Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers has said the Government still expects “housing supply to improve in 2026 compared to the figures for 2025”, despite a year-on-year fall in the latest quarterly figures.
New figures released by the Central Statistics Office show that the number of houses completed between April and June this year is down 3.6% compared to the same three months in 2025.
Overall housing completion figures for the first six months of this year are, however, still up on the first half of last year, at 16,679 homes this year compared to 15,149 homes between January and June 2025.
Asked about the latest quarterly figures at Government Buildings, Mr Chambers said despite the most recent drop-off “we need to be careful of an over-analysis of the quarterly updates”.
He said he still believes the Coalition’s housing policies are working and that an overall increase in new homes is being shown.
“This year we’ve had significant improvements in quarter one, there was an increase in the wider supply, and I expect the outturn in 2026 to be much greater than in 2025.
“And a lot of the reforms made by Minister [for Housing, James] Browne will have a supply effect and a positive improvement in supply in 2026 and 2027.
“The expectation is that supply in 2026 will strengthen and improve, so one of the further measures we are taking is all about improving housing supply in 2027 and 2028.
“I think we need to be careful of an over-analysis of the quarterly updates, I think it’s the cumulative housing outurns is what’s important and we expect housing supply to improve in 2026 the figures for 2025,” Mr Chambers said.
Housing completion figures show that 8,823 new homes were built in the second quarter of this year, according to the Central Statistics Office.
The figures show a fall of 3.6% on the same three months of 2025.
Commenting on the release, CSO Statistician Steven Conroy said: “The number of new dwelling completions in April, May, and June 2026 was 8,823. This was a decrease of 3.6% compared with the 9,152 completions in Q2 2025.”
It means that 16,679 homes have been built so far this year.
Last year there were 15,149 units completed.
The Government does not have a standalone target for this year, but under its housing plan it is aiming to build 300,000 homes by 2030.
Housing experts continue to say around 50,000 units need to be built annually to tackle the housing crisis.
Recently, Banking and Payments Federation Ireland chief executive Brian Hayes said their figures indicate around 40,000 units will be built this year.
According to the CSO figures, 2,658 apartments were built in the second quarter of this year, down 12.2% from the same period last year.
While 4,738 homes were built in housing schemes, up 2% from the second quarter of 2025.
The number of single dwellings was down 3.7% to 1,427 from the second quarter of last year.
More than half of completions (54%) were scheme dwellings, 30% were apartments, and 16% were single dwellings in Q2 2026.
The Local Electoral Area with the most completions from April to June was Cabra-Glasnevin in County Dublin at 465.
For the same period, there was a decrease in completions in two regions of Ireland, a 16.4% fall in the Dublin region and a 13.9% fall in the Mid-West (Clare, Limerick, and Tipperary) region.
According to the CSO’s six-way urban/rural classification, nearly 95% of scheme housing completions were built in either Cities, Satellite urban towns or Independent urban towns.
More than half of all completions (54%) were scheme dwellings, 30% were apartments, and 16% were single dwellings.
