Patrick Gibbons

Ireland’s centre has held

Taoiseach Simon Harris (Getty Images)

Two years ago, I secured an apartment in Dublin through a gay dating app. I was desperate and there was a housing shortage in Ireland so I was prepared to ignore safety concerns to get a roof over my head. ‘You must be used to this in London’, Irish friends would say to me. But I was not.

In London if you’re happy to compromise on cost or location, there are plenty of rooms available. In Dublin you can double or triple your budget or look further afield and still not find a place. There are some very high-spec, new-build apartments in the city’s docklands (its ‘tech hub’), which can cost around €3,000 for a two-bed, and are designed primarily for expats and American tech workers.

So, when I saw a friendly-looking face advertising a room on a dating app, I took my chance. Surely you can’t blame me. It worked out okay. But two years on from my experience, things haven’t really changed. People

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