Month: September 2012

CLARE County Council’s clampdown on one-off houses in the rural part of the county has been graphically illustrated with the latest publication of the findings from the 2011 National Census of Population.

According to the ‘Roof Over Our Heads’ report, the number of new roofs over the heads of people in rural Clare has plummeted sharply from previous censuses, with the 2011 population study showing that oneoff house builds have been halved between 2006 and 2011.

There were 2,784 houses built in Clare between 2006 and 2011, with the number of one-off houses being 861, which represented just 30.90 per cent. When compared against the last census, which gave a breakdown of house builds between 2001 and 2006, there was a drop of 860 in new oneoff houses constructed in the county.

This reduction is in keeping with the slide in one-off planning permissions and house constructions that was heralded in the 2006 census when the figure of 1,721 one-off houses meant that, for the first time since records began, there were less single houses built in the county than houses than were part of developments. Between 1991 and 2000, the number of one-off houses constructed represented 69.80 of all houses built in the period.

Kilbaha-based Jim Connolly, who is the founder of Rural Resettlement Ireland, has said that present planning policy that’s against wide-scale oneoff housing is “enforcing urbanisation on people with disastrous consequences for the country”.

Continuing, Mr Connolly, who contested the 2011 General Election as an independent and a founder member of the Irish Citizens Party, said “future generations will rightly curse the planning policies of the Celtic Tiger period” and that “social, economic and cultural life has suffered from people being refused planning permission to build family homes in the countryside”.

KILRUSH is the third largest town in Clare behind Ennis and Shannon but, in terms of the information super-highway, the West Clare capital has now been cast into the slow lane when it comes access to technology.

Ennis once enjoyed Information Age Town status, while a new highspeed broadband service is now be- ing rolled out in Shannon, but the 2011 National Census of Population has revealed that Kilrush ranks as the second-worst town in Ireland when it comes to internet access.

The census statistics have revealed that 45 per cent of households in Kilrush now have internet access, which places the once bustling business and market town second-worst only to Rathkeale in Limerick, which has 55 per cent no internet connection rating.

The release of these statistics outlining Kilrush’s lowly internet rating came on the same day that the Minister for Communications, Pat Rabbitte, announced details of a new National Broadband Plan to bring the internet to every citizen in the country by 2015.

In acknowledging that there is a problem with internet access outside major urban areas and that State in- tervention was necessary, Minister Rabbitte said the new € 300m plan has been put in place following detailed consultations with leading telecommunication companies.

The census returns for Clare show that 25,041 households in Clare have access to broadband internet services, which leaves a shortfall of 17,493 households that have no broadband.

And of these 17,493 households without broadband, it has been revealed by the CSO that 12, 313 of these have no form of internet access whatsoever, while 4,149 have low speed internet access.

Thes low figures for the county will heighten calls for Clare to be given a prominent place in the new National Broadband Plan and its stated policy of providing broadband speeds of at least 30 megabits to every citizen within three years.

THE full extent of the building boom that was experienced in Clare during the Celtic Tiger years has been revealed in the latest bulletin report released by the Central Statistics Office on the 2011 census returns for the county.

Figures for Clare have shown that in the 20-year period from 1991 to 2011, there was a 76 per cent increase in the number of houses in the county from 31,606 to 55,616 – statistics that paint a picture of the biggest building boom in the county’s history over a period in which the population grew by over 15,000.

The 2011 figures show that housing stock in the county now sits at 55,616. Of this figure 42,534 of the houses are occupied, which means that there is a vacancy rate of 21.2 per cent in the county, which represents over one fifth of the county’s housing stock know lies vacant.

This figure can be directly attributed to the building boom that took place in the county, with the number of houses being build over a ten-year period from 1996 to 2006 illustrating the scale of the property industry in the county at the height of the building boom. In 1991 there were 31,606 houses in Clare when there was a vacancy rate of 14.6 per cent. The number of houses increased by less than 3,000 over the next five years until 1996, while the vacancy rate dropped to 12.8 per cent.

However, from 1996 onwards there was a massive increase in construction, with 7,124 new houses built over a five-year period, which had the knock-on effect of bumping vacancy rates up to 16.1 per cent.

This trend continued from 2001 to 2006 when 7,321 new houses were built as vacancy rates jumped to 20.1 per cent. Now there are 55,616 houses in the county, an increase of 24,010 when compared with 1991 figures, but the vacancy rates are now higher than they ever were at 21.2 per cent which translates into 11,782. The numbers of vacant houses is 5,936, while there are a further 1,236 flats unoccupied. The number of holiday homes in the county stands at 4,610.

The Census figures revealed that the number of new housing stock in Clare increased by 14 per cent in be- tween the 2006 and 2011 censuses, which means that Clare house builds ran ahead of the national average of 13.3 per cent.

