Activity addressing a need - but market is complicated

At the last meeting (before the August break) of the Municipal District of Mullingar Kinnegad where it emerged that 556 dwellings are under construction in the district, but only 97 of them are in locations outside Mullingar, Cllr Denis Leonard questioned the wisdom of concentrating so great a proportion of the new houses in the town.

“I think that type of planning is contributing to our traffic congestion and our school places pressure, where we have declining schools in rural areas falling empty and then not enough schools in Mullingar,” he said.

A concern that Cllr Andrew Duncan, an auctioneer by profession, has is that while there is an appetite for private housing, there is too little coming in the affordable category: “A big problem over the last few years is that all that was being built was social housing: there was no build-for-profit or affordable and, in my opinion, there is a critical shortage of affordable homes coming on the market, as well as housing for the domestic private market,” he told the Westmeath Examiner.

“It’s been exclusively social housing for the last number of years – and there is a need there – but that need has to be counterbalanced with affordable housing.”

Leading local construction professional, John Madden of John Madden & Associates Chartered Engineers, says the figures are to be welcomed, because for too long, construction was behind the curve.

“And with all the zoned land that’s there, it’s great to see now that there are applications coming in, and if you look even at the recent Census figures, Mullingar is very close to Athlone now in relation to population, and it’s accessible to Dublin – where the work is – and it has a train station, so people are seeing the benefit of it.”

On top of that, he points out, property has again become expensive in Dublin and the surrounding areas, so people looking to buy are extending their search area to further out.

While houses here may seem expensive, John points out that the war in Ukraine and Covid have both affected the price of materials, which means it is costing builders between €160 and €200 per square foot to build, and they need to be able to turn a profit.

“The problem we have is that material costs have gone mad – and we can’t get labour: all the young people have gone to Australia and Canada, so it’s hard to get tradespeople and when there are shortages like that [construction workers] can pick and choose and that brings up the prices.”