Ireland and Northern Ireland - A Joint Census Publication 2021-2022

The census collects detailed data on housing as well as population. This chapter provides data on housing by occupancy status, and occupied households by accommodation type, tenure, and type of central heating, combining results from the censuses held in Northern Ireland in 2021 and in Ireland in 2022. 

Occupancy Status

The data in Figure 6.1 show the proportion of habitable, permanent properties that were either occupied or unoccupied at the time of the census.

• There were 2,112,121 permanent housing units in Ireland in 2022, of which 240,599 were unoccupied, representing 11% of the total.

• In Northern Ireland, there were 819,612 permanent housing units, of which 51,889 were unoccupied (6%).

Accommodation Type

Figure 6.2 shows a breakdown of the accommodation type for occupied private households in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Overall, 87% of occupied properties in Ireland were houses, slightly lower than the equivalent figure of 90% for Northern Ireland. A higher proportion of homes in Ireland (13%) were flats or apartments than in Northern Ireland (10%).

• Detached houses made up 41% of occupied households in Ireland and 38% in Northern Ireland.

• Semi-detached houses were the second most common type of household, making up 30% of homes in Northern Ireland and 25% in Ireland.

• There were 4,424 households in Ireland and 1,087 households in Northern Ireland living in caravans, mobile homes, or other temporary dwellings accounting for 0.2% of homes in Ireland and 0.1% in Northern Ireland.

Tenure

In Figure 6.3, households are broken down by tenure status. Combining the two owner occupied categories shows that home ownership rates stood at 66% in Ireland in 2022 and 65% in Northern Ireland in 2021.

• Homes were slightly more likely to be owned with a mortgage or loan in Northern Ireland (30%) than in Ireland (29%).

• In Ireland homes that were owned outright accounted for 37% of households compared with 35% in Northern Ireland.

• There were higher proportions of homes rented from a local authority (11%) or voluntary body (4%) in Northern Ireland than in Ireland, where 8% were local authority properties and 2% owned by voluntary bodies.

• Fewer than one-in-five households in both Ireland and Northern Ireland were rented from a private landlord (18% and 17% respectively).

Central Heating

Figure 6.4 shows the type of central heating used in homes in Ireland and Northern Ireland. There is an important difference in the way the question was asked, which needs to be taken into consideration when looking at the results. In Ireland, the question asked about the main type of central heating. In Northern Ireland, all types of central heating were recorded, so there is an additional category in the results for homes with more than one type of central heating.

• Just under half of households in Northern Ireland (49%) reported oil was their sole type of central heating. In Ireland, 39% reported oil as the main type of central heating.

• Very similar proportions of households used natural gas for central heating in Ireland (33%) and Northern Ireland (32%).

• In Ireland, 7% of households mainly used selected solid fuels such as coal and peat for heating. A much smaller proportion in Northern Ireland (1%) stated solid fuel was the sole type of central heating.

• Electricity was the main type of heating in 12% of the households in Ireland and the sole type of central heating in 2% of households in Northern Ireland.

• Households with no central heating accounted for just over 1% (21,584) of households in Ireland and just 0.3% (2,431) of the households in Northern Ireland.

• The additional category of more than one type of heating, which applies only to Northern Ireland data, made up 15% of households there.