The number of homes granted planning permission in the first two quarters of this year fell by 15.4% from last year, new figures from the Central Statistics Office show.
The CSO said that a total of 18,113 homes secured planning permission, down from 21,403 the same time last year.
11,138 planning permissions were for apartments and 6,975 were for houses, the CSO noted.
The number of apartment units approved decreased by 15.9% in the first half of 2021 compared to the same time in 2020, while there was a decrease of 14.5% in the number of houses granted approval.
According to the CSO, one-off houses accounted for 19% of all new homes granted planning permission in the first half of this year.
More apartments than houses were granted planning permission for the first time in the third quarter of 2019 and today's figures show that trend has continued up to the current quarter.
Apartments granted planning permissions accounted for between 55% and 66% of approvals granted for total dwelling units in the first two quarters of 2021, the CSO said.
But the CSO noted that Strategic Housing Development (SHD) apartment units approved declined by 33.9% in the first six months of 2021 compared to the same time last year.
Today's figures also reveal that 8,529 planning permissions were granted for all developments in the current quarter.
Of these permissions, 53.1% were for new constructions, 29% for extensions and 17.8% for alterations and conversions.
Planning approvals were granted for 7,264 new apartments in the second quarter of 2021. The region with the highest proportion of planning permissions at 56.8% was Dublin with 4,126 approvals, followed by the South-West (20.2%) with 1,467 approvals.
Meanwhile, 3,886 housing units were granted planning permission in the current quarter. The county with highest proportion of these permissions was Cork at 10% with 388 approvals, followed by Westmeath (8.5%) with 330 approvals and Limerick at 7.6% with 294 permissions.
