Key Takeaways – New Builds Ireland 2025
| Headline Figure | What It Really Means |
|---|---|
| Home completions rose by 20% in 2025 | Positive progress, but not a structural fix |
| 36,284 homes were completed | Still below the estimated 50K-60K needed a year |
| Output remains market-driven | Supply is fragile and highly cyclical |
| Regional imbalance persists | Many non-urban areas remain underserved |
| State intervention is still required | To stabilise supply long term |
Introduction
A recent Irish Times report noted that new home completions in 2025 rose by around 20% , reaching 36,284 units. In 2024, 30,300 housing units were completed. Irish Times
- This 20.4 % increase is the strongest growth in over a decade.
- It was the highest annual completions figure since records began in 2011.
- Apartment completions rose particularly fast. They went up by 38.7 % to 12,047 units.
- Scheme housing (homes built as part of a larger, planned development) went up 13.1%, and single-dwelling completions also went up 12.5% in 2025 when compared to 2024.
- Over half of the new homes were built in Dublin and the Mid-East region.
On the surface, this all looks like a major step forward – and in isolation, it is. As far as I am concerned, we should at least acknowledge this progress.
- Homes were built.
- Workers were employed, and
- Supply did go up.
However, the real question is not whether completions rose.
It is what this rise actually signifies, and whether it changes the fundamentals of Ireland’s housing crisis as we know it today.
Ireland’s housing shortage is not the result of one bad year, but the outcome of over a decade of undersupply.
Most serious estimates suggest Ireland needs at least 50,000 to 60,000 new homes every year to:
- Keep up with population growth
- Stabilise rents and house prices
- Resolve the housing crisis
Against that backdrop, 36,284 homes, even in a strong year, still leaves a sizeable deficit of homes available.
1. Housing Supply Is Still Focused on Dublin & the Mid-East
More than half of new completions in 2025 occurred in Dublin & The Mid-East (Kildare, Meath, Louth and Wicklow).
Meanwhile regional towns, smaller counties and rural areas remain significantly undersupplied.
Housing pressure is now national and not reserved for Dublin and its surrounding commuter towns. When supply remains mostly concentrated in one region, issues with housing affordability are simply moved, not eliminated.
This imbalance also highlights a deeper issue – housing delivery capacity in regional areas is underused, particularly among small and medium builders.
2. More New Apartments are Being Built, Not Houses
A large share of the 2025 increase came from apartment construction, which rose sharply when compared to 2024. The number of apartments completed in 2025 rose by 38.7% to 12,047, while scheme housing units increased by 13.1%.
This sharp increase in apartment construction did help increase the number of units, but it also introduces a fair amount of risk.
Apartment delivery:
- Relies heavily on debt and foreign investor finance – so they are very sensitive to changes in interest rates. Higher interest rates raise costs, reduce viability, and cause projects to pause or collapse more quickly than low-density housing.
Today’s strong apartment numbers are not guaranteed tomorrow, and a downturn could quickly reverse this progress.
A housing system that relies too heavily on one delivery type is vulnerable, so diversity of supply matters just as much as volume.
3. This Output Is Not Resilient or Counter-Cyclical
Many of the homes completed in 2025 are a result of financial decisions made years earlier, under very different conditions. Here is what I mean.
3–5 years ago (2020 – Early 2022)
- Interest rates were exceptionally low as ECB rates were near 0% ECB Europa
- Borrowing was cheap and predictable
- Many housing projects were approved and financed then
Now (2023 – Early 2026)
- Rates have fallen from their 2023 peak, but remain well above pre-2022 levels ECB Europa
- Borrowing has become more expensive and cautious since
- Developers and investors are more risk-aware
That also suggests that the sudden increase in housing completions in 2025 was not due to government or international policies that were announced in 2025, but conditions and decisions made years prior.
Measures such as VAT reduction on apartment sales and revised apartment standards which were announced in 2025, may have helped prevent some projects from stalling. But they do not explain the increased scale of apartment completions in 2025.
Ireland’s housing system still slows when markets cool and accelerates only when conditions are favourable.
That is the definition of a fragile supply system.
Why The Government Still Needs to Build Homes Directly.
Some may argue that rising completions show the market is finally working, but I see it very differently. The 2025 increased housing completions show that despite a large number of Ireland’s talents emigrating to other countries in the last few years, skilled builders & engineers still exist in Ireland in large numbers.
What is missing is stability and predictability for this talent.
This is where:
- State-backed finance
- Direct public delivery and
- Long-term planning
Become essential. Markets alone do not build consistently through uncertainty. But the Government can.
Why Small and Medium Builders Matter Here
Ireland does not only need apartments. Many of the homes Ireland also needs are Small schemes, infill developments and regional builds.
These are best delivered by SME builders, and not large national developers.
Yet SME builders:
- Find it difficult to get loans from standard banks
- Continue to lose their talent to larger developers or to emigration
- Are not funded nearly well enough by the HBFI
Without predictable finance and demand, many remain inactive even when housing need is obvious.
Why the 14bn Apple Tax Fund Is the Best Source to Fix the Housing Crisis
The €14bn Apple tax windfall, which was finally collected in full by the Irish Government in July 2025, is a once-off, non-recurring amount of money.
- It was money that was owed to the Irish State since 2016
- It is not borne by the common taxpayer, so this fund is an incredible public service
- It is not a foreign loan, so there are no state obligations or strings attached to a foreign lender.
That is precisely why it should be allocated fully as capital to resolve the housing emergency right now, rather than being stored away in the well-intentioned but non-urgent National Development Plan where the money now sits.
The mistake would be for the government to treat this Apple fund as a list of unrelated projects. There lies a unique opportunity to use this once-in-a-lifetime money for intentional, coordinated deployment in fixing the Irish housing crisis.
This money could be used by the Government for any of the following:
- Empower local councils to buy qualifying vacant & easily-restorable derelict buildings from willing sellers (Ireland has over 80,000 vacant properties as of 2025)
- Directly contract local SME builders to help restore these vacant homes and or build new homes using modular and modern methods of construction
- Allow local councils to own these vacant buildings and add them to the social housing stock
- Lay the initial groundwork for the Irish State to get back into direct social & cost-rental housing construction full-time
- Create a temporal scheme that will bring in affordable, skilled workforce from Africa, Asia and South America necessary to fill in the labur gap, build these homes and improve public infrastructure
- Improve Uisce Eireann’s infrastructure by contributing to its Leakage Programme – millions of litres of treated water are lost a day through leakages, which could be vital for construction and public welfare
- Better fund the HBIF and introduce more loan schemes that can activate the real sleeping construction giants i,e small & medium builders.
- Improve the planning system by reducing judicial reviews and making sure that local councils are properly staffed.
- Reduce reliance on the private rental market to stabilise house and rent prices nationwide
And so much more!!
Deploying this fund right now would permanently improve Ireland’s housing system. I cannot guarantee that it would fix it, but it would sure as hell put a massive dent in the housing crisis for decades to come.
This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and the Irish State would be remiss to waste it.
Final Words
So what does the 20% rise in completions really signify?
It tells us that:
- Ireland can build more homes
- Progress is indeed possible
- But the system remains incredibly fragile because it still depends heavily on the private market
Without the government taking bold and direct building control to improve the planning system and build homes, today’s improvement can easily become tomorrow’s slowdown.
The challenge now is not just celebrating a good year. It is in making sure that 2025 is no longer the exception.
