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Sunday Property Round-up

🇪🇺 Sunday Property Round-Up 30th August 2026

🇪🇺 Sunday Property Round-Up 30th August 2026 

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

Sunday Property Round-up

PROPERTY DISTRICT PRESS OFFICE 

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

  • 🇪🇺 Week 9 of 26: Place Engage arrives in County Westmeath – a county of two large towns, just 202 people apart, one of which crosses the Shannon into another province. But the property finding that shaped the week is a rental one: Westmeath has the second-widest gap in Ireland between what a sitting tenant pays and what a new tenant pays for the same kind of home in the same town: about €350 a month. We tested that baseline with IPAV member Cormac Sheehy MIPAV of Sheehy Meares Real Estate in Athlone: https://placeengage.com/%f0%9f%87%aa%f0%9f%87%ba-week-9-of-26-placemaking-in-county-westmeath/
    • 96,221 people, up 8% since 2016 
    • over-65s up 26%, against 22% nationally 
    • Athlone 22,869 and Mullingar 22,667, 202 people apart 
    • median house price €321,000, down 1.1% on the year 
    • new-tenancy rents 35.3% above existing tenancies – about €350 a month, the second-widest gap in the State 
    • new tenancies up 11.5% over the year, existing tenancies up 1.7%
    • Only 44 homes advertised to rent across the entire county

We will be in Cork city and county this week, please get in touch with recommendations!

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.

Rural, Coastal & Islands

CONSTRUCTION: https://breakingground.news 

  • He came, he saw, he conquered – Mark Sheeran, CJ Sheeran Group chief declines all offers as his pallet empire booms: A recent visit from a major private equity investor was just the latest in a long line of companies attempting to woo the market leader which is on course to record €90m turnover this year – Fearghal O’Connor, Irish Independent

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish-business/he-came-he-saw-he-conquered-sheeran-timber-group-chief-declines-all-offers-as-his-pallet-empire-booms/a/160450458.html

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/

CIF Safety Campaign 2026 Podcast 

🏗️ August’s Construction Industry Federation (CIF) safety theme is: LIFTING & LOADING, aligning with the Health and Safety Authority inspectorate’s thematic campaign.

Lifting operations carry significant risk — heavy and elevated loads, fixed and mobile plant, and a constant demand for coordination between everyone on site.

Our thanks to Dan McAuliffe, Tommy and to roof banksman, Aaron, for demonstrating a safe lift on site with Cairn at Holybanks, Swords, with Neil Lenehan, EHS Director with Cairn, John Egan, Executive Safety, Health & Skills with the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), and Joan Flynn, Senior Inspector with the Health and Safety Authority.

This month, take the opportunity to:

🔺 Review your Lift Plans

🔺Confirm all lifting gear (chains, slings and similar) is appropriately certified, pre-use checks are completed, and records are maintained

🔺Check the training requirements and competence of everyone involved — Plant Operator, Slinger/Signaller/banksman, Appointed Person, Lift Supervisor

Also, a reminder on excavators: operators involved in basic lifting operations require the appropriate CSCS. Where that CSCS was obtained before May 2026, evidence of add-on training covering lifting operations with excavators is required, as set out in CIF Guidance GN-25-02 (Rev.1)

📽️ Katie Tallon MPRII

🎙️ Construction Industry Federation (CIF) #CIFSafety26 Podcast — the full 2025 & 2026 series is now live

Over the past 12 months, we took the mic onto live construction sites across Ireland — from a European HQ in Dublin’s Docklands to the largest Capex energy project in the State — to talk safety with the people building it.

Hosted by Sean Downey, Director of Safety, Education and Skills, and John Egan, Executive, every conversation puts real site experience at the centre of the safety story.

You can now catch up on the entire series:

📽️ Watch every episode → https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5hAEpymn6vnhCbgSqe6T8TJTfB9mvD6C&si=sieKYKVtXiUohkBi 

🎧 Listen back → https://open.spotify.com/show/2SQXVgyerkhnxh80jnEORZ?si=94f05ae7c5b04adb

Produced by Katie Tallon MPRII

REAL ESTATE: www.irishrealestate.news

Residential 

  • ‘Right to be forgotten’ for cancer survivors to take effect in mid-October: The legislation means insurers will be required to disregard cancer-related medical history when a person applying for mortgage protection insurance has completed active cancer treatment for five years and been in complete remission for five years https://www.thejournal.ie/right-to-be-forgotten-cancer-7140407-Aug2026/

*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/ 

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iProperty Radio: Property Round-Up

🎙️ COMMUNITY VOICES: Placemaking in County Meath

Over the past 8 weeks we have been travelling around Ireland for our 26-county, 26-week non-political placemaking tour of Ireland for the duration of the EU Council Presidency, speaking to local auctioneers (IPAV – Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers members), local authorities/planners, residents/families and business owners. This interview brings those perspectives together in one conversation.

