The short answer: on 12 October 2026, 770 planning permissions for 10 or more homes were still live with no sign that building had started. Together they cover 60,362 homes. 54 of them, with 3,857 homes, run out in the next 12 months.
A builder has to lodge a commencement notice before starting work. We matched every live housing permission against those notices. This post shows where the unstarted ones are, how big they are and when they run out.
Counted on 12 October 2026 from the national planning register and the National Building Control Office's commencement notices.
What counts here
- Granted for 10 or more homes. Nursing homes and care homes are left out.
- Still live: inside the life of the permission, usually five years, longer where the permission says so.
- Not started: no commencement notice names the permission, and none was lodged within 100 m of it after the grant.
Of the 1,646 live permissions for 10 or more homes, 876 have started and 770 have not.
Where they are
| Council | Not started | Homes |
|---|---|---|
| South Dublin | 32 | 6,718 |
| Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown | 38 | 4,523 |
| Dublin City | 53 | 4,351 |
| Louth | 35 | 4,249 |
| Limerick | 50 | 4,192 |
| Cork City | 20 | 4,173 |
| Cork County | 61 | 3,813 |
| Meath | 28 | 2,771 |
| Kildare | 30 | 2,663 |
| Wicklow | 36 | 2,611 |
| Donegal | 49 | 2,087 |
| Kerry | 25 | 1,701 |
| Fingal | 16 | 1,680 |
| Waterford | 24 | 1,585 |
| Galway County | 27 | 1,495 |
| Laois | 18 | 1,430 |
| Clare | 16 | 1,258 |
| Westmeath | 18 | 1,182 |
| Wexford | 28 | 1,102 |
| Galway City | 14 | 1,077 |
| Tipperary | 24 | 1,071 |
| Mayo | 28 | 1,008 |
| Cavan | 21 | 709 |
| Kilkenny | 16 | 702 |
| Offaly | 10 | 603 |
| Sligo | 10 | 481 |
| Monaghan | 15 | 441 |
| Longford | 12 | 265 |
| Carlow | 4 | 194 |
| Leitrim | 7 | 121 |
| Roscommon | 5 | 106 |
Three things that stand out
1. Most of the homes are in a few big schemes. 65 permissions for 200 homes or more hold 24,412 homes, two in every five of the total. The 248 smallest permissions, for 10 to 24 homes, hold 3,873.
| Size | Permissions | Homes |
|---|---|---|
| 10-24 homes | 248 | 3,873 |
| 25-49 homes | 193 | 6,786 |
| 50-99 homes | 182 | 13,756 |
| 100-199 homes | 82 | 11,535 |
| 200 homes or more | 65 | 24,412 |
2. Most were granted recently. 466 of the 770 were granted in 2025 or 2026. Those are early in their life, and many will start in the normal course of things. The older ones are the more interesting list: 173 were granted in 2021 to 2023 and still show no start.
| Granted | Not started | Homes |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 9 | 984 |
| 2022 | 59 | 3,382 |
| 2023 | 105 | 9,474 |
| 2024 | 131 | 8,156 |
| 2025 | 219 | 15,808 |
| 2026 | 247 | 22,558 |
3. 54 run out within a year. They cover 3,857 homes. When a permission runs out, the owner has to start, get an extension, or apply again. That is often when land changes hands or a joint venture gets done.
What this does not tell you
- "Not started" means no commencement notice was found, not that nothing is happening. We match nine in ten permissions granted since 2022 to their notices. A missed match reads as "not started", so check the council's file before you act.
- It does not say why. A site can be waiting on finance, a sale, a connection, a judicial review or a later phase.
- The number of homes is read from the description. The national register cuts Fingal, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and Wexford descriptions short, so for those three we read the full description from the council's own planning file.
- A permission that runs out can still be extended. Check the council's file for an extension of duration.
Where Precedent fits
This post is one count, made once. In Precedent you search it yourself:
- "Has planning, not started" on every search, narrowed if you like to schemes running out within 12 months. (Approved, not started)
- On the map, every unstarted permission in view, by homes, with the date it runs out.
- On every site card, each unstarted permission on the land, with the case.
- Before the grant: the schemes still in for planning, and who applied. (Schemes in for planning)
For housebuilders, here is how developers use it. It reads commencement notices, so the matching limits above apply in the product too.
Sources: the national planning applications register (the Irish Planning Applications dataset) and the National Building Control Office's commencement notices (CC BY 4.0), read 12 October 2026.
Find the permissions nobody has built
Precedent matches every housing permission against the commencement notices builders must lodge before starting, and shows the ones with none. Filter by size, by county, or by permissions about to run out.