There were 32,695 new homes completed in 2023, exceeding the target of 29,000 set out in the government’s housing plan.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that this was the highest number of homes built since 2008, but said the government needed to “do better” this year and next year.
He said that in 2011 fewer than 7,000 houses had been built in Ireland, and that there had been a “fourfold” increase in 2023 compared to then, but admitted that the State was still playing “catch up”.
Figures in the Housing For All update published on Thursday afternoon show that construction had begun on 32,800 new homes last year, up 22 per cent on 2022.
“Of course, I’m very aware that for a lot of people, none of this good news matters,” Mr Varadkar said at a press briefing, adding that “far too many people are paying rents that are far too high for far too long”.
The number of social and affordable houses built in 2023 has not yet been calculated; the government has set out to build 9,100 social homes and 5,500 affordable and cost-rental homes in 2023 in its housing plan.
It comes as new figures released by the Central Statistics Office in the fourth quarter of 2023, said there were 10,289 completions, a rise of 13 per cent from the fourth quarter of 2022.
In 2023, 47.4 per cent of completions were from housing schemes, a further 35.6 per cent were apartments, and 17 per cent were single dwellings.
There were 15,505 housing scheme completions in 2023, a rise of 2.4 per cent from 2022, while 5,548 single dwellings were completed, which was a growth of 0.9 per cent from 2022.
The number of apartments completed in 2023 was 11,642, up 28.0 per cent from 2022.
The Local Electoral Area, the most completions in 2023 were in Glencullen-Sandyford while the most in Q4 2023 were in South-West Inner City Dublin.
Close to six in 10 completions in Q4 2023 and for the full year 2023 were in Dublin or the Mid-East (Kildare, Louth, Meath, and Wicklow).
