New figures from the Central Statistics Office show an overall decrease of 6.5% for 2020 in the volume of building and construction output as a result of Covid enforced closures.
Production in the first quarter of 2020 was up by 10.9% compared with the same time in 2019.
But the first Covid-19 lockdown led to a decrease of almost one third in the second quarter compared to the second quarter of 2019.
There was some recovery in the third quarter, although production remained 7.8% below the corresponding quarter of 2019.
The fourth quarter of last year saw the level of output 2.7% higher than the same time in 2019.
Today's CSO figures show that the level of activity in the overall construction sector increased by 13.7% in the fourth quarter of 2020 compared with the previous quarter.
The CSO said that on an annual basis, volumes increased by 2.7% from the fourth quarter of 2019.
It noted that the Civil Engineering sector showed the largest quarterly increase with a rise of 15.8% in the seasonally adjusted volume index.
The Non-Residential and Residential sectors both increased by 14.1% and 11.6% respectively.
On an annual basis, the Residential sector posted a decrease of 18.4% in the seasonally adjusted index, while the the Non-Residential and Civil Engineering sectors increased annually by 6.5% and 3.2% respectively.
