Review 2022

1,768 nursing homes beds and 2,438 student accommodation beds granted permission in 2022.

The value of plans granted in the Southern region grew by 13.5% with the largest growth areas being in the medical, pharmaceutical and education sectors while projects granted permission in the hotel sector fell by 58.5% and community related projects granted permission fell by 56.8%

Project Starts

Over 2,400 new projects started on site in 2022 equating to just short of €10bn investment. This represented a modest 1.6% growth from 2021.

Starts in the southern region grewby 33.5% from the previous year to €3.1bn while starts in the in the Eastern and Midland region fell by 8.1% and by 9.7% in the Northern and Western region.

Residential Sector

668 new residential projects started in 2022 equating to approximately 11k scheme houses and 14.5 apartment units scheduled to be built over the coming years. In addition, there were 13 new student accommodation projects started representing 2,141 beds.

In terms of residential units actually commenced in 2022 from these new projects and from new phases of existing projects, there were 22k scheme and apartment units and over 5k self builds started.

Non-residential Sectors

Although the volume of non-residential project starts rose from 1,480 in 2021 to 1,711 in 2022, the overall value of these projects fell by 2% to €3.3bn.

Notable declines in projects starts last year compared to 2021 included Warehousing and Storage (down 31%), Data Centres (down 59%), Offices (down7.3%) and Hotels (down 49.6%).

Notable increases in starts from 2021 included the Industrial sector (up 53%), the pharmaceutical sector (up 42%) and the Education sector where school starts rose by 41% and project starts in the Higher Education sector rose by 138%.

Regional growth in new project starts rose by 17.2% in the Southern Region to over €1bn, most notably in Limerick where new projects accounted for €254m an increase from €77m in 2021.

Kilkenny and Clare also showed significant increases in the value of new starts from the previous year. Although starts in the Eastern and Midland region fell by 8.4% in value from 2021, County Meath had 81 new project starts representing a huge 545% increase on 2021 representing €187m of investment

ABOVE: At the launch of the Capability Development initiative