New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that the the number of new home completions in the second quarter of this year fell by 5.4% - putting the Government's Housing For All target of building 33,450 units this year in jeopardy.
The CSO said a total of 6,884 new homes were completed in the three months from April to June compared to a total of 7,277 during the same time last year.
Today's CSO figures also reveal that for the first half of this year, a total of 12,730 new dwellings were completed, down the 8.6% on the same period of 2023 which saw a total of 13,923 completions.
Breaking down the figures, they show that they were 1,566 apartment completions in the second quarter of 2024, a slowdown of 15.1% on the same quarter in 2023.
Scheme completions fell 1.8% to stand at 3,949 this quarter and accounted for more than five in ten (57.4%) of all completions, while single dwellings fell by 3% from 1,411 in the second quarter of 2023 to 1,369 in the second quarter of 2024.
The CSO noted that 57.4% of all completions in the quarter under review were scheme dwellings, 22.7% were apartments and 19.9% were single dwellings.
Today's figures also show that four of the eight regions of Ireland saw a fall in completions on an annual basis in the second quarter of 2024.
The region with the largest decrease in completions at 19.4% was the Mid-East (Kildare, Louth, Meath, and Wicklow) while Dublin saw the second largest decrease at 10.6% in completions.
But completions rose by 46.2% in the Mid-West (Clare, Limerick, Tipperary), by 18.2% in the South-East (Carlow, Kilkenny, Waterford, Wexford), by 3.2% in the Midlands (Laois, Longford, Offaly, Westmeath) and by 0.4% in the West (Galway City and Galway County, Mayo and Roscommon) over the same period.
The CSO noted that 69.5% of apartment completions were in Dublin, while in Dublin City, 96.2% of completions in this quarter were apartments.
The most scheme completions were in the Mid-East (Kildare, Louth, Meath and Wicklow) while the South-West (Cork City and Cork County, Kerry) had the most single completions.
They also reveal that the most completions in the three month period by Local Electoral Area (LEA) were in Donaghmede, closely followed by Killiney-Shankill.
Commenting on today's CSO figures, John McCartney, Director of Research BNP Paribas Real Estate, said they marked the legacy of a temporary slowdown in housing starts in 2022 when interest rate increases caused an interregnum between the retreat of private sector investment in housing and a compensating pick-up in public investment.
"However, with commencements up so strongly, we believe the medium-term trend in completions is positive and, following this year's hiccup, housing output should power ahead in 2025 and beyond," he added.
