There were 376 new dwelling completions in Cork County in the first three months of 2019, North Cork Fine Gael Councillor John Paul O’Shea has confirmed. Nationally, there were 4,275 new dwelling completions in Q1 2019, compared with 3,470 completions in Q1 2018, an increase of 23.2%.
Cllr. O’Shea said data provided by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows that there were 127 single dwellings, 247 scheme dwellings (within a multi-unit development) and 12 apartments completed in Q1 2019. Within Cork City, there were 51 new dwelling completions in the same time and 1,488 across Dublin.
Nationally, the numbers of new homes becoming available for use in the twelve months to end March 2019 was 22,242. This is a 19% increase when compared to the twelve months ending March 2018 (18,766), which Cllr. O’Shea described as “a very positive endorsement of all the work that is being done to ensure that our housing supply is increasing”.
Of those new homes available for use, the number of brand-new dwelling completions added to the housing stock in the year to end March 2019 was 18,828, up by 25% compared to the year to end March 2018 (15,091). 792 unfinished homes were completed and 2,622 homes that were vacant for at least two years were brought back into use in the 12 months to the end of March 2019.
Cllr. O’Shea commented: “The CSO Quarter 1 2019 New Dwellings Completion Report confirms a strong upward trend across all housing construction activity data sets, both in Cork County and across the entire State. While it is important to continue our efforts to ensure that this trend is maintained and even further improved, it is encouraging to see these results.
“In order to properly address homelessness, affordability and the challenges in housing, we need to fix supply. These numbers show that this is happening. On top of these figures it is encouraging to note that the number of planning permissions granted jumped by 41% between 2017 and 2018. Certainly, more work must be done but it is clear that the efforts by the Department of Housing, local authorities, approved housing bodies and other stakeholders to deliver on the goals of Rebuilding Ireland is bearing fruit.”
