I propose to take Questions Nos. 265 and 266 together.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO), as the national statistical office, compiles and makes available detailed data on a number of housing related issues including housing completions, permissions granted and sales, which in turn inform government policy.
As regards housing supply generally, more new homes will be provided this year than in any year in the past decade: most recent data show the continuation of some very positive trends: planning permissions are up 39%, with 27,000 new homes granted planning permission in the year to end Q2 2018, while commencements are up 18% per annum and have more than doubled since the end of 2015, to almost 20,500 in the year to September. In terms of housing completions, the latest CSO data indicates that there were 4,673 new dwelling completions in Q3 2018, compared with 3,786 completions in the same period last year, an increase of 23.4%. This brings the total number of new dwellings completed in the first 9 months of 2018 to 12,582, an increase of 27.7% on the comparable period in 2017, when 9,856 dwellings were completed.
In terms of planning permissions granted, the most recent CSO data available is for Q2 2018 and is accessible at the following link:
https://www.cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/Database/eirestat/Planning%20Permissions/Planning%20Permissions_statbank.asp?sp=Planning%20Permissions&Planguage=0.
Data on new dwelling completions can also be found on the CSO website at the following link:
https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/ndc/newdwellingcompletionsq32018/.
The latest Residential Property Price Index from the CSO was published on 11 December 2018. While the CSO does not provide details of all residential property transactions at local authority level, it does so on a county level. Further details can be found at the following link:
https://www.cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/Database/eirestat/House%20Prices/House%20Prices_statbank.asp?SP=House%20Prices&Planguage=0.
Furthermore, as committed to under Rebuilding Ireland, my Department has developed a monthly housing activity report, which provides monthly updates on a range of statistics. This report is published on the Rebuilding Ireland website at http://rebuildingireland.ie/news-page/.
