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🇪🇺 Sunday Property Round-Up 28th June 2026

🇪🇺 Sunday Property Round-Up 28th June 2026 

Weekly Irish property market news and insights – for the industry, by the industry

Ireland's EU Council Presidency

EU PRESIDENCY: As Ireland’s EU Council Presidency begins, cost of living overtakes housing as the most important issue to people in Ireland.

‘Solution to the housing crisis is in the West’, according to Michael Prenty, chair of the Irish Home Builders’ Association and Director of Residential Operations with the Ballymore Group.

First steps taken towards a RURAL REVIVAL…  Government has finally approved the draft Sustainable Rural and Gaeltacht Housing National Planning Statement, which will replace the 2005 Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines — the first comprehensive reset in over two decades. Once adopted, it will be issued under Section 25 of the Planning and Development Act 2024 and become binding national planning policy, ending what Minister Browne calls the “Eircode lottery”, where an identical application may succeed in one county and fail across the boundary. 

Three changes stand out for anyone working in delivery:

  • First, local needs tests are retained but standardised – and removed entirely within rural settlements of fewer than 1,500 people. 
  • Second, economic need is finally defined nationally, and it extends well beyond farming to marine, equine, forestry, rural enterprises and teachers serving rural schools. That is a livelihood-based definition of rural Ireland, and it is long overdue. 
  • Third, planning authorities are directed to drop arbitrary local rules on site sizes, road frontage and house-count limits, with each application assessed on its planning merits. 

The Gaeltacht provisions deserve particular attention: a standardised Irish language competency option (minimum B2 in spoken Irish), Inter-Gaeltacht Recognition allowing speakers to qualify across Gaeltacht areas, and Language Impact Statements for larger developments. This is the State treating language as living infrastructure rather than heritage, however, I foresee problems – last night, while discussing this with a neighbour and native speaker here in the heart of the Gaeltacht, I challenged him to take the TEG proficiency test (as I have scored a failing 33%) – but he only achieved 67%, which is one level below the standard the new proposals require, despite being born, raised, and educated in the Gaeltacht and living and working here all of his life through the Irish language! (while it’s petty, I felt slightly better about having failed the same test…)

One caveat before anyone lodges an application: the draft must still pass Strategic Environmental Assessment, Appropriate Assessment and public consultation, with final publication intended before the end of 2026. Until then, the 2005 guidelines remain the operative national guidance. That consultation window matters — this is the moment for rural communities and practitioners to shape the final text, not react to it.

INFRASTRUCTURE

On the infrastructure front, a shift in tone from Government this week. Minister Jack Chambers has told departments they must explain the real-life benefits of capital projects – water treatment plants, energy substations – to communities earlier in the process, not after objections have hardened. A move welcomed by the Public Consultation Institute of Ireland. 

The new framework goes further: public bodies will be required to set out both the benefits of major infrastructure and the cost of delaying it, while regulators will be expected to publish performance metrics on approval timelines.

Why does this matter? For years, the delivery conversation has been dominated by what projects cost. Rarely do we quantify what delay costs – in housing not built, in grid capacity not delivered, in communities left waiting. Putting that figure on the table changes the debate. And asking regulators to measure their own performance is a quiet but significant move towards accountability in the consenting system. Early communication with communities is not a soft add-on to infrastructure delivery. It is the delivery mechanism.

🇪🇺 Place Engage’s 26-county, 26-week non-political placemaking tour kicked off in Dublin this week on iProperty Radio  – catch up on market insights, placemaking initiatives and community voices within. Tomorrow we head to Tipperary, contact me directly to get involved!

PROPERTY DISTRICT PRESS OFFICE 

Below are the local and international stories that might be of particular interest:

  • NAMA is to sell off its final foreign asset – the side of a mountain in Montenegro – by the end of this year, as the so-called ‘bad bank’ enters its dying days. Brendan McDonagh, chief executive of the National Asset Management Agency, said the site’s financial backers had ‘big dreams’ to develop a hotel on the mountainside of the coastal town of Bar, on the Montenegrin coast https://extra.ie/2026/07/03/news/irish-news/end-of-the-road-for-nama
  • Housing sector calls for recognised professional standards to improve services for tenants and communities – First national study finds strong support for mandatory qualifications, clearer career pathways and greater investment in housing professionals as Ireland faces growing housing challenges Chartered Institute of Housing
Housing sector calls for recognised professional standards to improve services for tenants and communities

EU POLICY & RESEARCH IMPACTING HOUSING DELIVERY 

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  • 26 counties. 26 weeks. One shared conversation about place: While Ireland holds the Presidency of the Council of the EU, iProperty Radio & Place Engage are travelling to every county in the Republic — publishing the official placemaking data for each place, then speaking to people on the ground to understand their lived experiences of place:

🔹 What works well where you live?

🔹 What’s not so great?

🔹 What would you love to see for your area?

More than 40 indicators per county — population, planning, prices, rents, vacancy, homelessness, climate, transport — every figure sourced, every reference period stated.

