17% rise in new homes so far this year; apartments up 75%
Just under 5,000 new homes were completed in the first quarter of the year, according to the Central Statistics Office.
That is an increase of 17.2% on the same period last year.
The vast majority, 81.3%, of the new completions were in urban areas with 18.7% being in rural areas.
The CSO figures show a surge in the number of apartments completed, up by three quarters in the first three months of the year to 1,044.
Their data shows that 80.2%, or 837, of those were in Dublin with 59.7% in Dublin City alone.
The numbers do not include student accommodation as the CSO figures are based on ESB domestic connections, whereas ESB connections to student accommodation are classed as commercial connections.
However, the CSO did say: "There has been a significant level of construction output in the student accommodation sector."
