Carlow and Kilkenny are continuing to see a recovery in the construction sector especially for home building.
New figures have been released from the National Housing Construction Index.
The number of people building homes and planning applications both increased in the first eight months of this year.
Carlow is seeing more buildings being started with the figure up 59 per cent compared to the same time last year while Kilkennys was only up 6 per cent.
Meanwhile planning applications were up 4 per cent in Kilkenny and 3 per cent in Carlow.
The figures show a surge in building activity for the first 8 months of the year.