By age 20, more than 50% of people in Ireland have had sex. In comparison, the average age of moving out of one’s parents’ house is 28, according to the Economic and Social Research Institute’s 2023 report (ESRI 2023). That is, for half the population, 8 years during which privacy is scarce. In pursuit of private, open spaces, a sexually active young person is left with very limited options, which often leads to compromising safety, comfort and health.
Let’s be frank. Apartment-hunting is terrible. The market is flooded, the rents are sky-high, and for each viewing you somehow manage to get, there will be 20 other people there, all trying to charm themselves into the landlord’s graces through a million and one pieces of paperwork. If you don’t have the whole summer to spend sending in applications on Daft.ie and a flexible schedule that allows you to move all of your belongings at a week’s notice, it might not be realistic to find a place while working or studying.
But then, bringing a date home to your parents is not exactly a fun idea either. So what can you do? There are hotels, of course, but then who can afford that? The average price of a room per night is over €160 according to the Fáilte Ireland Hotel Survey from 2023, and even budget options don’t usually go for under €50. Unless you suddenly came into an inheritance, the options are very limited indeed. People get creative, which, unfortunately, is not always a good thing.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Ireland saw a massive spike in the number of reported STIs. According to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, in 2023, young people (15-24) accounted for 45% of all recorded cases, with cases among young women more than doubling in number. This is a direct result of an increase in risky sexual behaviours, mostly unprotected sex, which in turn can be influenced by environmental factors.
Intoxicated encounters in a nightclub bathroom might not be anyone’s idea of a perfect time, but, with neither person having a place to go back to comfortably, that might be the only way to go about things. What’s more, unless you are in a relationship, a fear of missed opportunity might create pressure to engage in an encounter when it becomes available, because, after all, what’s the next time there will be a chance? When pressure like this rises, it’s easy to suddenly forgo protection, lubrication or, for that matter, forget to check in with your partner about their recent check-ups and general sexual health.
And then, of course, there is a matter of consent. As a general rule of thumb, mixing of hookup culture with intoxicants of any variety is a risky endeavour at best. It makes informed, enthusiastic agreement on the sides of both parties extremely difficult to reliably communicate. Even if you want to engage with someone, that does not mean you agree to every specific act that might arise during a sexual encounter. But, if things are rushed, you are a bit tipsy, or maybe there just isn’t enough space to walk away, it might be difficult to always get that point across.
So what’s to be done?
Well, in a perfect world, we would wake up tomorrow and the rent in the city would drop to reasonable levels, with plenty of apartments available to everybody, ideally under legal protection. Seeing how that might not be the most realistic short-term, let’s look at some alternatives.
To start with, the answer to sex being safer is not to tell people to stop having sex. Even if prescribing abstinence ever worked, which it didn’t, the point is very firmly not that, as a grown adult with consenting adult partners, one should not be allowed to engage in sexual behaviours until they obtain a certain amount of monetary stability. Last year, Trinity made an important move forward in that direction, rescinding its overnight guest policy, which made it impossible to have people over after midnight. It’s a step many student accommodations still have not taken.
Second, and this might seem like an obvious one, read up about safe sex practices and consent. A good portion of the research for this article had been conducted using materials availed by sexualwellbeing.ie, a group that, among other things, distributes those free condoms and lube you can find anywhere from Teach 6 and the coatroom at The George. It is this author’s great recommendation that, immediately after finishing this article, you go browse through their website’s articles on consent practices, even if you already know everything in it, (then be that annoying person who sends over informative articles to friends).
Finally, if you are sexually active, carry protection with you. 84% of men and 85% of women already know that a condom is the most effective way of preventing STIs, but, respectively, only 37% and 33% report always using one while having sex according to ESRI 2025. Even if we account for a certain part of that group consciously not using contraception for any reason, that still leaves a significant margin that might want to use protection, but during a sexual encounter, don’t have any available. Even if you don’t need it yourself, if you see a friend hit it off well with a stranger, one or both of them might end up grateful.
Theory and practice can be two very different things. Considering the rate of living on one’s own, especially post-COVID, it’s not enough to just know how to go about sex safely, but rather, to maximise the chances of utilising that knowledge in less-than-ideal circumstances. Ireland’s housing crisis should not pose a danger to young people’s sexual health.
