THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY Federation (CIF) has said it does not believe that housing completions will increase this year.

The organisation said that “blockages” such as existing infrastructure issues and delays to funding schemes are slowing down the delivery of housing and need to be addressed. 

Figures published by the Central Statistics Office last month showed that a total of 30,330 new homes were built last year, 6.7% less than 2023 and just under 10,000 units less than what the outgoing government promised voters would be completed last year.

The new coalition have agreed a target to deliver 303,000 homes in the period from 2025 to 2030, meaning an annual average of over 50,000 units a year.

Director of housing and planning at CFI Conor O’Connell has said he believes the number of new units delivered this year will be as low as 32,000.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme, O’Connell said investment is badly needed in infrastructure. 

“We haven’t been investing in infrastructure for a long time to cater for the level of population growth,” he said. 

“There’s no point in saying that our population projection from 2018, from the original National Planning Framework was written, that that is sufficient for where we are at now in terms of population growth.”

‘Significant delays’

O’Connell said there was a record level of 60,000 housing commencements last year. 

“But when you go and try and get your connection agreement to a utility – whether that’s electricity or water – there are very significant delays, because we simply haven’t been putting the pipes in the ground for a long time now.”

He also said that plans for which local authorities zone land for housing also need to be examined, after CIF members reported that plans in Kildare and Wicklow had expired.

“The local area plan, which assigns how much zoned land can be activated in a given area, actually expired. Legally, they can’t be extended and following on from an An Bord Pleanála decision last year, those lands are now unzoned… but they can’t be activated for housing plannings at the moment.”

O’Connell called for “urgent action” to address barriers to housebuilding “within the next number of weeks and months”. 

“One of the immediate mechanisms we called for was for the funding to be released. Schemes were put in place to address apartment viability and to deliver cost rental apartments in our city centers,” he said.

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“The funding for those mechanisms and those schemes ran out last October-November, and because of the election and the delay in forming a government, not one single one of those schemes has been approved over the last four months.”

He welcomed the fact that Cabinet signed off on €450 million funding earlier this week to deliver 3,000 cost rental, affordable and social homes over three years.

“Hopefully now we will see commencements in the next number of weeks in relation to some of those apartment schemes, in particular.”

In relation to the zoning and the infrastructure, O’Connell said capital allocations for water and wastewater infrastructure need to be reviewed, 

“We understood, for instance, the extra capital allocation for Uisce Éireann to facilitate infrastructure and serviceable lands, that that was going to go the pipes of the ground. Unfortunately, it didn’t. It went into paying down debt,” he said.

“Why did that happen? I don’t know, but certainly our allocation of capital towards housing infrastructure needs be reviewed.”