Stark figures released this week show that more than one in every seven commercial premises in Galway is lying empty.
The new research shows that in July, the news was even worse for areas such as Tuam and Loughrea, with one in every five business premises sitting unused.
In fact, the West and North-West of the country had predominately the highest vacancy rates in the entire country.
According to a new report from GeoDirectory and DKM Economic Consultants, the total number of commercial address points in Galway at the end of July this year was 9,801.
Of these, a total of 1,529 are lying empty across the city and county.
The report uses an address point as a unit, as opposed to a building, which can comprise one or more units. The stark figures are compounded by the fact that Connacht has the three of the four counties with the highest rates of commercial vacancies in the country – Sligo, Leitrim and Galway.
In Galway City, there are 3,189 commercial addresses, with 510 empty (16%); in Loughrea there are 311 addresses with 56 vacancies, while in Tuam, the rate is 21.1% (105) of the 497 commercial addresses.
A breakdown of the figures for Galway shows that of the occupied units, around 47.5% are involved in the service industry; 24% in distribution; 9% in health; 5% in construction; 5.4% in industry; 4.5% in education; 2.5% in the financial sector and 1.8% in public administration.
Nationally, the average vacancy rate at the end of July was 13.5% – the highest rate was in Sligo at 18%, followed by Leitrim at 16.2%; Limerick at 15.9%; Galway at 15.6% and Mayo at 15.5%.
Kerry has consistently had a low vacancy rate over the past number of years and again in the latest report had the lowest commercial vacancy rate at 10.6%.
Dara Keogh, CEO of GeoDirectory said: “Despite the improvements we have seen in the economy in recent years, commercial vacancy rates have remained stubbornly high.”
The GeoDirectory figures are recorded by 5,600 An Post delivery staff working with experts from Ordnance Survey Ireland. The database is used by many different companies and organisations across a diverse range of applications.
The emergency services use it for route optimisation when responding to 999/112 calls, which can save valuable minutes in an emergency, while it is also used by the likes of the Central Statistics Office, the Property Registration Authority, utility companies, banks and local authorities.
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