*Recorded in Eureka House – a gem in the heart of the Walled Heritage Town of Kells  – with Alan Crawford, Senior Executive Planner with Meath County Council, and Hubert W Morris   MIPAV REV of Hugh Morris Alliance Auctioneers.

Good timing, too: we arrived in Kells on Day 1 of National Heritage Week. This year’s The Heritage Council theme is ‘Heritage at Risk’ — and you could see the answer to it on the street, with scaffolding up on several buildings including the Round Tower, and the old Kells Printing Works reopened as a creative and educational hub with its printing machines recommissioned.

🔹 Meath is also the first county on this tour where the story is not dereliction. It has the lowest commercial vacancy rate of any county in Ireland — 10.0%, against a national 14.6% (GeoDirectory Commercial Vacancy Rates Report, Q4 2025, a commercial source).

🔹 It carries the longest average journey to work in the State, at 35.2 minutes against 29.1 nationally, and grew 13% between 2016 and 2022 (CSO Census 2022).

Hugh makes the case that the motorway — feared locally at the time, because bypasses had hollowed out retail elsewhere — did the opposite in Kells, and that the HGV ban and public realm work that followed are what turned road access into footfall.

Alan sets out what forward planning actually is, and why it stalls without data: a countywide settlement capacity audit, a social infrastructure audit, engagement with Uisce Éireann, ESB and EirGrid on where utility headroom exists, and a retail strategy built on granular fieldwork rather than county averages.

Also discussed: extending the current development plan to 2030 while drafting a ten-year plan behind it; over 400 submissions to the recent land-use zoning expression of interest; the argument for reviving public-private partnership for infrastructure; and why buyers keep asking for single-storey two- and three-bed homes that the density model does not deliver.

One exchange I keep coming back to. In Week 5 in Louth with Trevor Connolly at Love Drogheda BID, the mismatch we found was that Monday is now among the most common days to work from home, and still the day most cafés close. I asked the same question in Kells. The answer was that everything opens seven days, because the footfall is there from residents working remotely two or three days a week.

📽️ Watch in full: https://youtu.be/P9kFS0iaCBQ?si=8jKchENd_JtT9Nb- 

🎧 Listen back: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7fPihoRNgpka7Ixkpbr1mv?si=__UsALAzSdGkIv2VnR8X5w

Full Placemaking Data Baseline for County Meath, with sources, at Place Engage

📸 Katie Tallon MPRII

🎙️ Housing Insights Podcast by The Housing Agency


The latest series of Housing Insights is out now, bringing expert analysis, practical advice, and real lived experiences straight from the heart of Ireland’s housing sector.

Hosts Roslyn Molloy and David Silke explore four critical areas shaping housing today:

  • The role of apartments and MUDs in Ireland’s housing system: Roslyn sits down with David Rouse and Lisa Marie Sheehy to break down OMCs, service charges, sinking funds, and future regulations for managed communities.
  • Social Housing Options: David speaks with Patrick McCarthy to unpack eligibility, Choice-Based Lettings, differential rents, and navigating local authority application processes.
  • My Homelessness to Housing First Journey: A powerful conversation between Rob Lowth and Housing First tenant John on lived experience, breaking the cycle of homelessness, and the transformational impact of permanent housing with wrap-around support.
  • Biodiversity in Housing: Roslyn is joined by Susan Vickers (Clúid Housing) and Haley Curran to explore nature-based design, estate retrofitting, and resident-led biodiversity projects.

Whether you are a housing professional, local authority officer, resident, or policymaker, there is an episode for you – listen to all new episodes now: 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5dSJNN6dyWZ4Wp6Of95l1D?si=48457d360fb74213&nd=1&dlsi=444fb6f5b1a8444f 

The Housing Agency’s website: https://www.housingagency.ie/news-events/housing-insights-housing-agency-podcast-series 

🌏 Links to all episodes at iProperty Radio:  https://ipropertyradio.com/housing-agency/

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/ 

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Picture of Carol Tallon

Carol Tallon