Census reveals reality of County Galway’s 14,000 empty homes
Roundstone, Clifden and other parts of Connemara have the highest levels of vacant homes in the county, according to figures from the Census.
Preliminary figures from Census 2016 show there are currently 13,960 homes lying vacant in the county, of a total housing stock of 78,969.
That represents a vacancy rate of just under 18%, or around one in every five homes.
However, an analysis of the figures from each local electoral area shows much higher vacancy rates in areas like Doonloughan (73%); Roundstone (60%); Errislannan (60%); Derrylea (58%) and Clifden (43%) – mainly due to empty holiday homes.
In Clifden (rural), there is a housing stock of 6,097 – of these 2,632 are empty, with 1,786 of those being vacant holiday homes. In real terms, Clifden also had the highest volume of empties.
In Roundstone, 280 of the 463 homes are empty – 217 of which are vacant holiday homes.
Of a housing stock of 130, Doonloughan has 95 vacant homes, all but one of which are vacant holiday homes. In Bunowen, a total of 264 homes out of 428 (62%) are empty, 229 of which are vacant holiday homes.
The figures come a time when more than 3,500 households are on the Galway County Council housing waiting list.
A breakdown of the Census figures shows that in the county, 3,681 empties are vacant holiday homes, while a further 10,279 are just empty.
In Galway City, the total housing stock is 35,006, and there is a vacancy rate of 10.5% (a total of 3,671 units). Of the empties, 296 are vacant holiday homes.
Other local electoral areas with high volumes of empties include Tuam (rural area) with a stock of 15,096 homes and 2,158 vacant (193 of which are holiday homes), representing a vacancy rate of 14.3%.