Construction BUSINESS

According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), 6,450 new dwelling completions were recorded in the fourth quarter of 2019, an increase of 19% on the 5,445 completed in the corresponding period in 2018. This brings the number of new dwellings completed in 2019 to 21,241, up 18% from 2018.

Justin Anderson, Statistician at the CSO, said: The largest relative increases can be seen for apartments. There were 1,250 apartments completed in Q4 2019, which is a 72% increase from 726 in Q4 2018. For 2019, there were 3,644 apartment completions, up from 2,283 in 2018, an increase of 60%. Apartments accounted for 17% of all new dwellings in 2019.”

12,529 scheme dwellings were completed in 2019, a 14% increase from 2018. Scheme dwellings accounted for 59% of all new dwellings last year. Single dwellings accounted for 24% of all new dwellings in 2019. There were 5,068 single dwellings completed, an increase of 8.2% since 2018.

Regionally, Dublin and the Mid-East have the largest number of new dwelling completions, with 59% of all completions in 2019. Naas (W91) was the Eircode area with the most completions in 2019 at 829.

Justin Anderson continued: “The average new dwelling size index indicates that the average size of new dwellings is continuing to decline, decreasing by 6% in 2019. This is due to an increase in the proportion of completed dwellings being apartments and a decrease in the size of single and scheme dwellings.”