At least 95,000 additional construction workers will be needed over the next four years to meet Government housing targets, according to a new report published on Thursday.
Property Industry Ireland (PII), the trade association within IBEC representing the property and construction sector, said that the Irish construction sector will need to add between 95,000 and 110,000 new workers to meet targets.
The Government’s ‘Delivering Homes, Building Communities’ plan for 2025 to 2030 aims to deliver 300,000 new homes by the end of 2030, averaging roughly 50,000 units annually.
The plan has been widely criticised as being unrealistic, owing to factors such as slow planning processes, a shortage of finance, and a lack of developers. Amid criticism, the Taoiseach said at the end of last year that his Government “will be held accountable” for delivery.
It comes as new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows that home building activity fell by 6.5 per cent in the last quarter of 2025, compared to the previous quarter.
Overall production in building and construction was down by 5pc in the fourth quarter compared with the third, however it remained 0.8pc higher than a year prior. Meanwhile, non-residential constitution, including schools, offices and hospitals, fell by 2 per cent quarter-on-quarter – however, it was still 3.3 per cent higher than the year earlier.
PII Director David Howard said on Thursday that the 2030 goal to deliver between 300,000 and 303,000 new homes cannot be achieved solely through reforms to the Government’s housing strategy, nor through new allocations under the National Development Plan. He said that success will be dependent on the ability to scale up the workforce.
ENHANCING ABILITY TO KEEP TALENT IN IRELAND
The report notes that Ireland’s construction workforce must not only grow by more than 50%, but that 17,000 retirees must also be replaced – meaning the industry must recruit and train over 20,000 new workers annually. The industry relies heavily upon an older demographic at present, with the report noting: “The proportion of young workers remains below 15%, while 20% of the current workforce is expected to retire within the next 10 years.”
It adds: “One of the greatest impediments caused by how we deliver infrastructure is that Irish talent often finds itself assigned to international projects due to delays or uncertainty at home. Improving timelines, particularly for public sector projects will enhance our ability to keep talent in Ireland.”
Figures suggest that there is a significant outflow of Irish construction workers – with somewhere between 2,400 and 4,900 construction workers leaving the country annually to go elsewhere.
In July, a government report said that major State projects were at risk of not being completed due to capacity limits on the sector. The report, published by Public Expenditure Minister Jack Chambers, said that issues with capacity “if unaddressed, will result in insufficient construction sector capacity to meet the investment plans outlined in the National Development Plan”.
As reported in the Irish Independent: The report said the numbers employed in the construction sector, now 178,000, are considerably lower than the Celtic Tiger peak in 2007 when 236,800 people were employed.
Of the 39,390 work permits issued to migrants last year, a maximum of 2,000 of those were from construction, the report claimed.
Thursday’s report said: “Our approach must also be underpinned by ensuring diversity and inclusion are at the heart of workforce development, whether through updating critical skills visas to include essential construction work or improving pathways for greater female participation. Key to this will also be ramping up our apprenticeship models and maximising new ways of working through AI adoption and the wider use of modern methods of construction.”