In this working paper, we examine the creation of ‘a haunted landscape’ – the recent
boom and the bust of the Irish housing market, and the creation of a new
phenomenon, ‘ghost estates’. We draw on and analyze numerous different
government and industry datasets to provide a rigorous evidence base for our
conclusions. What the data reveal is a pattern of development that ran counter to
what one would have expected or hoped for - those local authorities that had the
most vacant stock in 2006, subsequently built the most new housing, now have
the highest surpluses of stock, and have the most land zoned for future use.
Essentially, a number of local authorities did not heed good planning guidelines and
regional and national objectives; conduct sensible demographic profiling of potential
demand; or take account of the fact that much of the land zoned lacks essential
services such as water and sewerage treatment plants, energy supply, public transport
or roads. Instead, permissions and zoning have been facilitated by the abandonment
of basic planning principles by elected representatives on the local and national stage
and driven by the demands of local people, developers and speculators, and ambitious,
localised growth plans framed within a zero-sum game of potentially being left behind with respect to development. Further, central government not only failed to
adequately oversee, regulate and direct local planning, but actively encouraged its
excesses through tax incentive schemes and the flaunting of its own principles as set
out in the National Spatial Strategy through policies such as decentralisation.