New home completions hit highest level since 2011 despite missing 2025 target

Apartment construction drove a sharp rise in housing output last year, though completions still fell short of Government targets

the total still falls short of the revised 2025 target of 41,000 homes, agreed in November 2024. Picture: Dan Linehan

A total of 36,284 new homes were completed in 2025, up 20.4% from 2024 and the highest annual figure since the series began in 2011, according to new figures.

Figures released by the Central Statistics Office show that much of the increase was driven by a surge in apartment completions, which reached 12,047 in 2025, up 38.7% from 2024.

Housing Minister James Browne welcomed the figures, saying they signal a “clear ramp-up in supply”.

However, the total still falls short of the revised 2025 target of 41,000 homes, agreed in November 2024. At the time, the Government said 41,000 homes would be completed in 2025, with output set to rise incrementally to 60,000 homes.

There were 18,308 scheme dwelling completions in 2025, an increase of 13.1% on 2024. Scheme dwellings are houses that form part of a multi-unit development of two or more houses connected to the ESB network.

A total of 5,929 single dwellings were completed in 2025, up 12.5% from 2024.

In 2025, scheme dwellings accounted for 50.5% of completions, apartments made up 33.2%, and single dwellings represented 16.3%.

More than half (57.6%) of all completions in 2025 were delivered in Dublin or the Mid-East — Kildare, Louth, Meath and Wicklow.

By local electoral area, Clondalkin in Dublin recorded the highest number of completions, with 1,399 homes finished in 2025.

In the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2025, 11,994 new dwellings were completed, a rise of 38.5% compared with Q4 2024.

Mr Browne said: “Another promising indicator, earlier this week, was evident in the latest mortgage drawdown data from the BPFI, which showed steady growth in activity in 2025, with drawdown volumes up almost 8% year on year.

“First-time buyers continue to drive the mortgage market, accounting for 60% of the volume of mortgage drawdowns in 2025. Indeed the 27,652 first-time buyer mortgages in 2025 represented the highest drawdown volumes since 2008.

“There are many pointers to progress, but we are not complacent. We have a new Housing Action Plan, Delivering Homes, Building Communities.

“We have record state funding. We have increasing confidence within the private sector. I am determined to take every action necessary to build on all of this and ensure even greater progress in the months and years ahead.”

Speaking in the Dáil on Thursday, Tánaiste Simon Harris defended the figure as exceeding expectations of the likes of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and the Central Bank. 

Mr Harris said there was "momentum" in the housing sector.

He accepted that there is a "housing emergency" but said that increased supply was a positive sign.

Mr Harris was challenged on the figures by Social Democrats deputy leader Cian O'Callaghan, who said that the Government was "running away" from its 41,000 figure because its housing plan was "in tatters". 

He said the 41,000 figure was contained in Fine Gael's 2024 election manifesto and accused Mr Harris of "breaking election promises" and of "presenting failure as a success".

"This isn't an academic debate about numbers," Mr O'Callaghan said.

"It's about people in their 20s, their 30s and their 40s, still living in their childhood bedrooms, feeling hopeless and helpless because their lives are passing them by. They're missing out on milestones, relationships, career opportunities, and even starting families. It's about the growing number of elderly renters who are at risk of homelessness. It's about the 5,321 children who are growing up now without a home, all because successive government have doubled down on failure. What's happening now is not an accident. It's a choice Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.

"Today's housing numbers are yet another monument to your failure."

People Before Profit leader Richard Boyd Barrett said that the Government "doesn't have a hope in hell" of hitting its own housing targets. He said that 32,000 planning permissions were being "sat on" and that the Government was not adequately funding infrastructure to enable housing.

 - additional reporting from PA