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Builders' prices increased by 15%

Recently, the Irish Ministry of Agriculture has had a serious deadlock in issuing logging permits. The Construction Industry Federation of Ireland stated that the delay in issuing logging permits directly affects the price of timber and further increases the construction cost of new houses. In recent weeks, some loggers have paid extra for robbing high-quality sawn timber. Fortunately, forestry owners who have obtained logging permits have made a fortune.

These high costs, as sawmills compete for the supply of scarce raw materials, have more than doubled the price of high-quality wood compared to 2017. This has also led to a significant reduction in the supply of wood from Irish sawmills and a soaring price.

Loggers told reporters in the "Irish Farmers Magazine" that the price of pulp-grade wood is generally very high, around 36-37 Euros/ton, while log prices reach 45-50 Euros/ton.

The price of building materials has also begun to soar, and the cost of wood alone has risen by 40%. Rory Clarke of House 2 Home told The Irish Sun: “Compared with last year, many builders’ prices have increased by 10-15%.

The backlog of applications from the Ministry of Forestry has reached 4,000

Commenting on the unusually high timber prices, Paddy Bruton, a Kilkenny-based forestry consultant, said that the continued difficulties have caused loggers to have “heavy losses”.

Bruton pointed out that most forestry practitioners can only harvest native forest once in their lives. He said that due to the mistakes of the Forestry Department, it is unacceptable for growers to be hindered in obtaining the best possible timber prices.

The Ministry of Forestry currently has a backlog of nearly 4,000 permit applications. Contains a variety of timber transportation, logging and planting permit applications.

Earlier, senior officials notified Irish National Assembly (Oireachtas) members that the department would appoint 16 full-time ecologists and 4 new inspectors to deal with these delays.

The timber crisis affects the construction industry

At the same time, Tom Pallon, the director general of the Construction Industry Federation and the former chairman of the IFA, claimed that the delay in issuing logging permits directly affected timber prices and increased the cost of new houses. The increase in the cost of construction materials may increase the cost by 15,000 pounds, which is equivalent to the price of an ordinary family house. At the same time, the permit issue may affect the number of houses built by the construction industry this year.

Pallon warned: “The frustrating coronavirus, global demand and Brexit are driving other input costs, and our timber crisis is caused by Kildare Street (a well-known street in the capital, Dublin, where the government department is located). On the streets, here refers to the Irish government). If these basic bureaucratic problems are not resolved, it is meaningless to announce billions of euros in investment in the summer economic report or the new housing policy."

Huge gap in wood

Due to a shortage of domestic timber supplies, timber imports from Scotland have doubled in recent months.

It is estimated that less than half of the 1 million cubic meters of timber that could have been harvested from mature private forests in 2020 will actually be harvested. As a result, Irish timber imports from Scotland have doubled in recent months.

Real estate crisis

Ireland’s retail sales fell by 1.7% in July 2021 from the previous month. The furniture category fell more significantly in July, reaching -8.7%. The biggest problem is the soaring house prices.

Ireland is in the midst of a housing crisis and housing prices are spiraling upward. Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien stated that the government's long-awaited strategy to solve the housing crisis will be launched from September 3.

The Housing for All Program will enable the government to invest 12 billion euros in housing each year so that it can provide 33,000 housing units per year by 2025.

Irish house prices soar by 6.9%

The Irish Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index fell to a four-month low of 62.8 in August 2021 from 63.3 a month ago and an all-time high of 64.1 in May. This shows that the growth rates of output, new orders, exports and purchases have all slowed. At the same time, the backlog of orders is increasing at a record rate, further showing that supply bottlenecks are limiting output.

Artificial gaps exacerbate the crisis

Ireland’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell from 6.5% last month to 6.4% in August 2021, the highest level since December. The unemployment rate dropped to a low point, but hourly wages rose to **.

The average hourly wage in Ireland has increased by 26.89% from the previous month

Mr. Clark, a spokesperson for the Construction Industry Federation, said: "Labor costs have risen by 10% this year. Since the epidemic, the industry has lost tens of thousands of workers. The skyrocketing prices of steel, wood and concrete and the loss of approximately 20,000 skilled construction workers , Is pushing the renovation of houses out of reach, and construction projects are also forced to close."

CIF reports that every country in the developed world is using construction to start the economy, but the supply is still limited and the price is only one-way.

Martin Markey, a spokesperson for the Irish Hardware Association, said in conclusion: "Within the next 24 months, Brexit, the pandemic, and the super storm of increased supply are likely to bring us huge cost pressures. If you ask any construction supplier, They will only tell you that they are working hard due to shortages. In other words, they cannot fulfill all orders."