Ghost estates testify to Irish boom and bust

David McWilliams is the man who coined the phrase "ghost estate" when he wrote about the first signs of a disastrous over-build in the Irish Republic back in 2006.

Now, it is a concept the whole country is depressingly familiar with. Most Irish people have one on their doorstep - an ugly reminder, says the economist and broadcaster, of wounded national pride.



There are 621 ghost estates across the Irish Republic now, a legacy of those hopeful years. One in five Irish homes is unoccupied.

If the country immediately used them to house every person on the social housing list, there would still be hundreds of thousands left over. The obvious question of who people imagined would live in all these new-builds makes Irish people wince now.

Full story with video here.