“Data from Building Information Ireland shows scale of challenge…”
In the article featured in today’s Sunday Business Post Michael Brennan and Fearghal O’Connor look at how Ireland’s labyrinthine planning system, rising rents and changing demographics are contributing to the housing crisis and investigate if these problems be fixed? 
The article examines how in recent years, the building industry industry in Ireland was on its knees. However now, demand for housing is increasing rapidly, but supply is lacking? Right across Dublin there are sites with planning permission – sites where developers could build the homes needed to meet demand and solve the housing crisis. But the number of homes built in the capital in the first nine months of 2015 fell 14 per cent to 2,057. It raises the question: what is going wrong? The Sunday Business Post spoke to builders, housing experts and top officials in all four Dublin councils, to investigate the housing crisis. Data provided by planning information resource Building Information Ireland shows the scale of the challenge. Even when builders get planning permission, it still takes them more than three years to complete a home. But a soon-to-be-published third quarter study by Building Information Ireland suggests the situation may have improved in recent weeks. There were planning applications for 14,600 housing units in Dublin up to the end of last September, a 97 per cent increase on the previous period last year. According to Building Information Ireland chief executive Danny O’Shea, there were also 5,048 housing units under construction up to the end of last September, which was up 75 per cent from the same period in 2014. But this is still well short of the average of 7,000 to 8,000 new homes per year which the Housing Agency estimates is needed to meet demand in Dublin up to 2018.
Housing crisis
- 14.4% – Fewer homes built in first 9 months 2015 compared to same period 2014
- 139 Weeks – Time it takes housing projects to go from planning application to construction
- 41.3% – Of units in Fingal and South Dublin with planning permission deemed not viable
- 3,521 – Units where planning will expire in 2016
- 4,118 – Units where planning has expired or will expire in 2015
- 26,751 – The number of homes in Dublin area with planning permission
- 2,057 – Number of homes built in the first nine months of this year
- 43% – Proportion of completed homes delivered by NAMA last year
