The 2016 report showed that the majority of housing was only temporarily vacant, mainly because the housing was for sale, or between tenancies, or being renovated, or the owner was in hospital, or in a nursing home, or had just died. Only a fraction were vacant long-term. The 2022 FAQ seems to indicate the same, but again we have to wait until next year.
The 2016 report also showed that the highest rate of vacancy was in rural areas, where people were moving from, and lowest in urban areas, where people were moving to. I imagine the 2022 report will show similar, but we won’t have that until next year.
>However, when the data was analysed, 48,387 dwellings which were vacant in 2016 were still vacant in 2022. Furthermore, 23,483 dwellings were vacant in 2011, 2016 and 2022.
I would guess that many of those houses would require substantial work to be made habitable. In my home area in rural Ireland I can think of 7 houses which are vacant within 200-300 meters of my family home simply because the owners died and nobody is interested in moving into them. Some would have to be demolished, and others would need a fair bit of work.
Does this include derelict houses?
100% guarantee that 90% of those vacant homes are outside Dublin because thats where everyone wants to live.
Every day that goes by I become more and more certain that the obsession with cars and single family homes are the cause of almost all of these social woes and what we really need is higher density housing and a massive investment in national public transport on a scale similar to the motorways. Theres absolutely no reason that people shouldn’t be able to commute to and from Dublin in under 1.5-2hr from anywhere in the country. High speed rail goes north of 300km/hr and having the option would absolutely take the pressure off having to live in Dublin. Imagine 5 o clock of a friday you decide to fuck off to Galway for the weekend and you could be in a Galway pub by 8pm. The technology exists but the political will doesn’t
I see abbandoned houses in Dublin every day what do they mean they are all in the country? And no, they are not derelict. And those apartments over by the grand canal docks sitting empty are unoccupied since forever.
5 comments
I wonder how many are holiday homes
Nice editorial.
In 2016 the CSO reported [183K vacant houses](https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp1hii/cp1hii/vac/). That figure is now 166K vacant dwellings.
The 2016 report showed that the majority of housing was only temporarily vacant, mainly because the housing was for sale, or between tenancies, or being renovated, or the owner was in hospital, or in a nursing home, or had just died. Only a fraction were vacant long-term. The 2022 FAQ seems to indicate the same, but again we have to wait until next year.
The 2016 report also showed that the highest rate of vacancy was in rural areas, where people were moving from, and lowest in urban areas, where people were moving to. I imagine the 2022 report will show similar, but we won’t have that until next year.
This is an interesting quote from the [2022 FAQ](https://www.cso.ie/en/census/census2022/census2022andvacantdwellingsfaq/):
>However, when the data was analysed, 48,387 dwellings which were vacant in 2016 were still vacant in 2022. Furthermore, 23,483 dwellings were vacant in 2011, 2016 and 2022.
I would guess that many of those houses would require substantial work to be made habitable. In my home area in rural Ireland I can think of 7 houses which are vacant within 200-300 meters of my family home simply because the owners died and nobody is interested in moving into them. Some would have to be demolished, and others would need a fair bit of work.
Does this include derelict houses?
100% guarantee that 90% of those vacant homes are outside Dublin because thats where everyone wants to live.
Every day that goes by I become more and more certain that the obsession with cars and single family homes are the cause of almost all of these social woes and what we really need is higher density housing and a massive investment in national public transport on a scale similar to the motorways. Theres absolutely no reason that people shouldn’t be able to commute to and from Dublin in under 1.5-2hr from anywhere in the country. High speed rail goes north of 300km/hr and having the option would absolutely take the pressure off having to live in Dublin. Imagine 5 o clock of a friday you decide to fuck off to Galway for the weekend and you could be in a Galway pub by 8pm. The technology exists but the political will doesn’t
I see abbandoned houses in Dublin every day what do they mean they are all in the country? And no, they are not derelict. And those apartments over by the grand canal docks sitting empty are unoccupied since forever.