The Irish Home Builders’ Association (IHBA) has expressed doubts about an increase in housing completions for 2025, citing a decline in viable planning permissions, along with shortages of serviced land, infrastructure, and funding for apartment projects.
This comes after the Central Statistics Office (CSO) reported 30,330 new housing units completed in 2024, a 6.7% decrease from the previous year, falling short of the government’s target of approximately 40,000 completions.
In a letter to Minister for Housing James Browne, the IHBA highlighted “palpable concern” that residential construction will not rise this year. They urged that “expediting housing supply needs to be treated as an emergency and funded accordingly.” The association recommends increasing the availability of zoned land with services and enhancing the efficiency of the planning system.
The IHBA also called for €500 million to accelerate connections from zoned land to the water network, emphasizing that “the connection application time frames must be within 8-10 weeks.”
Additionally, they propose extending the duration of all existing planning permissions and establishing a strategic housing and infrastructure delivery office with significant input from active housebuilders to address current blockages in project activation.
These concerns arise amid recent data indicating a 10.9% decrease in dwelling units granted planning permission in the third quarter of 2024, suggesting potential constraints on future housing supply.
Over the past year, Ireland has experienced a significant rise in residential property prices. According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), property prices increased by 10.0% nationally in the 12 months leading up to September 2024, with Dublin witnessing a 10.8% surge and areas outside Dublin seeing a 9.4% rise.
The median price for a dwelling during this period was €346,000, with the highest median price recorded in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown at €637,500, and the lowest in Longford at €175,000.
This is despite the fact that forecasts from EY-Euroconstruct project that Ireland will maintain the strongest housing completion rate per 1,000 population among 19 European countries, with an estimated 32,000 new homes in 2024, rising to 38,000 in 2025, and 40,000 in 2026.
The news that Irish house completions fell last year has been a source of significant controversy, as right up until last November’s general election, Government parties were hailing their supposed record of growing house completions as a key electoral selling point.
Previously, Fianna Fáil TD Malcolm Byrne defended this situation, saying that the Government made “a genuine mistake” in its claim that 40,000 homes would be built in 2024, but that they weren’t trying to be deceptive.