Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 17 April 2018
1511. Deputy John Lahart asked the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government his views on the accuracy of figures for vacant housing in view of the fact that the CSO refused to publish Garda figures for homicide on the grounds of debatable accuracy. [15058/18]
View answerThe Central Statistics Office is the principal statutory compiler and publisher of official statistics in Ireland, and the 5-yearly Census is a detailed account which records and classifies, inter alia, all households and dwelling types throughout the country on a particular night. The vacancy figures recorded in the Census are the result of the application of consistent, transparent and well tested methodologies and definitions across the entire country by a dedicated field-force of over 5,000 staff members who receive detailed training and whose work is closely managed and subject to ongoing structured quality assurance.
I note that the results of Census 2016 show that vacancy levels in urban areas have decreased compared with the previous Census, while in rural areas vacancy remains high. The data provided by the Census is a valuable starting point for the work of my Department but as it includes short-term vacancy (e.g. property for sale or between tenancies on the night of the Census) and complex vacancy issues (e.g. probate), it is important to build on that data to derive the more targeted data that local authorities need in order to tackle vacancy effectively.
My Department is working with the CSO, the Housing Agency and the local government sector to identify the subset of the headline vacancy figures provided by the Census that are houses capable of being brought back into use quickly in areas of high housing need. The key focus is to enable local authorities to quickly identify any vacancy hotspots in their areas so existing empty housing stock can be re-used and provide much needed homes.
The expertise of the CSO, combined with the on-the-ground knowledge of local authorities, is important to inform our actions in this regard.
