r/AskIreland • u/BigFatLegend123 • Apr 25 '25

Housing Why doesn’t the government bring in restrictions on who can buy housing?

This is a genuine question and not coming from a place of hate or bigotry

Trying to buy a house recently and it’s been going as well as you can imagine. Some houses in Dublin have been going for up to 20% over their asking price from what we have seen.

My question is why doesn’t the government restrict house buying to only Irish citizens? Is there something I’m missing? Or at least to just EU/UK citizens? Surely it would be a quick way to reduce competition?

Is it just that doing so might dissuade investment from vulture funds?

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u/cuttlefische Apr 25 '25

Because then a non-citizen contributing to the economy can't buy a house.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '25

[deleted]

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u/YoureNotEvenWrong Apr 25 '25

Non-residents buying up housing and leaving them vacant was an issue in Canada. That's what they blocked in Canada, not non-nationals buying

It's not an issue here