I think what is pathetic is the way in which over generations, I think certain Irish power structures, governments, et cetera, have kind of used immigration as a safety valve. It's like, you know, if they go, well, then they can't be that angry and they can't be that fed up. And basically we can have and hang on to what we hold. And I think there's a generational side to this. I think there's a class side to it. There's all sorts of things going on. But I think it's a story that will resonate with many, many people and has echoes of all sorts of institutional failure at home.

30:11And the price is being paid by people who leave rather than by the people who stay. And when I hear someone like you in Australia, it's Ireland's loss and it's Australia's gain. That's very, very clear to me. And as I said, by the way, I will be coming down at a certain stage, but thank you so much, Matthew. Thank you very much.

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32:20you know that was brilliant interview with Matthew and as you said before that it's it's great getting the the first hand stories from people the testimony as as you say but it's interesting I think I was telling you that I was at a wedding my nephew's wedding Tom and Sinead congratulations but I was at their wedding last week and they had a whole load of mates over some had come from Australia, some have come from the UK, some are still here. But they were echoing pretty much everything that Matthew was saying. All of their frustrations, all of their resentment, all of their anger was all coming through.

33:01And some of them have had the opportunity to leave. Some of them can't leave for various reasons. And some are making plans. And as you said, you know, wherever they go, it's their gain and our loss. Well, you're absolutely right. I mean, there's probably, there's a reason why Australia in particular hasn't had a recession since the 90s, which is amazing. Australia sailed through the global financial crisis. And it is because, or maybe a factor is, that they are receiving in lots of well-educated young migrants who are bringing their energy, their dynamism, their ideas, their capital, their networks to Australia, and they're thriving there.

33:46I mean, that's, it stands to reason that that's a factor. I'll give you just one other interesting thing before we go, John. There's a fascinating article this morning by John Byrne Murdoch, a friend of the show from the FT, data expert. And the article is about it. Why are young adults in the English speaking world so unhappy? That's the title. Amazing article. It talks about, it looks at the World Happiness Report. It's a Gallup poll. And it basically talks to people of different age groups and asks them, you know, how are you feeling about the world, your mental well-being? Are you experiencing worry, sadness, anger, anxiety, all those sort of things.

34:21And what you see is there has been a dramatic increase in the number of young people in Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, UK and the US, a dramatic increase in anxiety, in mental health problems, etc., etc., in their 20s and 30s vis-a-vis other countries such as France, Belgium, Germany, Western Europe, Netherlands in particular. And what John Byrne Murdoch is saying is exactly what we've just said there, is that there is a direct link between people feeling happy about themselves, having what we always call, John, a stake in society and house prices and rents. And what you will find is, John, think about this.

35:06Since the mid-90s, home ownership in Ireland has fallen by 48 % for the people between 25 and 34. That is the highest in the world. Yeah. And that is exactly what Matthew's talking about. It's exactly what John Byrne Murdoch is picking up on on the data about anxiety and depression, etc. And of course, housing is at the root or is one of the roots. It's not the only root, but one of the root problems. And I think we should probably leave it there and we will come back to this issue because it is an absolute abdication of responsibility on the part of the governing classes and the governing institutions to allow this to happen.

35:53Absolutely.

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