Housing completions rise but opposition TD claims ‘no chance’ of meeting targets

The Government’s overall housing targets have no realistic chance of being achieved, an opposition TD has said, while the Housing Minister insisted he is “not complacent” after figures showed a 20% boost in completions.

New dwelling completions rose by more than 20% last year, with 2025 seeing the highest number of completions since the Central Statistics Office tracked the figures in 2011.

The new data from the CSO shows there were 36,284 new dwelling completions in 2025, an increase of 20.4% from 2024.

Housing Minister James Browne welcomed the figures, saying they signal a “clear ramp-up in supply”.

The number of apartments completed in 2025 was 12,047, up 38.7% on last year.

More than half (57.6%) of completions for the full year of 2025 were in Dublin or the Mid-East region containing Kildare, Louth, Meath, and Wicklow.

By Local Electoral Area, the most completions in 2025 were in Clondalkin in Dublin – with 1,399.

Mr Browne said: “Another promising indicator, earlier this week, was evident in the latest mortgage drawdown data from the BPFI, which showed steady growth in activity in 2025, with drawdown volumes up almost 8% year on year.

“First-time buyers continue to drive the mortgage market, accounting for 60% of the volume of mortgage drawdowns in 2025. Indeed the 27,652 first-time buyer mortgages in 2025 represented the highest drawdown volumes since 2008.

“There are many pointers to progress, but we are not complacent. We have a new Housing Action Plan, Delivering Homes, Building Communities.

“We have record state funding. We have increasing confidence within the private sector. I am determined to take every action necessary to build on all of this and ensure even greater progress in the months and years ahead.”

The Government has set a 300,000-home target in its housing strategy for 2025-2030, which it described as “achievable” and “realistic”.

That plan, announced in November, saw the scrapping of annual targets set by the last coalition, which set incremental increases from 41,000 homes in 2025 up to 60,000 in 2030.

Thursday’s figures fall 4,716 short of the old – officially abandoned – target for 2025.

Social Democrats housing spokesman Rory Hearne said the CSO data shows the “real reason why the Government abandoned setting annual targets”.

He said: “With just 36,284 homes delivered last year – which falls significantly short of what’s required to tackle this crisis – the CSO figures present a grim but unsurprising picture of Government housing policy in freefall.

“The Government is just spinning its wheels on housing.

“Completely out of ideas, it continues to be over-reliant on investors and institutional landlords to fill in the gaps. Not only that, but Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are actively in the process of hiking up rents for investor funds.”

Mr Hearne said the 2030 targets have “no realistic chance” of being achieved.

During Leaders Questions’, Tanaiste and Minister for Finance Simon Harris said completions exceeded forecasts for 2025 by the ESRI, Central Bank, and Fiscal Advisory Council.

“There is now momentum back in the housing market, and that didn’t happen by accident.

“It happened as a result of the policies that we are pursuing that is injecting confidence again in an ability to build in the private sector.”

However, People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said he was amazed the Fine Gael leader was “trumpeting success on the housing disaster that people face in this country”.