Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 23 May 2017
286. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the steps he is taking to develop an accurate system for assessing the number of new housing units that are commenced and completed; the reason the numbers from his Department differ from statistics gathered by the Central Statistics Office; the changes he plans to make to current systems; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24217/17]
View answerThe recording and reporting of statistics on housing activity is a complex matter that involves tracking a range of different indicators – including planning permissions, commencement notices, ESB connections and several others - from various sources, each of which measures different aspects of housing market activity. Each dataset presents part of the overall housing activity picture but none of the datasets were specifically designed to count new houses. In respect of commencements, this activity is tracked through the Building Control Management System (BCMS). It is important to note that the BCMS was introduced with effect from 1 March 2014 to facilitate building control authorities, building owners, builders and construction professionals in discharging their responsibilities under the Building Control Act 1990, as amended.
In relation to completions, my Department has published ESB data on residential properties connected to the ESB grid for many years, as a proxy for house completions, as it represents the best available indicator that a residential unit is becoming available for occupation. This dataset includes recently completed once-off homes, multi-unit scheme developments and apartments as well as some re-connections to the grid, where properties that have been unoccupied for over two years are being brought back into use.
ESB data is collected at a point in time when the home is connected to the grid, rather than being related to the period of its construction. My Department has regularly drawn attention to this fact in the context of the recent economic and construction collapse where many homes which were commenced a number of years ago but remained unfinished for several years have gradually been finished out and brought to the market place as recovery took hold. Indeed, for a number of years my Department has published the results of annual surveys undertaken in relation to unfinished housing developments, including details in relation to the progress on completion of such developments.
It is important to note that the ESB figures are by no means the only dataset used to measure housing activity. For example, detailed information on residential construction activity is available from certain local authorities - at the end of 2016, the four Dublin local authorities reported 144 active construction sites, encompassing the construction of some 5,200 new dwellings. This is a really important source of information in terms of informing policies aimed at increasing supply in the Dublin housing market.
The Census of Population and Housing collected and published by the Central Statistics Office, yields a wide range of different statistics, none of which maps precisely to the measures which are disseminated by my Department. Amongst the most important of those measures are the net change to the total housing stock, the net change to the occupied housing stock and the numbers of units occupied which the residents report were constructed since 2011. All measures of stock are subject to additions as well as removals and there is no accepted measure at this time of the level of removals between Census waves, whereas my Department has provided an estimate of the additions to the stock for many years.
My Department is working with colleagues in the Central Statistics Office and across other interested Government Departments and Agencies, along with the continuing assistance of the ESB, to develop methodologies to refine and improve these measures. In this context my Department recently convened the Housing Analytics Group to monitor and review the various sources of housing data collected nationally to provide a comprehensive and coherent suite of statistics relating to housing matters. In collaboration with data owners and stakeholders, the Group will work to refine and improve existing data sources, and identify potential data gaps and new data sources, with a view to ensuring that public policy is informed by the best possible housing data. The first meeting of the Housing Analytics Group took place on 3 May.
In addition, the Central Statistics Office, which is the State’s authoritative voice in relation to the provision of high quality and independent statistical information supporting evidence-based decision-making, established an independent group in January 2017, chaired by an Assistant Director General, to examine housing statistics and my Department is a member of that group. This group is considering the best analytical approaches to reconciling and combining datasets in this area and will have oversight of, and a direct involvement in, the examination of any output arising from the variety of analyses currently underway.
