Damp and Mould Statistics Ireland 2026: Homes Affected, EU Ranking, Rentals and Health

Last updated: September 2026. Human written and fact checked against each named source.

More than one in five people in Ireland live in a home with a leaking roof, damp walls or floors, or rot, the fourth highest rate in the European Union and up from 12.4% in 2019. This page gathers the current damp and mould figures for Ireland in one place: how many homes are affected, how Ireland compares with the rest of Europe, which households are most exposed, what rental inspections find, and what the evidence says about health. Every figure links to the Eurostat, CSO, Department of Housing, ESRI or other source it came from, and the page is written for journalists, researchers, tenants’ groups and homeowners who need a number they can cite. It sits alongside our energy poverty statistics and home insulation statistics.

Key Damp and Mould Statistics for Ireland at a Glance

• 21.2% of people in Ireland lived in a dwelling with a leaking roof, damp walls, floors or foundation, or rot in window frames or floor in 2023, against an EU average of 15.6%. Source: Eurostat ilc_mdho01
• Ireland has the fourth highest rate in the EU, behind Cyprus (32.1%), Portugal (29.0%) and Spain (23.0%). Source: Eurostat ilc_mdho01
• The Irish rate rose from 12.4% in 2019 to 16.3% in 2020 and 21.2% in 2023, an increase of 8.8 percentage points in four years (calculated). Source: Eurostat ilc_mdho01
• Damp is not confined to poor households: 20.7% of people above the poverty threshold in Ireland live with it, against 14.1% across the EU. Source: Eurostat ilc_mdho01
• Single adults with dependent children are the most exposed household type at 26.1%. Source: Eurostat ilc_mdho01
• 38,765 of the 64,120 private rented dwellings inspected by local authorities in 2025 did not meet minimum standards, a failure rate of 60.5% (calculated). Source: Department of Housing, Private Rental Inspections 2010 to 2025
• Local authorities carried out 82,784 rental inspections in 2025, up from an average of 20,000 a year between 2005 and 2017. Sources: Department of Housing data and gov.ie press release
• Respiratory problems such as wheezing are more common among nine year olds who spent longer in damp or inadequately heated homes. Source: ESRI, Growing Up in Ireland research
• Some 450,000 people in Ireland currently have asthma, and one person on average dies from it every five days. Source: Asthma Society of Ireland
• One in three Irish homes with a BER is rated D or worse, the cold, hard to heat stock where condensation forms most readily (calculated). Source: CSO, Domestic Building Energy Ratings Q2 2026

How Many People in Ireland Live in a Damp Home

The standard European measure comes from the EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions, which asks households whether their dwelling has a leaking roof, damp walls, floors or foundation, or rot in window frames or floor. In 2023, the most recent year collected, 21.2% of the population in Ireland answered yes, per the Eurostat dataset ilc_mdho01, updated in August 2026. That is more than one person in five.

The trend is what stands out. Between 2010 and 2019 the Irish rate moved in a narrow band, from 12.6% in 2010 to a peak of 14.5% in 2014 and a low of 11.9% in 2018, and it sat below the EU average in every one of those years. It then climbed to 16.3% in 2020 and 21.2% in 2023. The question was not collected in 2021 or 2022, so the path between those points is unknown, but the 2023 figure is the highest in the series by a wide margin. Over the same four years the EU average rose from 12.7% to 15.6%.

Ireland Against the Rest of Europe

Ireland’s 21.2% is the fourth highest rate among the 27 EU member states. The countries above it are Cyprus, Portugal and Spain. France sits just below Ireland at 21.1%. At the other end of the table, Sweden, Finland, Croatia and Poland all report rates below 6%, per the same Eurostat dataset.

Ireland’s poor showing is specific to damp. On the companion measures Ireland is at or better than the European norm: 6.9% of people consider their dwelling too dark against an EU average of 6.7% in 2023, per Eurostat ilc_mdho04, and only 5.4% live in an overcrowded household against 16.8% across the EU in 2025, per Eurostat ilc_lvho05a. Irish homes are comparatively spacious and bright. They are also, by European standards, wet.

Who Lives in Damp Homes

In most of Europe damp housing tracks poverty closely. Across the EU, 23.6% of people below the at risk of poverty threshold live with leaks, damp or rot, against 14.1% of those above it. In Ireland the gap is far narrower: 24.6% below the threshold and 20.7% above it, per the Eurostat breakdown by poverty status. Put plainly, the rate for Irish households above the poverty line, 20.7%, is close to the rate for households below it across the EU as a whole, 23.6%. That points to the building stock and the climate rather than to income alone.

