SPORTS journalist Eamonn Sweeney, who lived in Skibbereen for over 20 years, has spoken up about pressures in the rental market in Ireland.

The Sligo native was a guest on RTÉ’s Tommy Tiernan Show last Saturday night and spoke about his struggles with anxiety and as well as the housing crisis.

Having lived in West Cork for such a long period, he had to leave his rental home after the owners decided to sell the property.

Finding a new place to live has been a struggle for him.

‘I’ve been renting for years, I’ve never owned a house’ he said. ‘

The people in the house that I was renting said they were going to sell it. And I can’t find a place to live, so at the moment - it’s like when you came back into Knock Airport in the 80s and you’d have to hover a bit while they waited for the fog to clear before you landed. I’m hovering in the fog at the moment.’

Sweeney said he is currently living with his mother in Spiddal, however he is considering moving abroad due to the lack of available housing in the country.

‘You can’t rent in this country anymore…I’ve been working since I was 19, you know. But I’m a single man now. Nobody’s going to give me a mortgage at this stage’ he said.

The veteran journalist left his long-time role as a sports columnist in The Sunday Independent as he looks for new experiences following his battles with mental illness.

‘I kind of realised I want to do other stuff with my life, you know, as a new horizon opened up. I thought, yeah, I feel like a new me. So maybe a new me should do new things,’ he said.