HOUSING:THE RATE at which houses were being built in Ireland between 2006 and 2011 exceeded the rate of population growth, the preliminary census results show.
Almost 235,000 dwellings were built in Ireland in the past five years, an increase of 13.3 per cent in the number of households at a time where the population grew by just 8.1 per cent.
The number of dwellings in Ireland has now topped two million. Some 294,202, or 14.7 per cent, of these are vacant.
While there are 27,880 more uninhabited units than five years ago, the overall percentage of vacant dwellings fell slightly since the 2006 census, when 15 per cent of dwellings were unoccupied.
In certain areas the vacancy rate is particularly stark: in Leitrim, more than three in every 10 dwellings were unoccupied at the time of the census last April.
Other counties with very high vacancy rates were Donegal at 28.5 per cent and Kerry at 26.5 per cent – although this can be partially explained by a high level of holiday homes in both counties.
Other coastal areas where vacancy rates stood at over 20 per cent included Mayo, Clare, Wexford and Sligo, while vacant dwellings also made up over a fifth of households in counties Roscommon, Cavan and Longford.
All five counties in which the rural renewal relief scheme applied – Leitrim, Longford and parts of Cavan, Roscommon and Sligo – recorded high vacancy rates. Introduced in 1998 by then minister for finance Charlie McCreevy, the scheme granted tax incentives on the construction of rented and owner-occupied accommodation.
In Dublin city, one in 10 dwellings was vacant, while the three other Dublin local authority areas – South Dublin, Fingal and Dún Laoghaire/ Rathdown – had the lowest number of vacant dwellings in the country.
Dwellings under construction and derelict buildings were not counted as vacant in the census.
There are 2,004,175 dwellings in Ireland, up 234,562 units since the last census. This means, on average, just under 47,000 dwellings were built per year since 2006.
More than half of the country’s housing stock is located in Leinster, with almost 530,000 dwellings in Dublin city and county.
Laois saw the biggest increase in housing stock over the five-year period at 21.2 per cent. Other counties that saw the number of households increase by over 19 per cent were Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim and Longford.
Limerick county and four of the five main cities – Dublin, Cork, Waterford and Galway – had the smallest growth in dwellings, at less than 10 per cent. Limerick city bucked the trend, recording an increase of over 15 per cent.