This article is from page 12 of the 2012-09-04 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 12 JPG
CLARE’S population may have risen to a 110-year high according to the findings from the 2011 census, but some towns and villages along the west coast now have a ghostly appearance to them.
This finding is contained in the latest bulletin report from the Central Statistics Office on the 2011 National Census of Population that has shown up Kilkee, Lahinch and Liscannor as being home to more vacant houses than anywhere else in the county.
All three centres are in the top ten of a national league table of vacant housing, the only county to have more than one town/village in this listing.
The figures released by the CSO last Thursday show that Liscannor has the highest number of vacant houses in the county, with 73 per cent of the premises in the village and wider parish unoccupied, making it joint second in the national list with Balitmore in Cork behind Mullaghmore in Sligo that has a vacancy rating of 78 per cent.
Kilkee is next on the Clare list with 71.5 per cent of vacant houses, with Lahinch just over a percentage point back on 70.4.
This means that three Clare centres have been held up as virtual ghost towns/villages for most of the year, with only time when most of the houses are occupied coming during the peak holiday period of July and August.
The large number of vacant houses in Kilkee and Lahinch can partly be attributed to the huge surge in holiday homes in both tourist centres for a decade from 1995 onwards, when developers availed of special tax incentives.
The tax breaks were contained in a seaside resorts scheme introduced by the then Rainbow coalition government that reigned from 1994 to ’97. Both Lahinch and Kilkee were among 15 towns/villages around the country included in the scheme devised by the Minister for Finance, Ruairi Quinn.
However, the building boom that occurred on the back of this special designation has now resulted in reducing both Kilkee and Lahinch to ghost towns for most of the year – the building boom pushed up the house prices, which has been held up as the largest contributory factor to population decline in the two tourist resorts.
Kilkee now has a population of 1,037, which is a drop of 21.5 per cent on the 2006 census, something that is expected to see the town lose its town council status in the upcoming reform of local government.
Together the high vacancy rates in Liscannor, Lahinch and Kilkee mean that Clare now ranks fifth out of 26 counties in terms of vacant holiday home statistics with 4,160 behind Donegal, Kerry, Cork and Wexford.
Liscannor’s status as having more unoccupied houses than any other village in the county comes against a backdrop of a rising population. Between the 2006 and 2011 censuses the population there grew by 32.6 per cent.
A map of the county produced by the CSO shows that vacancy rates in West and North Clare are now running at over 25 per cent. Only seven other counties have higher rates of vacant housing than in Clare, with Leitrim topping the league table with 30.4 per cent, while within Munster, Kerry on 26.5 per cent is the county with a higher rating than Clare.
Vacant Houses
Liscannor 73.1 per cent Kilkee 71.5 per cent Lahinch 70.4 per cent Mountshannon 59.2 per cent Bunratty 51.3 per cent Ballyvaughan 50 per cent Doonbeg 42.4 per cent Miltown Malbay 39.3 per cent Lisdoonvarna 37.9 percent