Then the part no dataset can do: listening.

Week one (Dublin) has already taught us plenty. Two-thirds of the capital’s planning permissions this year are extensions and alterations – a city adapting what it already has.

And the July 2025 guidelines raised Dublin’s housing bar to 18,204 homes a year: delivery is rising, and the bar has risen faster.

Ireland’s EU Council Presidency slogan is Ní neart go cur le chéile — strength in unity.

Ours? Faigheann cos ar siúl rud nach bhfaigheann cos ina cónaí — a walking foot finds something that a resting foot wouldn’t 😉

Get involved at: https://placeengage.com/%f0%9f%87%aa%f0%9f%87%baplace-engage-26-counties-26-weeks-one-shared-conversation-about-place/ 

  • The European Housing Alliance held its first meeting in Brussels last week, with next steps including a call for evidence on how housing can be delivered quickly – and, significantly, it was confirmed that emergency-scale responses will be considered. Ireland offers two recent precedents: the rapid delivery of healthcare buildings during Covid and modular housing for Ukrainian arrivals, both of which moved at pace by bypassing traditional planning and procurement routes and resequencing building compliance – temporarily and transparently https://caroltallon.com/housing-moves-up-the-european-agenda-insights-from-the-first-meeting-of-the-european-housing-alliance/ 

If you missed last week’s round-up, you can catch up here: https://ipropertyradio.com/sunday-property-round-up/ 

As always, you might let me know if I have missed out on any relevant property news by emailing carol@caroltallon.com 

PLACEMAKING: https://placeengage.com

Open public consultations and community engagement, in association with the Public Consultation Institute of Ireland

  • Beautiful – Sustainable – Together: Aligned with Aarhus Convention transparency and New European Bauhaus principles, PLACEengage empowers communities, planners, and developers across Ireland’s public and private sectors to collaborate more effectively — Learn more at www.PLACEengage.com PLACEengage: Better placemaking, together.
  • Every series has to start somewhere, and this one starts where the pressure is greatest… Over the next 26 weeks, as Ireland holds the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, Place Engage will undertake a county-by-county listening tour, hearing from people on the ground about placemaking, rural planning, community resilience, and ecology across all 26 counties. Week 1 is Dublin – across the four local authorities – looking at the data (pictured above) and the stories behind the data:(1) Belonging: Who gets to live where? (2) Who decides? (3) What does it cost them? (3) What kind of places are we actually making? The placemaking data baseline 👉 https://placeengage.com/week-1-dublin-where-the-numbers-meet-the-people/

  • Government to Require Clearer Communication with Communities on Major Infrastructure Projects: New National Framework Aims To Help Communities Better Understand How Infrastructure Supports Housing, Transport, Water Services And Flood Protection https://publicconsultation.ie/government-to-require-clearer-communication-with-communities-on-major-infrastructure-projects/ 
  • Government waiting on Bessborough planning appeal before deciding on response: Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns said if planning permission is granted next week, the Government ‘has a big decision to make – do its State apologies mean anything or are they just performance?’ https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/arid-41871996.html

Rural, Coastal & Islands

CONSTRUCTION: https://breakingground.news 

Breaking Ground News: Appointments & Construction Careers

  • BGN Construction Careers, your weekly newsletter from Breaking Ground news, keeps you updated on the latest job opportunities, while showcasing the very best employer brands and projects, across Ireland’s construction industry. Whether you are looking for your next role or planning your career path, stay connected with us for new openings, upskilling opportunities and industry news. Get all the latest job details straight to your inbox: Sign up https://breakingground.news/sign-up-form/

Breaking Ground: Construction Podcast 

🎙️ Inside Ceannt Station: conserving 175 years of heritage while constructing Ireland’s gateway to the western region 

This episode of iProperty Radio goes on site at Galway’s Ceannt Station, recorded inside the newly opened train hall as services run around us. Host Carol Tallon is joined  by Liam Boyce of Iarnród Éireann Irish Rail/ IE Architects, Darren Devane, Director of Building at BAM UK & Ireland, and Peter Cox, CEO of Carrig Conservation International Ltd, who has been conservation consultant on the project since 2021.

Originally built in the early 1850s to a design by railway architect John Skipton Mulvany, with cast iron by Richard Turner of Botanic Gardens fame, the station lost roughly half its original train hall in the 1950s to make way for bus maintenance. The current redevelopment reinstates that train hall and takes the station from two platforms to five, building capacity for Galway, the Western Rail Corridor and the wider region west of the Shannon.

We get a first look at the detail some commuters may never notice: the cast iron colonnade that had to be taken off site, strengthened with hidden “intervention steel” and reassembled bolt by bolt; the stone repairs and salvaged fabric; the original limestone staircase uncovered during M&E works; and the reality of delivering all of it in around 30 phases while the station stayed open every single day.

