Figures show cost of building three-bed home is on average less than €300,000

The cost of building homes in Ireland is considerably cheaper than the construction industry claims and well below what local authorities are paying private developers for social housing, figures from the Department of Housing show.
When procured directly by local councils, the all incost for a typical three-bedroom house was on average less than 300,000 and in some areas less than 250,000.
The figures, based on competitively tendered local authority housing projects in 2019, show the cost per unit in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and in south Dublin was 277,500, while in Waterford city it was 243,100. In the most expensive location, Dublin city, the cost was 348,900, but this was considered elevated on account of atypical schemes procured by the council that year.
The figures also show the cost of two-bed apartments, which are typically more expensive to build, when developed directly by local councils was on average less than 300,000.
The SCSI, the professional body for the construction industry here, claimed in 2017 that the cost of delivering a two-bedroom apartment in suburban Dublin was 400,000-481,000 and 470,000-578,000 in the city centre.
The figures obtained from the department are significantly less than this and suggest that many local councils are paying excessive prices for so-called turnkey purchases or Part V acquisitions, which are bought directly from private developers to house social tenants.
The most high-profile example is the Cairn Homes development of the former RTÉ site at Donnybrook in Dublin 4.
Cairn has agreed in principle a 30.2 million deal to sell 61 apartments to Dublin City Council for social housing as part of its Part V obligation to allocate 10 per cent of any new private development to social housing. That values two-bedroom apartments at 521,377 and one-bed units at 472,797.
Where land is available, actual construction, de-risked from speculative markets and high-cost finance, is affordable, University College Dublin academic and housing expert Orla Hegarty, who obtained the figures, said. This is confirmed by the departments own figures, Ms Hegarty said.
These prices make a nonsense of what councils are paying for Part Vs and turnkeys, she said.
If you want to build affordable housing in Ireland, how you go about it is really important, Ms Hegarty said. What weve got at the moment is a system whereby we rely very heavily on developers, which is just one way of buying housing, and their way of buying housing is largely to do with maximising the land value, she said.
A report by the SCSI, published in July, suggested the cost of building a three-bed semi-detached home in Dublin is now at 371,000 with construction costs accounting for less than half the overall.
The figure was 41,000 or 12 per cent higher than four years ago.
The SCSI said the increase was primarily driven by an increase in hard costs the bricks and mortar element of construction which rose by 19 per cent or 29,000 during the period.
The so-called soft costs land, development levies, professional fees, VAT and developers margin increased by 7 per cent or 12,000, it said.
However, these soft costs accounted for 52 per cent or 192,000 of the 371,000 total, underscoring the notion that development costs rather than construction cost are behind the high cost of housing in Ireland.