One-in-six houses empty for most of year, finds report

ONE-IN-SIX houses are lying idle for the majority of the year resulting in growing economic and criminal problems.

According to the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA), the problem of uninhabited properties is particularly evident in the 620 “ghost estates” across the country.

Their report — A Haunted Landscape: Housing and Ghost Estates in Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland — claims that “reckless planning” led to a dramatic oversupply of housing, with more than 300,000 housing units now uninhabited for the majority of the year.