House building figures rise but more still to do

That’s according to the CSO New Dwelling Completions Report for the fourth quarter of 2025 which also shows that, nationally,36,284 new homes were completed in last year, a 20.4 per cent increase on 2024 – and the highest annual total recorded since the CSO began compiling this data series in 2011.

Locally, the figures show there were 415 homes completed in the Galway City Council area – 162 of them in Galway City Central, 136 in Galway City East, and 117 in Galway City West.

The highest number of completions in the county was in the Gort/Kinvara Local Electoral Area with 263, followed by Athenry/Oranmore with 228, Connemara South (180), Tuam (122), Loughrea (103), Ballinasloe (101) and Connemara North with just 66.

Galway East TD and Minister of State Seán Canney welcomed the figures which he said the highest level of new home completions on record nationally in 2025, alongside a strong increase in housing delivery in Galway.

Over the past five years, he said, almost 149,000 new homes have been delivered nationwide, compared with just over 83,000 homes in the previous five-year period, highlighting a sustained acceleration in housing supply.

“It is very welcome to see such a strong year-on-year increase in housing delivery in Galway. The completion of almost 1,500 new homes in 2025 represents real progress and reflects the scale of activity now underway across the county,” he said.

Minister Canney said that while further progress is needed, the figures show delivery moving in the right direction.

“There is more work to do, but these figures demonstrate clear momentum. Maintaining this progress and ensuring regional delivery, including across counties like Galway, will remain a key priority.”

Nationally, the Institute of Professional Auctioneers & Valuers – the umbrella group for the country’s estate agents – said that the figures were encouraging but much more needed to be done.

IPAV Chief Executive Genevieve McGuirk said that expectations for the year were not great, ‘given that measures in the Government’s new housing plan were not yet in place’.

“Subsequent changes, including in apartment size rules, reduction in VAT for new builds and the accelerating infrastructure initiative does mean there will be greater optimism for this year,” she said.

“That said, there is a long way to go. IPAV would like to see a far greater emphasis on vacancy, particularly around the cities where people want to live, for purchase and for rent. Such represents the low hanging fruit and could be an easy win, if prioritised.”

Ms McGuirk said the finding of the latest Mitchell McDermott report that between 2022 and 2025 only 30% of large-scale residential development permissions started construction was a “serious concern.”

“This encompassed a period when the ECB was rapidly increasing interest rates,” she said. “The report also notes that many of the schemes were in regional areas which probably indicates that smaller developers with less deep pockets are likely to be involved.”

She said the issue of smaller developers struggling with the high cost of credit has been an issue highlighted by IPAV for several years. The State scheme, Home Building Finance Ireland, set up in 2019 to address this very issue, ended up being used largely by well-known developer companies, which had the capacity to raise funds elsewhere.

Pictured: Genevieve McGuirk, Chief Executive of IPAV, the Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers.