Planning permissions for apartments fell from 21,487 in 2023 to 12,194 in 2024, according to new data from the Central Statistics Office.

This marks a drop of 39% in the number of approvals given.

With a huge demand for affordable housing amid the ongoing crisis, what can explain this massive drop?

New apartments in Dublin Docklands Ireland. Image: Ros Drinkwater / Alamy. 03/2009.

Director of housing and planning at the Construction Industry Federation of Ireland (CIFI) Conor O’Connell told The Pat Kenny Show that these figures “illustrate the urgent need for emergency measures”.

“We’re still at a situation where members of ours are reporting that they’re three years in An Bord Pleanála waiting on decisions,” he said.

“Now, thankfully they’ve got more resources, so we should begin to see that flow, but it’s all just very slow.

“What’s really concerning about the decline and the levels of planning permissions being granted is if you look at the areas of high demand [like] in Dun Laoghaire, 3,120 in ‘23 were granted permission, 1,399 last year – that's a decline of 55%.”

Policy stability

Mr O’Connell said that policy stability in relation to planning and the likes of rent control were needed moving forward.

“From a builder’s perspective, the Government and the Department of Housing put in place a lot of schemes over the last two years to aid apartment delivery in particular,” he said.

“The cost rental schemes were used by the approved housing bodies in particular but unfortunately, there’s been a significant delay in the funding of those over the last number of months.

“So, that is holding up thousands of apartments at the moment – so all of that instability in policy makes it a very uncertain environment for apartment delivery in particular.”

23/08/2021 Construction scenes in Dublin’s City Centre. Photo:Gareth Chaney/Collins

According to Mr O’Connell, these figures reflect both a decline in the number of applications as well as a high level of refusals.

“I think there’s definitely a nervousness,” he said.

“It costs several hundred thousand euro to prepare an application for an apartment development if they are going to be subject to more observations, objections, legal challenges.

“Generally speaking, they’re in an urban area surrounded by existing people who’ve been living there a long time and maybe do not necessarily want apartments nearby them.

“Therefore, that coupled with all of this other uncertainty plus the high cost of delivery... is definitely putting people off applying.”

Mr O’Connell said that “thankfully”, local authorities will be instructed to vary developments and zone more lands this year.

However, he said there is “no statistical evidence” that development numbers of 50,000 houses a year will be achieved within the next two years.

Main image: An apartment building under construction in Palmerstown, Dublin, Ireland. Image: noel bennett / Alamy. 24 January 2022