How many homes are we really building? A D.I.T. Housing Lecturer has criticised the government for misrepresenting the number of new homes built by the state, and accused it is indulging in “Orwellian” doublespeak.

Lorcan Sirr said by 2021, the number of homes reported as being built as part of the 'Rebuilding Ireland — Targets and Progress' report will have been overstated.

He said that some homes that were just void for a short period have been counted as newly built, and that it uses gross, not net, figures in some cases — not subtracting homes demolished as part of its building programme in overall figures.

"It's Orwellian, the responses I get back from the department,” he said. “It's just nonsense.

"If you have 12 one bedroom apartments  and you knock them into six two-bedroom apartments, the department will count that as plus six, and not minus 12 plus six. They're working in gross figures. Unless we're actually building houses, we're going nowhere. We're just shuffling deck chairs around a sinking Titanic.”

The government claimed it had built more than 7,000 new homes last year, but Sirr said that figure may be lower than 2,245.

The Department of Housing, led by Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy, has not responded to a request for comment from Bisnow.