THERE HAS BEEN a drop of more than a third in the amount of people receiving planning permissions in Ireland so far this year.

New figures released by the Central Statistics Office show that in the second quarter of 2011, planning permissions were granted for 3,310 dwelling units, compared with 5,378 units for the same period in 2010.

This means a decrease of 38.5 per cent in total.

Speaking to TheJournal.ie, a Construction Industry Federation (CIF) spokesman said that the figures reflect the continuing decline across all sectors of construction activity, “which in turn is the single biggest deterrent to domestic economic recovery and job retention and development”.

What is now needed as budget 2012 approaches is a reorientation of policy responses to the crisis here.  To date the focus of policy, with the exception of the recent jobs fund, has been almost exclusively on fiscal and financial readjustment.  This now needs to be balanced with measures to stimulate activity in the labour intensive indigenous parts of the economy.

He said the key to recovery in the real economy and in turn in private sector construction activity “is a reversal of job losses and renewed confidence” and that public sector investment can act as a key driver of both.

Clearly, whatever is done needs to be accommodated within the parameters of the agreement with the EU and IMF but the objective has to be about allocating the very finite resources available to the Exchequer in the way that best maximises job creation.  This requires a reordering of fiscal priority from current to capital investment.

Planning permissions for apartment units also decreased – but by twice this figure.

Permission was granted for 711 apartment units, compared with 2,335 units for the same period in 2010, meaning a decrease of 69.6%.

The West and the South West received the most permissions granted for new homes this year.

Out of all the ‘dwelling units’ that received planning permission, one-off houses accounted for 34 per cent of them, while 1,866 planning permissions for extensions were granted.

The total number of planning permissions granted for all developments was 4,244,  compared to 4,675 in the second quarter of 2010, which is a decrease of 9.2 per cent.

People received permission to build 1,222 thousand square metres in the second quarter of 2011 – of this, 45.8 per cent was for new dwellings, 37.1 per cent for other new constructions and 17.1 per cent for extensions.

In total, permission for this decreased by 21.7 per cent in comparison with the same quarter in 2010.

There was also a slight decrease in the planning permissions granted for new buildings for agriculture, which fell to 117 this quarter compared to 130 this time last year.