Planning applications were up by 20% around the country last year.

More people were looking for permission to build in Dublin than anywhere else - with Dublin City Council receiving almost 50% more planning applications than in 2014.

While more than two-thirds of cases were given a decision within eight weeks.

It's the first time there's been growth in the sector since the recession.

Peter Stafford, Director of Property Industry Ireland says we haven't returned to the peak years: "It's a relative boom in the sense that there are cranes were there weren't any cranes in the past."

"But certainly the figures today are still a long way off the figures we need to see in order to tackle, for example, the housing crisis, or to bring rent in the office market back to sustainable levels.