Irish housing output among lowest in Europe.

New data from Goodbody shows that despite rapid population growth, housing output in Ireland is among the lowest in Europe.

New figures from Goodbody show that 2,367 housing units were built during the first three months of the year.

While that figure is an increase of 45% on the same time last year, it is still way behind where the country needs to be on the housing front.

Goodbody uses Building Energy Rating registrations to track the number of new homes coming into the market. This compares to Department of Housing figures, which rely on ESB connections.

Goodbody said that more than a trebling of housing output is still required to catch up with estimated annual demand.

Today's figures show that although Dublin accounted for the largest share of new units in Q1 - 46% of the total - the fastest growth was in Dublin's commuter counties which experienced year on year growth of 80%.

The Greater Dublin Area (GDA) accounted for 72% of the units completed in Q1.

Outside of the GDA, all counties in Ireland are well below the EU average, Goodbody added.

Goodbody's BER analysis does not pick up an element of self-build units. The brokers said that assuming 1,500 are not picked up because of this factor, annual housing output is running at 11,500.

Per thousand of the population, this amounts to 2.4 house completions, which leaves housing output in Ireland at the fourth lowest of the 19 EU countries in the Euroconstruct data.

Portugal (1), Italy (1.4) and Spain (1.5) currently have the lowest levels of output in the EU. The European average is estimated at 3.4 per 1,000.

"Given rapid population growth and a record low level of stock for sale, Ireland needs completions per capita to be well ahead of EU averages," Goodbody added.

Source RTE.ie : 23/04/2018