Ireland’s 350 ghost estates hazardous to residents

350 dangerous or abandoned Irish housing estates have been identified in a shocking new Irish government report released this week.

In response to the report's findings a fund of 5 million euro has been made available to local authorities to address the most pressing public safety hazards in the 348 estates. Many of the estates have been partially occupied by residents but have never actually been completed.

Irish Minister of State for Housing Michael Finneran told the press that the government money was not intended to complete the languishing developments, but simply to address their most outstanding and immediate problems, like unprotected upper floor levels or uncovered manholes.

Most of the 350 estates have an occupancy level of less than 50 per cent, meaning there are large numbers of vacant and partially completed structures in developments where people are actually living.

The report recommended that local authorities should only intervene in developments as a last resort, when there are clear risks to the public safety or public health and all attempts to make the developer or banks remedy the problems have been exhausted.