Housing: Owner-occupied dwellings continued to be the most prevalent permanent forms of housing in 2002 but the proportion of housing they represent fell for the first time in recent decades.
One in nine dwellings were rented privately, but the number of local authority rented dwellings continued to decline.
There were nearly 1.28 million permanent housing units at the time of the census.
Of these 61.2 per cent were in towns and cities with a population of over 1,500.
The number of private rented dwellings almost doubled from 71,000 to 141,000 between 1991 and 2002 following declines during the previous 30 years.
Owner-occupied dwellings continued to be the most prevalent occupancy status.
However, while the number of such dwellings increased from 807,000 to 991,000, or 22.7 per cent, their share of housing actually fell from 80.2 per cent in 1991 to 77.4 per cent in 2002. This was the first time such a decline was recorded in recent decades.
The number of persons per room, which provides a general indicator of housing conditions, showed that between 1926 and 2002 the density of persons per room had more than halved from 1.19 in 1926 to 0.53 in 2002.
Detached dwellings were the predominant housing type in 2002, accounting for 44 per cent of all housing units. More than one in four houses were semi-detached, 18.5 per cent were terraced while flats and apartments accounted for 8.5 per cent of all housing units.
More than four out of five rural dwellings were detached residences, while semi-detached and terraced housing were the most common types in urban areas. Flats and apartments featured strongly in urban areas, making up to 12.9 per cent.
Over half the permanent housing units were built since 1971. The period since 1996, during which the population increased by 50,000 per year, accounted for 197,000, or 15 per cent, of the total housing stock. Of these, 63 per cent were in rural areas.
The number of local authority rented dwellings has declined at each census since 1961, when there were over 124,000 local authority rented dwellings or 18.4 per cent of the housing stock. By 2002, the number had fallen to 88,000, a share of 6.9 per cent.
Over one in four of the 290,000 housing units built since 1991 were individual one-off houses in rural areas.
The county with the highest percentage of these units built since 1991 was in Co Galway, with 63.1 per cent.
- Over 555,000 or 43.5 per cent of households had a personal computer in April 2002 while 43.1 per cent had access to the Internet. The Dublin counties of Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin had the highest rates while Limerick city, Cavan and Leitrim had the lowest.
- Over a million households had at least one car each in 2002, an increase of 330,000 compared with 1991. Co Meath had the highest proportion of households with at least one car in 2002 followed by Co Kildare and Fingal. The lowest car ownership rates were in Dublin and Limerick cities.