The Government expects 19,000 houses to be completed by the end of this year and a further 23,000 houses to be finished by 2018.
Speaking at a Property Industry Ireland conference, Damien English, the Minister for Housing and Urban Development, said the Government is confident that “the trends are going in the right direction in terms of supply”.
However, the expectation for the construction of 42,000 houses between this year and next is based on ESB housing connection data, which, others have argues, can overstate the level of new builds.
In 2016, the Department of Housing suggested that just under 15,000 homes were built. However, Dublin architect Mel Reynolds suggested the actual level of new builds was probably closer to 8,000.
Conference delegates heard that the Irish population is expected to grow to 6 million people by 2040 with Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford increasing in size by 50 per cent which would necessitate half a milliuon homes being bulit.
With that in mind, the minister stressed that “housing is the number one priority for the Government because it’s the number one issue affecting all sectors”.
While the minister acknowledged the depth of Ireland’s housing crisis he pointed out that the solution will come on the supply side and he told the conference of property developers that without their involvement, the rebuilding Ireland plan won’t work.
