Great Scott.

But now demolition has begun on some of the last of the remaining ghost estates, built during the economic boom of 'Celtic Tiger' years but now deemed 'not economically viable'. There being demolished as the brand new houses in the estates that's never even been lived. As the bulldozers move in to knock down the last of Ireland's 'ghost' estates that were built during Celtic Tiger economic boom Thousands of Irish housing projects were started during the Celtic Tiger a boom years but abandoned after the crash. So when recession hit in the late 2000s the credit crunch meant hundreds of thousands of homes were left empty. Many homes unsold of the half-finished estates lack basic amenities like lighting and schools and are deemed uneconomically viable. As the Irish housing minister last month ordered a further 40 of the worst estates be pulled down at the developers' expense. The Irish property prices are still almost 50% below their peak in 2007 signal. 

Bulldozed as the last remaining units on the Glenatore Esate in Athlone, Ireland to go, where in 2012 a two-year-old boy was killed after breaking through a fence onto an unfinished development, are being torn down They were among the most poignant symbols of the recession, hundreds of unfinished Irish housing estates that had to be abandoned following the credit crunch of the late 2000s.Between the mid-1990s and 2007, Irish developers flocked to build new homes, spurred on by the easy availability of credit, cheap labour from Eastern Europe and a vibrant Dublin Property Market. Not economically viable: A contractor stands in the rubble of the Glenatore ghost estate. Thousands of housing estates built during the Celtic Tiger boom years were abandoned following the late 2000s recession.

Abandoned unsold houses lie next to land bought for development at the Castlemoyne housing estate in Dublin, Ireland. But then the bottom fell out and by 2010 there were an estimated 600 ghost estates in Ireland with an estimated 300,000 homes lying empty. Some unlucky buyers were caught in the middle of the crash and found themselves trapped living in dangerous, unfinished properties next to rows of empty buildings. In 2009, the Irish government announced that it would invest €20m in properties on ghost estates to use for social housing, but the plan was widely criticised because of the lack of basic amenities such as schools on the estates. As a result many were simply neglected and left to fall into disrepair. In February 2012, a two-year-old boy died after drowning in a pool of water on an unfinished ghost estate always the question were these houses built for a speculative.