Planning permissions granted for one-off homes surge in first three months of 2026

The south-west region, encompassing Cork and Kerry, had the highest proportion of new houses approved in the first three months of the year with 21.2% of all houses granted permission. File picture

The number of one-off homes granted planning permission surged in the first three months of this year, but permissions across Dublin plunged, new figures have shown.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) said that overall there was a slight 1% decrease in the number of new home granted planning permission in the first quarter of 2026 at 8,092 compared to 8,177 in Q1 of 2025.

It comes after the Department of Finance warned in its last housing update that planning permissions will “need to strengthen to secure the pipeline for delivery beyond 2026". 

“The 1% decline in planning permissions in the first three months of this year, together with the fall in the number of apartments granted planning permission, is concerning,” said Trevor Grant, chair of Irish Mortgage Advisors.

“Without a steady pipeline of approved developments, the volume of homes that Ireland so urgently needs will simply not be able to be built.” 

In its release, the CSO did say that the number of new homes permitted each quarter can vary widely if large developments are approved in that quarter and urged caution in extrapolating long-term trends from a single quarter’s data.

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However, the statistics nevertheless show that the number of apartments granted planning permission fell by 2.7% when compared with the first quarter of 2025, while the number of houses approved remained static.

The number of one-off houses receiving planning permission in Q1 2026 rose by 12.4%, up from 1,230 units last year to 1,382 units in the first three months of 2026. It’s understood the Government is preparing to relax rules for rural one-off housing in a bid to increase the supply of such homes.

Last month, the Hardware Association of Ireland recommended reforming or abolishing the requirement to demonstrate a “housing need” to secure permission for such homes while an economics professor from UCC, Frank Crowley, said easing restrictions would exacerbate a “two-tier” housing system.

The south-west region, encompassing Cork and Kerry, had the highest proportion of new houses approved in the first three months of the year with 21.2% of all houses granted permission. However, across the four local authorities of Dublin, there was an annual fall of 34% in the total number of dwelling units approved in Q1 2026 to 1,452 units.