Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)
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268. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the work undertaken with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Central Statistics Office since 2022 to develop residential-specific productivity data, including the collection of GVA, hours worked, and modern methods of construction output data separately from commercial construction, and the timeline for first publication of such statistics. [68904/25]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Productivity statistics are published on an annual basis by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). Typical labour productivity statistics capture gross value added (GVA) per hour of work. The CSO does not calculate labour productivity for residential construction on its own because the data for such specific GVA and hours is lacking. The sectoral breakdown for construction, which is set down at EU level, does not differentiate between the construction of residential buildings and the construction of non-residential buildings. The latest CSO data (September 2025) shows that labour productivity for the Construction sector was €43.5 per hour in 2024, marginally higher than €43 per hour in 2023. Looking at the sub-sectors separately, for 2024 labour productivity stood at €35.5 per hour in Construction of Buildings (down from 39.9 in 2023), €33.4 per hour in Civil Engineering (up from €28 in 2023), and €53.9 per hour in Specialised Construction Activities (up from €49.6 in 2023).

According to the CSO, in 2024, 324 million hours of work were estimated for the construction sector, an increase of 10.4% on 2019 (pre-COVID), when 293.5 million hours were worked. CSO data shows that in the recent past, peak hours worked in the construction sector were in 2007, with an estimated 466 million hours worked. This dropped to a low of 141.5 million hours in 2012. Source: www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/fp/fp-cnap/constructionanationalaccountsperspective2024/productivity/

One of the actions in the Government's recently published Action Plan on Competitiveness and Productivity published by my Department in September 2025, is to prioritise increased construction sector productivity in national infrastructure and housing programmes, through further embedding supply and demand-side initiatives at design and procurement stages and strengthening industry capability through initiatives such as Enterprise Ireland’s 'Built to Innovate' and the Construct Innovate Technology Centre, and development of the national MMC Demonstration Park at Mount Lucas; maintaining a focus on digitalisation, sustainable practices, lean processes and adoption of MMC.