Record number of new homes got underway in January

I'm really pleased to see new figures published by the Department of Housing which show that building commenced on a record number of new residential units across the country in January, with Carlow and Kilkenny both registering significant increases on the same month last year. 

The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage published its monthly data this week on the number of Commencement Notices (residential construction starts) for January 2024, which shows that, nationally, Commencement Notices for 3,357 new homes were received by Building Control Authorities in January 2024. This is an increase of 59% on the number of new homes commenced in the same month last year (2,108 units) and the highest number of units commenced in January since records began in 2015. 

Increasing the supply of housing and bringing new homes on steam is key to addressing our housing needs, and the figures released today are a good indication that a robust stock of new housing is in the pipeline. The strong national uptick in commencements is reflected in the figures for Carlow and Kilkenny too, with 45 Commencement Notices for Carlow, up from 17 in January 2023, and just 2 in January 2020; and 113 notices for Kilkenny - almost double the January 2023 figure of 60, and up from 14 in 2020.

Both nationally and locally, this is a record January for housing commencements, with the highest numbers since records began in 2015. In that year we saw 3 commencements in Carlow, and just 2 in Kilkenny, but the figures released today paint a very clear picture of the trajectory of housing delivery under the current government, with a total of 61 commencements in January in Kilkenny from 2015 to 2020, compared to a total of 234 from 2021 to 2024. It’s the trajectory we need to be on to meet local housing demand and I hope we see this trend continue throughout 2024.

Year:	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
Month:	Jan	Jan	Jan	Jan	Jan	Jan	Jan	Jan	Jan	Jan
Carlow County	3	3	4	29	5	2	23	9	17	45
Kilkenny County	2	3	9	6	27	14	5	42	60	113

The full commencement data set can be accessed at: Construction Activity Statistics.