These figures highlighting Clare’s building boom have been released in the same year that Clare planning was placed in the dock by the heritage watchdog, An Taisce, which published a report saying that Ennis was “an example of some of the most senseless zoning excesses of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ era”.

This damning indictment was delivered in an Taisce’s hard-hitting annual report, ‘State of the Nation – A Review of Ireland’s Planning System 2000-2011’.

Ennis and wider Clare was singled out for special mention in the 45-page report that turned the microscope on 32 planning authorities throughout the country.

Clare has been ranked 23rd out of the 32, the planning in Ennis coming in for special mention because of a range of decisions that were made during the 11-year timeframe covered by the report.

“Clare was the most over-zoned county in the State with 3,208 hectares allowing for an overall additional population of 273,000,” the report said, while noting that between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of all planning decisions in the county was for one-off housing in unzoned land.

In Ennis, An Taisce said that “almost 4, 500 acres of land was zoned for development, sufficient to increase the population of the town from 26,000 people to over 100,000.”

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

ENNIS has held onto its ‘Clean to European Norms’ status in the latest litter survey by Irish Business Against Litter, despite dropping 15 places to 31st, among 42 towns surveyed.

There were just five top ranking sites out of a total of ten surveyed in Ennis – combined with two seriously littered sites. This puts Ennis in the bottom third of the towns / cities surveyed. Ennis Rail and Bus Station was the only area in the survey deemed to be “littered”.

The railway station scored a grade C in An Taisce’s report. It states, “The station itself is well presented e.g. good paving / road surface / planter boxes etc, but unfortunately there were a couple of separate incidents of heavy levels of litter on the ground beside the telephone box and on the steps. It was mostly ‘fresh’ litter, indicating it was not a long-term problem.”

A spokesperson for An Taisce descrbied the results for Ennis as “disappointing”.

She continued, “The two seriously littered sites, Ennis Community College and Ennis Railway Station, put Ennis at the bottom of the ‘Clean to European Norms’ category. The litter situation at Ennis Community College was a more long-term issue than that at the railway station. The R469 Quin approach road had been a very poor site during previous IBAL Anti-Litter surveys. Things were much improved this time around and hopefully this upward trajectory can continue.”

The findings come a week ahead of the results of the annual Tidy Towns competition. The study, despite showing continuing improvement in the cleanliness of our cities and towns, revealed the environs of Dublin Air- port to be a litter blackspot.

76 per cent of the 42 towns and cities surveyed were deemed to be clean, a record percentage. Cavan was judged Ireland’s cleanest town, one of 18 to be rated ‘cleaner than European norms’. An Taisce inspectors praised it as “a town that clearly takes great pride in its environment”.

AS CARERS, the elderly and those with disabilities face an uncertain wait while the HSE decides how much of their services to cut, one Clare mother worries about her daughter’s future. Mary Finnegan worries about what will happen her daughter Claire when she is gone.

The Cratloe woman is Claire’s primary carer and assistant but she realises that if the cuts to the health services announced last week remain in place, her daughter has no chance of ever receiving a personal assistant and her independence.

The greater worry for this mother is how her daughter will manage if she can no longer take care of her.

“It is more about what is going to happen after me. I look at what I do now for her and I wonder who is going to do it when I am gone,” she said. Claire is even more frustrated by the lack of service, and is very stressed as she battles for some little assistance from the HSE.

She has applied to the service on numerous occasions for a personal assistance for a few hours a week but repeatedly she has been told “no”.

More than two years ago Claire, who lives with the condition spina bifida, broke her leg during a fall while she tried to shop.

“I was in a wheelchair. I could not drive and still I was turned down for an assistant. I explained to the HSE that this would happen again if I did not get some help. I told them I was struggling. My biggest issue was with shopping. I cannot reach items if I am in my wheelchair, and I cannot carry bags if I have my crutches,” she explained.

Last November Claire’s harrowing prediction came true and she fell again, and once again broke her leg.

Mary maintains that this would not have happened had she an assistant with her.

Claire has also suffered severe burns to her feet while taking a bath. She explained to The Clare People that she attempted to live independently without home help, but one evening while drawing a bath was unaware of the temperature this resulted in severe burns.

OVER 24,000 houses were built in Clare during the past 20 years, despite the fact that the population of the county only increased by 15,000 during the same period.

The full extent of the building boom, that was experienced in Clare during the Celtic Tiger years, has been revealed in the latest census returns for the county, which show that in the 20-year period from 1991 to 2011, there was a 76 per cent increase in the number of houses in the county from 31,606 to 55,616.

Of this figure 42,534 of the houses are occupied, which means that there is a vacancy rate of 21.2 per cent in Clare, representing over one fifth of the county’s housing stock.

The numbers of vacant houses is 5,936, while there are a further 1,236 flats unoccupied. The number of holiday homes in the county stands at 4,610.

According to a recent report Clare was the most over-zoned county in the State with enough development for a population of 273,000.”