Builders prepare to ramp up data centre expansion - as future home construction sees a blip

IRELAND’S CONSTRUCTION BODY wants to “ramp up” building of data centres domestically, as its annual conference puts the sector at “the crux” of a Croke Park gathering of industry chiefs, government ministers and high-ranking civil servants.

CIF chief executive Andrew Brownlee told The Journal that the group wants to see data centre development become a “key area” for the industry, pointing to how “highly specialised” homegrown companies are increasingly deriving work from the sector across Europe.

The data centre sector has been at the centre of a heated debate in Ireland and elsewhere amid mounting criticism over the impact the energy-hungry facilities are having on households’ electricity bills and the environment.

The Construction Industry Federation’s (CIF) annual conference, entitled ‘Ready to deliver: Ireland’s decade of construction’, gets underway on Wednesday in Croke Park, where Housing Minister James Browne is among those due to attend.

Following the lifting of a moratorium on new data centres by the government at the start of this year, Brownlee said the sector is starting to pick up activity but that it remains early days in terms of new data centre projects.

The CIF views the data centre sector as “important from an Ireland Inc perspective”, with Brownlee adding that there is “so much potential to ramp up construction” of new facilities.

“We have a base of companies, highly specialised, who are ready to go and have capacity to deliver,” Brownlee said.

It comes as the CIF has published a survey showing that one of the main drivers for Irish builders this year has been projects abroad, primarily in the UK and continental Europe, with this driven by data centres, pharmaceutical facilities, and roads and transport projects.

Its report showed that exports – projects carried out abroad – were key for the industry. Two-thirds of firms reported a year-on-year increase in turnover from exports in the second quarter of 2026.

Future housing sees decline

Amid the details of the CIF survey of 159 firms, it recorded a net decline year-on-year in home building projects in the pipeline.

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Brownlee said the future home building has hit a “blip”, but said that there has “not been a noticeable downturn”.

The government has a target of 300,000 homes by 2030. This requires 60,000 homes each year, although various industry forecasts place this as likely to be just over 40,000 by the end of December.

Brownlee said the industry was continuing to see very high inflation amid ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, particularly for raw materials involved in building.

Around 90% of firms told the CIF they had seen an increase in raw material costs in Q2 2026. However, concern over raw material costs as a key business challenge fell 10 points quarter-on-quarter, while concern over disruption to supply chains fell 31%.

The CIF is seeking a range of measures from this year’s budget, including the continuation of fuel subsidies, increases to the Help to Buy grant and VAT extensions for certain housing developments.

Where growth for Ireland’s construction firms was strongest was in civil engineering, infrastructure and specialist contracting.

This had previously been “lagging behind” the rest of the industry, Brownlee said, but that sentiment had improved on the back of government moves to press ahead with projects such as Dublin’s Metrolink.

Do we have the workforce for the grand plans?

Between the housing targets, major infrastructure projects and data centre development, there are concerns over whether the Irish construction labour force has enough people to get those different plans off the ground, or if some will lose out in the process.

Brownlee played down these fears, saying that the industry “flexes up” when large projects are guaranteed in the pipeline.

Some 20,500 more people took up jobs in construction this year, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) in May, amounting to an 11% increase to more than 190,000.

“We need 100,000 additional workers by 2030, but the industry is an industry that flexes up and down in response to demand and national requirements,” Brownlee said.

He added that the CIF is “confident that we have short-term capacity to deliver”, but said the industry needed to attract more workers via apprenticeships and other schemes for the “medium and longer-term”.