The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has released figures for New Dwelling Completions in the fourth quarter of 2021. The figures help to provide annual figures for 2021.
Commenting on the release, Justin Anderson, Statistician, said: “A late surge in New Dwelling Completions in quarter four of 2021 brought the annual figure very close to that seen in 2020. In Q4 2021 there were 6,937 completions, bringing the total completions for the year to 20,433. The annual figure was down just 0.5% from 2020, with the fourth quarter figure a drop of 5.3% from that seen for the corresponding quarter in 2020.
Apartment completions have continued to grow in 2021 to 5,107, an increase of 30.3% from 2020. Apartments accounted for a quarter of completions in 2021, the highest proportion since the series began in 2011. There was a 5.3% decrease in single dwelling completions in 2021 and an 8.7% decrease for scheme dwellings. Scheme dwellings made up 52.1% of all completions in 2021, while apartments accounted for 25.0% and single dwellings made up 22.9% of the total.
For Q4 2021, there was a 28.2% increase in apartments from the fourth quarter of 2020, with a 9.5% decrease in single dwellings and 17.4% decrease in scheme dwellings.
Just under a third (30.3%) of completions in 2021 were in Dublin (6,201). The Dublin region, along with the Midlands, the Mid-West and the South East, saw small increases in completions from 2020 to 2021. The highest relative increase was in the Mid-West with a 10.6% increase.
More than three-quarters (77.8%) of apartments completed in 2021 were in Dublin. In Q4, this percentage was 88.2%. In Dublin City there were 906 apartments completed in Q4 2021 alone and 1,782 for the whole year. The Mid-East region had 33.1% (3,523) of the total scheme dwellings in 2021 with 15.1% (1,604) in Kildare alone. Kildare was the local authority with the second highest total number of completions in the quarter (682) and the year (2,027) – just behind Dublin City in both cases.
Blanchardstown-Mulhuddart was the Local Electoral Area (LEA) with the most dwelling completions in 2021 with 712, while the second highest was in Howth-Malahide with 491. For the first time, data is also available annually at a settlement level. There were 20 settlements with more than 100 completions in 2021. Outside of the cities, Dundalk was the settlement with the most completions with 288, with Carlow and Greystones-Delgany next highest with 253 and 200 respectively.
The average new dwelling size index, which is calculated by linking ESB domestic connections to BER assessment and indexed to 100 in 2016, has continued to decline. It was 79 in 2021, the first time this figure has fallen below 80. This was driven by an increase in the percentage of apartments completed and the decrease in size of single and scheme dwellings.”
