County councils across Ireland have continued to grant planning permissions for large-scale residential developments, despite the growing number of ghost estates – housing developments with few if any residents.

A Sunday Tribune investigation has found that Cork County Council, for example, has granted 23 planning permissions since May 2009 for residential developments of up to 137 homes apiece.

Figures released last week showed that Co Cork has 96 so-called 'ghost estates', with the countrywide figure standing at 600.

Labour spokesman for housing Ciaran Lynch said the continuing practice of granting permissions for residential developments "beggars belief".

"We are now dealing with the legacy of bad government practice which saw housing estates being built in areas where they never would have before, at a scale which was not necessary.

"At the height of the property bubble, people living in areas like Cork city could not buy a home in their locality because they simply could not afford it. So the one main advantage of moving out to the more rural areas was the price as it was much cheaper. Now, everything is at a very low price, the advantage is gone, and a huge number of these estates are lying empty."

According to Lynch, little or no infrastructure or amenities of any description were provided for any of the estates. "Therefore it is no longer sustainable for some people to live out in these new estates, great as they may look now, and we are left with this situation."

Planning documents show that Leitrim – one of the areas highlighted in a study by the National Institute of Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA) as having the highest number of ghost estates as a proportion of population – granted planning permission to Austin Developments as recently as this month to build a new development of 20 homes.

Some 2,945 houses were built in Co Leitrim during the boom, yet population projections showed that only 588 were needed.

Wexford County Council also continues to grant permission to new residential developments. In one example, a project of 34 houses was green-lit in the north of the county. Another proposal for 15 houses and seven apartments on land previously occupied by one home was also granted permission.

Lynch – who has just completed research showing 30% more houses than were needed were built during the boom – is now calling on the government to create a "spatial review" in light of the growing numbers of ghost estates across the country, and to review the number of permissions being granted by local authorities.

"We need to now look at the way these housing estates were allowed to be built, as they are no longer sustainable," he said.

Property sources indicated that "a huge number" of those estates now lying empty will be demolished.

"The truth is that a lot of them will have to be bulldozed, and it is unfortunate, but they can't be left to fall into a state of irreversible disrepair, especially in the more rural areas. There is no future for the majority of these developments."

Over 500,000 houses around Ireland now lie empty, the NIRSA has calculated.