Houses in the countryside accounted for nearly 40 per cent of the total national output of housing last year. Of the 50,000 new homes built throughout the State in 2000, 18,000 were "one-off" houses in rural areas - mostly owned and occupied by people working in cities or towns, it was revealed yesterday.
Mr Finian Matthews, principal officer in the Department of the Environment, said the figure had "astonished" planners preparing a national spatial strategy for the Government.
Many of the participants in this year's National Housing Conference, which opened in Galway yesterday were equally surprised that "Bungalow Blitz" was so prevalent.
"The consequences are very serious, even devastating," said Mr Fergal MacCabe, who served as planning consultant for the Bacon reports on housing. "It means we can't have any rational planning."
The discovery was made during research by the national spatial strategy team and confirmed by the number and location of new ESB connections. "That's the way we tracked it down," Mr Matthews said.
He produced maps showing the spread of one-off houses in counties such as Limerick, Wexford, "and most notably in the corridor from Galway to Leitrim, where the structure of towns and villages is at its weakest".
Holiday homes accounted for a relatively small proportion of housing built in the countryside. The vast bulk of the new houses in rural areas are "urban-generated" primary homes and not connected with agriculture.
According to Mr MacCabe, many local authorities are being misled by farmers who claim they are providing homes for sons or daughters - and most of them know the sites are being sold to outsiders.
Nor are all the new homes bungalows as such. Many of those built in recent years are substantial, two-storey houses.
When their occupants become elderly, they will find it difficult to get around. "They'll end up getting `meals on wheels' and we'll have to pay for it," said economist Mr Colm McCarthy. However, he expressed doubts about whether there was any political will to curtail this "suburbanisation of the countryside", even in the context of a national spatial strategy.