Household type still matters. Single adults with dependent children report the highest rate at 26.1%, followed by two adults under 65 at 25.6% and single adults under 65 at 24.2%. Older households report the least: 17.9% of single adults aged 65 or over and 12.6% of couples where at least one person is 65 or over. Households with dependent children are at 22.5% against 19.3% for those without.

Eurostat does not publish this item by tenure, but the CSO’s deprivation data shows how much more exposed renters are to cold: 16.5% of people in rented or rent free accommodation went without heating at some point in 2025 against 3.5% of owner occupiers, per the CSO SILC Enforced Deprivation 2025. A home that is not heated is a home where moisture condenses.

The full inspection series, the enforcement figures and council by council coverage are set out in our rental housing standards statistics for Ireland, which records 82,784 inspections in 2025.

What Rental Inspections Find

Local authorities inspect private rented homes against the Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations 2019, which cover structural repair, heating, ventilation, sanitary facilities, natural light and fire and gas safety. The Department of Housing publishes the results each year. The inspections test every standard, not damp alone, so the failure rate below is a measure of overall rental quality in which damp, ventilation and heating are recurring items rather than a count of damp homes.

The figures are from the Department’s Private Rental Inspections 2010 to 2025 dataset. Inspection volumes have quadrupled: the Minister for Housing reported an average of 20,000 inspections a year between 2005 and 2017, over 49,000 in 2022, more than 63,500 in 2023 and over 80,000 in 2024, a 26% rise in one year, with €10.5 million in funding for local authority inspection teams in 2025, per the gov.ie statement. In Dublin City, 4,020 of the 7,360 dwellings inspected in 2025 failed, a rate of 54.6% (calculated from the same dataset). Even at the lower recent rate, six in ten inspected rentals do not meet the legal minimum.

Damp, Mould and Health

The World Health Organization’s guidelines on dampness and mould conclude that the most important health effects are increased prevalence of respiratory symptoms, allergies and asthma, along with disturbance of the immune system, and that the most important protective measure is preventing persistent dampness and microbial growth on interior surfaces and in building structures, per the WHO guidelines for indoor air quality: dampness and mould.

That matters more in Ireland than almost anywhere. The Asthma Society of Ireland describes Ireland as having one of the highest rates of asthma in the world: some 450,000 people currently have the condition, approximately 900,000 will experience it at some stage of their life, 50% of those living with it do not have it under control, and one person on average dies from asthma every five days, with 90% of those deaths preventable, per the Asthma Society of Ireland.

Irish longitudinal evidence links the two. ESRI research using the Growing Up in Ireland study of children born in 2007 and 2008 found that respiratory problems such as episodes of wheezing were more common among nine year olds who had spent longer living in poor housing conditions such as damp, as well as in homes that were not adequately heated. One in ten nine year olds lived in a home their parents could not afford to keep warm, and 7% spent persistent periods of their childhood in such homes. The report found housing quality problems more common in the private rented and social housing sectors and called for greater emphasis on inspection and follow up of standards, per the ESRI.

Why Irish Homes Get Damp

Three conditions combine. The first is weather. Met Éireann’s records show measurable rainfall in one out of every five hourly observations nationally, rising to one in every 3.5 to 4 hours at stations on higher ground, per its rainfall climatology, and an average of 170 weather fronts reach the south west of the country each year, per its climate of Ireland summary. Walls and roofs are wetted constantly and have little time to dry.

The second is cold building fabric. Condensation forms where warm, moist indoor air meets a cold surface, and one in three Irish homes with a Building Energy Rating is rated D or worse (16% D, 8% E, 4% F and 5% G, calculated from the CSO Domestic Building Energy Ratings Q2 2026). Among rated homes built before 1900, 31% are G rated. The CSO also found that 4.5% of people could not afford to keep their home adequately warm in 2025 and 7.5% went without heating at some stage, per the CSO SILC 2025. Our energy poverty statistics cover that side in full.

The third is ventilation. A September 2025 study of newly built Irish homes found ventilation rates consistently below recommended levels, with a mean air exchange rate of 0.28 per hour across the year and 0.21 in winter, and estimated the health cost of indoor air pollution in Ireland at €0.15 billion a year, per Public Policy’s indoor air quality and ventilation report. If new homes built to current regulations are under ventilated, older homes that have been sealed and insulated without a ventilation plan are at greater risk still.

What was measured inside new Irish homes, including ventilation rates below recommended levels, is set out in our indoor air quality statistics for Ireland.

What Fixes It

The WHO’s central recommendation is prevention of persistent dampness, which in building terms means dealing with all three causes together: keep rain out of the structure, raise the temperature of internal surfaces, and remove moist air at source. Insulating walls lifts surface temperatures above the point where condensation forms, but only works if the wall is dry first and the home is ventilated afterwards. That sequencing is why a survey comes before any specification, and why ventilation is part of an insulation job rather than an extra.