Conor O’Connell: Yes. Building apartments had become unviable. Something had to change
Apartment delivery in Ireland has proven extremely challenging in recent years. Our National Planning Framework (NPF) requires at least 50 per cent of residential delivery in the main urban centres to be “within the existing built environment”. The aim is to achieve more compact growth, utilise existing infrastructure, reduce commute times and deliver a more sustainable way of living.
But this ideal sits in stark contrast to actual delivery over the lifetime of the previous NPF adopted in 2018. In that period the only place where apartments were being delivered at scale was in Dublin, and this was largely funded by pension funds and other institutional investors. The result was a moderation of rent cost inflation in the capital at a time when costs were rising elsewhere. In contrast, the recent collapse in new supply of apartments is the principal driver of increasing rental cost inflation. Clearly a return to sustained moderation in rental costs can only be achieved by a significant increase in new supply.
Over the last two years, this institutional investment has collapsed from €2 billion in 2022 to €124 million in 2024.
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