27% increase in new dwellings built in first three months of 2018 - CSO.

Over 3,500 new dwellings were built in the first three months of 2018, according to the Central Statistics Office, a 27% increase on the same time last year.

However the CSO could not say how many of the homes were social housing, saying that was a matter for the Department of Housing.

The report, the first of a quarterly series, also shows a total of 14,500 new dwellings were completed in 2017, representing a 45% year-on-year increase.

The majority of these houses, 63%, were built in counties Dublin, Cork, Meath, and Kildare.

Over half the homes were part of a housing scheme, 29% were single units and 16% were apartments.

Commenting on the report, Kieran Culhane, senior statistician with the CSO, said there has been much debate around the reliability of housing data and he said the data released today is the most comprehensive and accurate count of the number of houses built.

He acknowledged though that some limitations remain. He said prior to this report the Department of Housing used ESB connections to calculate new builds but it has accepted that method overestimated the completion figures.

He said in 2017, there were 19,000 ESB connections, but just under 14,500 new dwellings were completed - a difference of around 5,000.

For its report the CSO linked data from the ESB, building energy rating data, information from Revenue and the Census.

The CSO recommends that the enforcement of BER regulation should be strengthened after it found a level of non-compliance, particularly in one-off rural housing.

Source RTE.ie 14/06/2018