Making room can help ease housing crisis

2.3 million bedrooms lie unused across the country

- SEAN MURPHY

SURPRISING new figures reveal that there are 2.3 million empty bedrooms in homes across the country amid the accommodation crisis.

Analysis of Central Statistics Office data found that over a fifth of households across the country have two or more spare bedrooms.

That is 21 per cent of homes or 389,327 properties - with at least two more bedrooms than occupants.

There were 109,255 households where there were three or more bedrooms more than the number of occupants.

Housing campaigners say healthcare workers, teachers, IT sector employees, students and homeless people could use these spare rooms and households can earn €14,000 a year tax-free by housing them.

It is the first time ever that this data has been mined from Census results and has been carried out amid the ongoing accommodation crisis by rental business HomeHak.

A spokesperson for the research said: "There is an accommodation crisis, more than a housing crisis.

"New data show lots of housing with surplus accommodation.