Official figures show that more new homes were built in the first nine months of this year than in the whole of last year.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) said that 7,544 new dwellings were completed in the three months to the end of September 2022 – a jump of more than 62% compared with the same period last year.

This was the highest third-quarter figure recorded since the CSO first began compiling the data in 2011.

It brought the total for the first three quarters of this year to 20,807 – higher than the 20,560 new homes built in the whole of 2021, when some COVID restrictions were still in place.

Apartments

Apartments showed the biggest increase over the past 12 months. 2,245 were completed in the third quarter – an annual increase of 153%. Almost 70% of these were in the Dublin region.

Housing-scheme dwellings increased by 44% to 3,569, while single homes rose by 27% to 1,530.

The CSO said that all eight regions recorded increases of more than 30% in completions compared with the third quarter of 2021, with Dublin completions more than doubling.

The figures also show that the average size of new homes has been falling in recent years. The index that the CSO uses to measure the size of homes has dropped by 25% since 2016.