The Central Bank has lowered its projections for how many houses it expects to see completed in the coming years.
In the Q2, 2025 quarterly bulletin, the Central Bank predicted 32,500 housing completions this year – a figure 2,500 completions lower than the 35,000 predicted for 2025 in the previous quarterly bulletin (Q1, 2025).
It additionally forecast 37,500 and 41,500 dwelling completions in 2026 and 2027, respectively – declines of 2,500 completions in both cases, when compared with the previous projections of 40,000 and 44,000 for 2026 and 2027, respectively.
Underpinning the downward revision, the bulletin said, was the fact that dwelling completions came in below expectations in the first quarter of the year, while commencements dropped “sharply” to just 2,981 units from 17,017 in the last quarter of 2024.
The Central Bank attributed the drop in commencements to the effect of the ending of the development levy and Irish Water rebate.
Its housing projections are subject to “considerable uncertainty given current bottlenecks in housing supply and infrastructure,” the Central Bank said, adding that its forecasts assume some improvement on the factors currently constraining housing output.
Low productivity in the construction sector continues to be a key constraint on housing supply, the Central Bank noted.
“Increasing productivity in the construction sector is essential to enable it to fulfil the increasing demand for housing and related water, energy, transport and communications infrastructure,” it said.
The bulletin also contained a downward revision for economic growth this year, forecasting growth, as measured by modified domestic demand, of 2 percent this year – a 0.7 percent fall on the figure of 2.7 percent offered in the Q1 forecast.
Similarly, the Central Bank reduced its forecast for 2026 by 0.4 percentage points to 2.1 percent, down from a projection of 2.5 percent.
The more conservative growth forecasts were attributed to greater uncertainty and higher effective tariffs.