The Dublin market for leasing office space will see a boost in the second half of this year, Savills Ireland has said.
The property advisors say the State is likely to contribute to this, as its departments and agencies move to more energy-efficient buildings.
Figures released by the Office of Public Works (OPW) last year revealed just one of 238 buildings occupied by the Government has achieved an 'A' energy rating.
Shane Duffy is Director of Office Leasing with Savills Ireland.
He told Breakfast Briefing this will be a 'slow burner.'
"It's been a slow start to the year, not completely unexpected," he said.
"We've come off the back of six strong quarters of take-up... and that's generally how we measure the office market as a whole, in terms of take-up.
"2022 saw about 2.6 million square feet of take-up; so this year we've started off on a slow burner, I suppose, with 260,000 square feet of take-up".
He said this is down to "a perfect storm" of people working from home, as well as tech sector redundancies and increased construction costs.
'Low-hanging fruit'
Mr Duffy said they are expecting an increase in activity for the second half of the year.
"There's a lot of focus on sustainability, needless to say the Government are clearly driving that agenda," he said.
"I suppose there's an opportunity to pluck some low-hanging fruit in that regard as far as their office portfolio is concerned.
"A lot of State departments and agencies tend to occupy older buildings.
"They tend to sign up to longer leases, so there's opportunities for relocation within their portfolio and to diversify somewhat.
"We're all very familiar if we're buying to selling our houses that energy rating is quite important; it's the same with the commercial sector.
"Only one State department actually, physically occupies an 'A' rated building.
"So that's something that we see changing over the course of time," he added.
City centre stock most popular
It comes as Savills reports there was 266,000 square feet of take-up across 38 deals in the first quarter of this year.
City centre stock was the most popular and accounted for 66% of take-up across 24 deals.
Two of the three largest deals took place in Dublin 1 and 2 - while the suburbs accounted for 32% of total take-up and the city fringe made up only 2%.
The largest letting of the quarter was DataDog's relocation from 13 to 18 City Quay to One and Two Dockland Central, where it took 44,000 sq ft across the two buildings.
The second biggest transaction was Pinterest's take-up of 28,000 sq ft of space at 60 Dawson Street, followed by Virtual Access with 25,500 sq ft taken at Parkwest.
