The Irish division of Savills, an international property company, predicts that rents will increase an additional 17 percent over the next three years.

“The social and political risks are very high,” said Orla Hegarty, a professor of architecture at University College Dublin. “The high cost of housing is now a barrier to inward investment, to emigrants returning with skills, to people hoping to start families and who want to move. We’ll see that soon in lost growth and a falling birthrate.”

For those struggling to pay rents or unable to find homes, the risk is not in the future, but now.

After nine years renting a house in northern County Dublin, Sabrina Farrell and her three children, aged 4 to 16, were evicted in April when their landlord decided to sell. Unable to find a home they could afford, even with public rent assistance, they now share a single hotel room paid for by the local government, with no place to cook or play.

“The kids are living off McDonald’s,” Ms. Farrell said. “A couple of weeks ago, my older boy started self-harming because of the situation we are in.”