It’s a candid, practical conversation about balancing heritage with modern building standards, the value of an integrated client, contractor, design team and conservation approach, and what a project of this scale means for Galway and the west — plus the story of the nesting pigeons that held up demolition for two months!

For the full visual effect, including Peter Cox’s on-site tour, skip Spotify and watch on YouTube.

Thanks to Katie Tallon MPRII for producing within another challenging but inspiring LIVE  location 👏

(*And if it sounds like we were shouting over the noise of trains, people and construction works — we were!)

📽️ https://youtu.be/cOhO30ed_LA?si=JLssYTSbBLyMknZ7 

🎧 https://open.spotify.com/episode/4jYetUzsjoBxemaF9wCMVe?si=rpZWyXMKRzqJoMP8oowFqg 

CIF Safety Campaign 2026 Podcast 

On Site with Sisk: Glass Bottle, Ringsend, Dublin 

A look back to the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) Construction Safety Campaign podcast, where Director of Safety, Education & Training, Sean Downey, joins Richard Butler, Head of Occupational Health & Wellbeing,  and Liam Maher, Health Promotion Lead with John Sisk & Son on the Glass Bottle site at Ringsend!

🎙️ Listen on Spotify:  https://open.spotify.com/episode/2iIj7t21sgyUsf10aWIinV?si=d_W2fnltRl6RwA3dUqGD_w

📹 Watch in full: https://youtu.be/ISijWVz9upQ?si=kQfnz4ku-Ycm1wWb

Produced by Katie Tallon MPRII

*Recorded on sites across Ireland — from a European HQ in Dublin’s Docklands, to the largest Capex energy project in the State — catch up  the entire 2025 & 2026 series: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5hAEpymn6vnhCbgSqe6T8TJTfB9mvD6C&si=ity7U_ANvSSyc0bU

REAL ESTATE: www.irishrealestate.news

Residential 

*Searching for a new home or investment property in Ireland? Join the iProperty Radio FACEBOOK community of property buyers in Ireland 2026: https://www.facebook.com/groups/IrishPropertyBuyers/ 

iProperty Radio: NEW HOMES OF THE WEEK

Commercial 

iProperty Radio: Property Round-Up

❓ As Ireland takes over the EU Council Presidency, what’s the most important housing lever Government could and should push (top down) or pull (ground up)?

Genevieve McGuirk McGurk, CEO of the IPAV – Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers takes us through the body’s Pre-Budget Submission 2027.

Genevieve reports what IPAV members are seeing across the country:

  • Smaller landlords exiting as properties fall vacant
  •  Notices of termination at record levels
  • Difficulty of reconciling that with RTB tenancy data
  •  “Missing middle” of landlords, caught in a higher tax bracket and unsettled by repeated legislative change
  •  Growing problem of overholding and weak enforcement

SME HOME BUILDERS

On delivery, the discussion turns to the SME home builder — the developers behind 50 units or fewer who face viability barriers, high finance costs, and disproportionate legal and documentation burdens.

IPAV’s call for a one-stop shop (possibly through Home Building Finance Ireland (HBFI), zero stamp duty for first-time buyers on second-hand homes, and reduced capital gains to support rural succession all feature.

TACKLING VACANCY & DERELICTION

Vacancy and dereliction emerge as the shared frustration: existing stock, existing infrastructure, and grant schemes that still leave gaps — including limited companies locked out of the Above the Shop grant.

RURAL PLANNING

The conversation closes on local authority empowerment, the relaxing of rural one-off planning rules, and the early sign that rural home applications rose in the last quarter — suggesting interpretation, not the rules themselves, was the blockage.

🇪🇺 Recorded as part of iProperty Radio‘s Place Engage 26-county, 26-week non-political placemaking roadshow for the duration of Ireland’s  EU Council Presidency.

Watch back:   https://youtu.be/be5SiPI4tQ4?si=2kZMWngYXsWecmTE 

Listen back: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0rhnKnsijNFb2DuE2H0eba?si=_wr-ZoG7SKqP1sbxiB_kyQ 

PROPTECH, CONSTRUCTION TECH & SMART CITIES: https://prop-tech.ie/

Proptech Ireland is updating the database of 2026 Irish technology providers for the built environment – sign up here: https://prop-tech.ie/register/  and email product or service details to hello@prop-tech.ie

  • Proptech Ireland: Ireland’s CONSTRUCTION and REAL ESTATE ESG technologies resource hub. Confused about how and where to start on your ESG journey? Contact us 👉https://prop-tech.ie

PODCAST: The Proptech Hot Seat on iPropertyRadio.com

Proptech Hot seat is sponsored by Proptech Ireland, the hub for innovators, investors and industry leaders https://prop-tech.ie/ 

Produced by Katie Tallon, with Hear Me Roar Media on sound https://hearmeroarmedia.com 

All Proptech Hot Seat episodes –  https://ipropertyradio.com/proptech-hot-seat/ 

INFRASTRUCTURE, ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT & BIODIVERSITY

Picture of Carol Tallon

Carol Tallon