Commencements tracker
Where Ireland is breaking ground
Ireland Commencements Tracker: how many new homes are actually breaking ground. National residential commencement notices over the trailing 12 months, the busiest counties, Residential Property Price Index momentum, and the council pipeline: how many permissions actually start, and how long they take, council by council. Built on CSO open data, refreshed monthly, and on our own link from every commencement notice to the permission it builds.
30,555 homes commenced in the 12 months to August 2026
Busiest counties, last 12 months
Residential units on commencement notices filed in the trailing 12 months.
Shown as a 12-month volume rather than a change on the year before: the 2024 development-levy waiver deadline pulled a wave of commencement notices forward into 2024, which distorts any comparison with it.
House price momentum (RPPI)
CSO Residential Property Price Index, July 2026.
From permission to start, by council
Of the permissions granted in 2025, 36% have started so far (7,831 of 21,497). We can say this because we link every commencement notice to the permission it builds; no official series does. Beside it, the CSO's own count of homes permitted and started in each council, and how new homes there are being built.
Groundworks are the first trade on site once a permission starts: the groundworks page shows every commencement the week it lands. The timber frame and modern methods columns are the market for offsite and MMC manufacturers, and the 2026 landscaping and groundworks pipeline brief follows those two trades council by council, month by month.
| Council | Permissions 2025 | Started so far | Median days to start | Homes permitted, 12 mo (CSO) | Homes started, 12 mo (CSO) | Timber frame | Modern methods |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cork County | 1,772 | 24% | 133 | 3,897 | 1,656 | 50% | 60% |
| Dublin City | 1,694 | 39% | 128 | 3,158 | 3,305 | 2% | 60% |
| Donegal County | 1,455 | 34% | 144 | 1,354 | 934 | 22% | 19% |
| Galway County | 1,233 | 39% | 139 | 1,192 | 1,172 | 21% | 22% |
| Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County | 1,106 | 47% | 131 | 2,047 | 2,390 | 7% | 36% |
| Meath County | 976 | 35% | 140 | 2,006 | 1,756 | 47% | 62% |
| Fingal County | 949 | 39% | 93 | 1,773 | 3,223 | 45% | 59% |
| Limerick City and County | 886 | 33% | 134 | 1,632 | 907 | 22% | 37% |
| Wexford County | 812 | 37% | 130 | 1,176 | 898 | 16% | 35% |
| Mayo County | 805 | 38% | 142 | 810 | 673 | 2% | 10% |
| Clare County | 784 | 36% | 120 | 962 | 490 | 7% | 43% |
| Tipperary County | 781 | 32% | 138 | 685 | 497 | 38% | 38% |
| South Dublin County | 752 | 45% | 104 | 3,052 | 1,977 | 36% | 57% |
| Kerry County | 710 | 36% | 141 | 986 | 771 | 10% | 55% |
| Wicklow County | 668 | 36% | 146 | 1,874 | 1,127 | 49% | 71% |
| Kildare County | 664 | 36% | 140 | 1,577 | 1,015 | 46% | 57% |
| Kilkenny County | 587 | 41% | 114 | 554 | 406 | 7% | 25% |
| Waterford City and County | 498 | 33% | 158 | 1,208 | 1,263 | 62% | 67% |
| Louth County | 489 | 35% | 127 | 1,006 | 648 | 69% | 73% |
| Cavan County | 454 | 36% | 138 | 609 | 232 | 28% | 31% |
| Laois County | 447 | 37% | 123 | 1,032 | 620 | 46% | 77% |
| Cork City | 396 | 44% | 133 | 3,396 | 2,400 | 26% | 41% |
| Westmeath County | 390 | 42% | 105 | 684 | 545 | 56% | 63% |
| Monaghan County | 378 | 41% | 161 | 525 | 284 | 36% | 37% |
| Offaly County | 342 | 40% | 131 | 446 | 158 | 20% | 29% |
| Roscommon County | 325 | 33% | 127 | 207 | 191 | 41% | 47% |
| Sligo County | 313 | 28% | 192 | 426 | 252 | 26% | 56% |
| Carlow County | 270 | 43% | 126 | 440 | 295 | 19% | 23% |
| Galway City | 209 | 38% | 143 | 362 | 343 | 38% | 63% |
| Longford County | 189 | 30% | 122 | 89 | 68 | 21% | 22% |
| Leitrim County | 163 | 34% | 119 | 189 | 59 | 0% | 2% |
Permissions and starts: PlanningLeads, from the planning registers and BCMS commencement notices (retention, section 5 declarations, compliance filings and amendments left out). Homes permitted and started: CSO BHQ17 and HSM13. Timber frame and modern methods of construction: share of new homes started over the last 12 months, CSO HSM15. CSO data under CC BY 4.0.
These are the national totals. Inside the app: the individual commencement notices behind them, mapped and filterable by county and trade, usually before work starts.
Sign in freeEmbed or cite this tracker
Writing about Irish housing delivery? Drop in the live tracker card or cite the figures - free under CC BY 4.0. The card always shows the latest month.
Paste this into any page - it shows a live card and links back to this data. Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 (just keep the link).
<!-- Ireland Commencements Tracker - data by PlanningLeads (CC BY 4.0) -->
<a href="https://planningleads.ie/commencements?utm_source=embed&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image_embed" target="_blank" rel="noopener"
style="display:inline-block;max-width:600px;font-family:system-ui,-apple-system,sans-serif;text-decoration:none;color:#0f766e">
<img src="https://planningleads.ie/commencements/opengraph-image" alt="Ireland Commencements Tracker - homes breaking ground, by PlanningLeads" width="600"
style="display:block;width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:12px;border:1px solid #e2e8f0" />
<span style="display:block;margin-top:6px;font-size:13px;line-height:1.4;color:#64748b">Ireland Commencements Tracker · data by PlanningLeads</span>
</a>Source: CSO PxStat tables HSM14 (residential commencement notices) and HPM09 (Residential Property Price Index), re-used under CC BY 4.0. Refreshed monthly as the CSO publishes.