As chief executive of CG Business Consulting, Caroline Geoghegan deals with her fair share of challenges.

She recently travelled to Costa Rica to relocate climate scientists to Ireland to bolster expertise in her firm.

But the most complex aspect was not finding the right candidates or sorting critical skills visas, it was navigating the Irish property market.

“Finding them somewhere to live was by far the most difficult part of the process,” she tells Business Plus.

Geoghegan’s firm helps organisations achieve ISO certification in quality, environmental, health and safety.

It also has a sustainability division which assists companies to calculate their carbon footprint and another that focuses on cybersecurity requirements.

“The EU Green Deal is now driving CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) and sustainability reporting in Europe,” Geoghegan says.

She adds: “In order for you to understand what your carbon footprint is, you need an advisory company to help you determine what your scope one, scope two, scope three emissions are.”

She says that when the government released its Climate Action Plan, her firm went through it “line by line” to understand exactly what was being asked of business by government.

She then set up another company called EcoVerify, Ireland’s first accredited greenhouse gas verification firm.

In order to help companies navigate the complex requirements, Geoghegan turned to a small country in central America.

“In 2011, Costa Rica set out on its ambition to become the first carbon neutral country in the world.

“They started their policy on a governmental level, and started training greenhouse gas emissions and verification services,” she says.

“So they’re a leading country in the world, and they have got a lot of climate scientists and greenhouse gas experts with real industry experience.

“I actually went over to Costa Rica. I was very fortunate to relocate three greenhouse gas experts who are UN advisers, and they were advisers to the Costa Rican government, and we’ve also hired someone from North Macedonia.”

The workers were hired on critical skills permits, which allow companies in Ireland to hire foreign workers that have skills which are in short supply here.

“The critical skills permit is a very, very good process with a really good turnaround time,” she says.

“But the hardest part out of all of that journey was finding houses. Finding houses! We made it happen, though.”

Geoghegan says that she managed the house hunt herself and only got through it by “becoming best friends” with an estate agent.

Geoghegan is not alone. The average price of a resale property in Dublin stood at €593,936 in March, an increase of over €50,000 in 12 months, according to the residential market review from estate agents DNG.

In the rental market, prices increased by 5.7% nationally last year to almost €2,000 per month.

In Dublin, prices were up 4% to almost €2,500 per month.

A survey by the American Chamber of Commerce previously found that housing was the top concern for US multinationals in Ireland.

Almost four in ten — 38% — named the housing shortage as their biggest challenge when it came to expanding their operations in Ireland.

Mark Redmond, the organisation’s chief executive, said: “It is important that Ireland addresses infrastructure issues including housing and transport capacity in our airports and ports, to ensure the country maintains its status as a great location for FDI.”