Volume of residential buildings increases by 29% on the year

The demand for homes in Ireland appears to have driven a spike in the building and construction index produced by the Central Statistics Office.

The volume of residential buildings increased by 29.9 per cent in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year. However, in comparison to the fourth quarter of 2016 volumes had dipped by 1.6 per cent.

The overall index, which includes firms whose main activity is building, construction or civil engineering, showed that output jumped by 7.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the three months to the end of December 2016, and rose by 19.4 per cent compared to the first quarter of 2016.

Construction sector

By the end of 2016 there were 136,900 people employed in the construction sector, down from a height of 273,900 in 2007. There were 14,932 house completions in the same year, down from a height of 88,187 in 2006.

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By the end of 2006, 13,234 houses had commenced building, according to data from the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government.

The CSO caveats this statistical release by saying that it is still monitoring the quality and comparability of this data series “given the unprecedented low base this series is starting from”.