Almost 30,000 new homes built in 2022, CSO finds

Fiachra Gallagher

Almost 30,000 dwellings were built in the State last year, a yearly increase of 45 per cent, according to new figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

A total of 29,851 residential units were completed in 2022. This includes 9,148 dwellings built in the fourth quarter of the year.

The number of apartments completed in 2022 was 9,166, up almost 80 per cent from 2021's figure.

Over 10,000 of the dwellings completed last year were part of a housing scheme, defined by the CSO as a "multi-unit development of two or more houses connected to the ESB network".

There were 4,736 one-off dwellings built — not part of a development or an apartment.

This year's housing figures are up on pre-pandemic levels, too: there's been a 41 per cent increase in dwellings built.

All regions of the country saw a yearly increase in completion of more than 20 per cent, at least. The Dublin region saw a 65 per cent yearly increase.

Dublin also saw the most amount of dwellings completed — 34 per cent of housing units built in the country were in the capital.

Despite these figures, the State failed to meet its housing targets last year, the Taoiseach admitted on Wednesday.

Leo Varadkar also noted that it has not been possible to find another year on record where more social homes were built than had been in 2022.

During Leaders’ Questions on Wednesday, Social Democrats co-leader Catherine Murphy asked: “What is the point in your modest housing targets when you keep missing them?”

Mr Varadkar admitted the Government had missed its target to build 9,000 social homes in 2022.

“In relation to the social housing target, you’re correct. We did miss the social housing target last year: 6,500 new social homes were provided,” he said.

“What you should have acknowledged in your question is that that was still the highest number of new social homes provided in Ireland for a very long time," he said.

Mr Varadkar also denied that the State had an over reliance on the private sector to drive housing supply. – Additional reporting: PA