Madam, - Frank McDonald reports that "official figures showed that one-off houses in rural areas accounted for 43 per cent" of the 68,419 homes completed last year (The Irish Times, September 28th). This would appear to support the contention that there is a trend towards dispersal into rural areas. However, when examined, the official figures show that this claim is simply not correct and the percentage of one-off houses being built in rural areas is probably less than half that quoted.
The quarterly statistics of planning permissions issued by the Central Statistics Office shows that of the 78,354 dwellings approved in 2003, only 17,562, or 22 per cent of the total, were referred to as "one-off houses". Included in this latter figure are all the urban single applications for infill - those houses on corner sites and back gardens encouraged by planners in the interest of higher densities.
The second set of data is the quarterly and annual statistics of house completions published by the DEHLG. The data are compiled from ESB connections which are classified into "estates", "apartments" and "small developments". "Small development" is defined as "a development of four or fewer units including bungalows and one-offs". A significant number of infill and brownfield sites in urban areas are clearly included in the total, yet only 25.6 per cent of the 68,419 dwellings completed in 2003 fall into this category.
These two sets of official statistics establish with certainty that the maximum number of dwellings being constructed in the open countryside is considerably fewer than one third of the total, the number needed to allow the rural population to retain its share of overall population. The myth of "the trend in favour of one-off housing" repeated by Mr McDonald is not supported by the official statistics which prove from the maximum of 22 per cent of planning permissions and 25.6 per cent of completions in 2003 that the trend is in the opposite direction; new housing for the one-third of the State's population who live in the open countryside is not keeping pace with that in urban areas. - Yours, etc.,
Prof SEAMAS CAULFIELD, Henley Park, Churchtown, Dublin 14.