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Housing Data

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 19 June 2018

Tuesday, 19 June 2018

Ceisteanna (588)

Eoin Ó Broin

Ceist:

588. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government the status of the work of the data working group and its plans to produce an agreed methodology for counting new home construction. [26528/18]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí scríofa

The Housing Data Analytics Group was set up in May 2017 to investigate the need for improvements to data across the area of all pillars of the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan on Housing and Homelessness. To date its efforts have been focussed on Pillars 3 and 5 of Rebuilding Ireland, “Build more homes” and “Utilise existing housing stock”. A key consideration for the group is the provision of timely and detailed data to assess the numbers of new homes becoming available to meet housing demand.

In parallel to the work of the group, my Department initiated a process of discussions with the ESB and the Central Statistics Office to identify if the CSO could provide a more detailed disaggregation of the ESB data set. The Central Statistics Office has particular powers arising from the Statistics Acts and also has a wide breadth of other data sets at its disposal, including but not limited to the results of Census. The CSO can combine data from these various sources to create a new and much more detailed dataset for analysis and reporting.

Arising from this process the Central Statistics Office published a new measure of New Dwelling Completions on June 14th and I welcome the additional clarity that this has brought to this issue and the evidence it provides that Rebuilding Ireland is working to significantly increase the numbers of new homes available for use since its introduction.

The Housing Data Analytics Group will be considering the new CSO report at its next meeting and will continue its consideration of other initiatives in respect of housing statistics more generally.

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