Published: Friday, 20th February, 2009 11:04am

30% fall in house building in 2008

The number of new houses built in Offaly fell by almost 30% last year, the latest Government figures show, confirming the stark reality of the construction slow down throughout the Faithful County over the twelve month period.

In all, 857 houses and apartments were constructed in Offaly during 2008, according to latest housing completion statistics from Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Michael Finneran.

That"s down from a high of 1,217 the previous year, a massive 29.6% drop off since 2007. However, that fall is not the sharpest in the region with a more acute situation existing in Longford where new home completions plummeted by over 63% during the time, the highest decrease in the country.

Meanwhile, Laois comes next in the midlands table with a 46.9% drop recorded in 2008, while house completions in Roscommon were down 26.8% over the time. Nationally, the smallest fall was in North Tipperary where houses completed dropped just 6.1% between 2007 and 2008.

A breakdown of the Offaly homes completed in 2008 revealed the vast majority, or over 49%, were individual one-off houses with estate homes accounting for 340 dwellings or over 39% of the total. Apartments were the smallest part of the housing equation in Offaly during 2008 coming in at over 11% of the total or 96 units.

Minister Finneran announced this week that country wide the total number of houses and apartments completed in 2008 came to 51,724.

'While there is an easing off in housing activity and recognising the difficulties currently facing the public finances, the Government is committed to focus on quality in the provision of housing and to addressing the housing needs of the less well off in our society,' he commented in the wake of the statistics.

New homes in the capital accounted for 11,342 of the total, with 16,318 built in the Greater Dublin area covering Dublin, Meath, Kildare and Wicklow during 2008. 34% of the houses built nationwide were single houses, while the remainder developed across schemes of various sizes, with a quarter of completed homes were apartments last year.