{"id":504634,"date":"2026-05-27T05:21:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T05:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/504634\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T05:21:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T05:21:19","slug":"dublin-councillor-to-emigrate-to-australia-as-she-cant-afford-to-live-here-any-more-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/504634\/","title":{"rendered":"Dublin councillor to emigrate to Australia as she \u2018can\u2019t afford to live here any more\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> councillor in her 20s has resigned from her role and is emigrating<\/a> to Australia<\/a> as she says she \u201ccan\u2019t afford to live here any more\u201d. <\/p>\n

Niamh Fennell (26), from Clondalkin, was a councillor on South Dublin County Council <\/a>for the Palmerstown-Fonthill electoral ward from 2024 until her resignation on Monday. <\/p>\n

She also works as a youth and community engagement worker with the mental health charity Jigsaw. She lives in a spare bedroom at her grandparent\u2019s home. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is a disgrace that people like myself, stuck in the middle, where you can\u2019t get social housing but you can\u2019t afford to buy or rent, are literally just being left behind,\u201d she said. \u201cThe only option we have is to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fennell, who graduated from Maynooth University with a degree in youth and community work in 2021, plans to make the move in August, having travelled to the country previously. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a decision that definitely wasn\u2019t made lightly and there was a lot of stuff happening in the background to not come to that decision and not have to step down in a role that I\u2019ve really enjoyed over the last two years,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve looked at moving out, renting in Dublin. It\u2019s not something I can attain, it\u2019s not affordable and even trying to find somewhere is very difficult. I\u2019m obviously lucky in that I have somewhere to live but many like me don\u2019t and I\u2019ve been working with people in very similar situations to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fennell said she could earn \u201calmost double\u201d her current salary by working in a similar youth and community role in Australia and that the typical starting salary for someone entering the sector in Ireland was about \u20ac28,000. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest thing in Ireland affecting a lot of youth and community workers is the contracts,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe contracts typically only last a year and they\u2019re rolling contracts and dependent on them getting funding from the Government. <\/p>\n

\u201cEven for someone who had a lot of savings and a partner to help secure a mortgage, you\u2019re not going to get a mortgage, it\u2019s not going to happen because the contracts aren\u2019t permanent. In Australia, what I\u2019ve been seeing is that the starting-off roles start at around 60,000 or 70,000 Australian dollars. It\u2019s way higher.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking at what I\u2019m earning at the moment, comparing it to going full-time into a youth worker [role] or similar, I would be earning almost double to what I\u2019m earning today.\u201d <\/p>\n

Fennell added she would \u201cabsolutely\u201d stay in Ireland if she felt it was financially viable. Yet she said she was in a \u201cprivileged\u201d position compared with other people her age. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a huge decision but it has come to just not being able to see a future here. If I was earning a little bit more, if the cost of living was starting to come down, if I could see more investment in the places and spaces I\u2019m in \u2013 mental health, youth facilities \u2013 I would stay here,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut I feel like in the last number of years it\u2019s actually gone the other way. There\u2019s been cuts in youth work and mental healthcare and the faith in seeing a change in Ireland is starting to dwindle for me personally … I shouldn\u2019t be in the circumstances that I\u2019m in. I shouldn\u2019t have to be struggling the way I\u2019m struggling and there are thousands of others who probably aren\u2019t earning as much as me or aren\u2019t in positions like myself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Sinn F\u00e9in councillor in her 20s has resigned from her role and is emigrating to Australia as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[47790,9,10,18,13,14,219206,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,219207,10905,7,8],"class_list":["post-504634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-beach","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-good-weather","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-sunshine-sandycove","tag-swimming","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116644864678920705","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}