A NATIONWIDE SURVEY has revealed that there are over 2,800 ‘ghost estates’ in the the Republic of Ireland – including a total of 20,000 unfinished homes.

The estates – which in total contain over 120,000 homes – were catalogued by the Department of the Environment as part of the National Housing Development Survey, published this afternoon.

It found that work had been left unfinished in a total of 2,800 housing estates, and that 33,000 homes were either completed and vacant (23,000), or ‘nearly complete’ (10,000).

Another 10,000 houses had been abandoned at various earlier stages of earlier construction.

Longford, Leitrim, Roscommon and Sligo were the worst affected counties in terms of unrealised planning permission, the BBC said, while Carlow County Council had the highest proportion of empty homes, with 176 out of 320 homes built in small towns and villages incomplete.

Cork County had the highest number of ‘ghost estates’ in total, at 176, ahead of Kerry (152), Donegal (133), Mayo (129) and Roscommon (118).

The problem was less severe in city council jurisdictions, where the Irish Times reported that Dublin had 97 ghost estates, Galway 34, Cork 21, Waterford 12 and Limerick 12.

Junior minister for housing, Michael Finneran, said the survey provided “the evidence base to deliver policy and action in solving the problems that can arise on housing developments due to the wider construction and economic downturn.”

He added that the number of vacant housing units was broadly equivalent to 150% of the state’s housing output for 2009, and said many developers had not lodged enough security money (in the form of bonds) with local councils to cover the cost of finishing the buildings.

“I don’t think it was ever intended that bonds would be for actually finishing out housing developments,” he said. “So the bonds will not be adequate in most cases to deal with the issue of finishing out estates.”

The government is now to set up an expert group to device policy on how to manage the problem. RTÉ reports that a draft code of practice will be published by the group within three weeks.

The survey was welcomed by the Sherry FitzGerald property group, which said the findings would end debate on the level of housing supply.