Mr. Pádraig Dalton:

I thank the Chairman and committee members for inviting representatives of the CSO to appear before them.

On 20 April 2017 the Central Statistics Office, CSO, published a census 2016 thematic report on housing in Ireland. It was the first of a series of 13 reports due to be published in the following eight months. It forms not only an important component of the census results but also acts as an important addition to the full suite of statistics the CSO produces for housing, including the monthly residential property price index and the quarterly series on planning permissions.

The publication of the census housing report was brought forward by four and a half months, compared to the equivalent release for census 2011, in recognition of the demand for statistics in this critical area. The census results on housing attracted a lot of attention, not only across the user spectrum but also among the general public and the media. The headline figures showed that Ireland’s housing stock had increased by 8,800 units between 2011 and 2016, a rise of just 0.4%, while at the same time showing that some 33,000 householders or occupied dwellings had indicated that their home had been built in the previous five years. It should be noted that this increase in stock represents a net gain over the period. Accordingly, it will exclude dwellings which have fallen out of the housing stock through dereliction and depreciation.

The number of occupied private households grew by 2.9% or 48,000, exceeding the growth in the housing stock. This growth in households contributed to the decline in the number of vacant dwellings which fell by 47,000. The overall population increased by 3.8% which entailed that, on average, there were more people in each occupied household, up from 2.73 to 2.75. This marked the first increase in household size since 1966.

There were 245,460 vacant dwellings, of which 62,148 were categorised as holiday homes. The vacancy rate, the percentage of the housing stock which was vacant, was 12.3%. The equivalent rate in 2011 was 14.5%.

The report also included data for rents and how they had changed over the five years, with the overall State figure up by 16.8% and in Dublin by 29%. The data also showed that home ownership rates had fallen back to below 1971 levels and stood at 67.6%.

The report included a new analysis of a breakdown of vacant dwellings by type of dwelling into detached, semi-detached, etc, and information on the distance to the nearest settlement. There was also a new analysis of age by tenure and the status of dwellings vacant five years ago, examining whether they were still vacant in 2016.

The methodology used to collect the 2016 census data was the same as that used for previous censuses. The purpose of the census is to count all persons and habitable dwellings in the country on census night. The 2016 census took place on 24 April and every person and householder was obliged under statute to participate. Some 4,660 enumerators were recruited to deliver and collect census forms, supported by 480 local and area supervisors. Enumerators were provided with address lists of every known dwelling in their area, typically about 450 addresses which had been extracted from the Geodirectory. They were responsible not only for enumerating all occupied dwellings but also for identifying new dwellings not on their list, as well as accounting for and categorising all unoccupied dwellings. The categories used were: temporarily absent, vacant, holiday home, derelict, under construction, commercial only, or does not exist. The housing stock was ultimately deemed to be all dwellings categorised as occupied, temporarily absent, vacant or holiday home, with derelict, commercial, under construction and does not exist removed from the count.

In preparation for the housing publication and in the light of the increasing demand for data for housing, the CSO engaged with the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government and the Housing Agency on providing a new analysis of the reasons dwellings might be vacant. This resulted in a special exercise whereby information from the notes in the enumerator record books was captured and categorised. Data for 57,246 of the 183,312 habitable vacant dwellings were captured. The notes were blank for the remainder. Of these, 10,948 were categorised as being for sale and 10,350 for rent, with other categories being owner deceased, under renovation and in a nursing home.

The CSO, following further engagement with the Housing Agency, is also bringing forward the release of small area data for housing stock and vacant dwellings. Data will be provided for some 18,300 small areas and released tomorrow, 11 May, in conjunction with the second of our thematic reports entitled, Population Distribution and Movement. Throughout 2017 the CSO will publish a further ten reports, many of which will provide further information on housing, households and tenure for different age cohorts of the population such as primary and secondary school students, non-Irish nationals, the disabled, Travellers and the unemployed. Detailed small area statistics will be published in July in an interactive mapping tool and as a download. It is also planned to reproduce the area profiles which provide a two-page demographic and socio-economic summary for counties, towns and constituencies. They are due out in early November. The CSO provides for ad hocqueries about census data on an ongoing basis.

In September 2016 the CSO launched a new residential property price index, RPPI, which has been acknowledged as a significant methodological improvement on the original index and comprises individual regional and Dublin administrative area indices, with new indicators for volume, value and average prices. Using our house price by Eircode interactive tool, the public can now readily access average house prices by Eircode area.

The CSO also compiles quarterly statistics on planning permissions. These are compiled from data provided by local authorities and An Bord Pleanála and provide a short-term indicator of potential future construction of houses and apartments.

The CSO and the Department recognise the importance and urgency of producing robust housing statistics for decision and policy-making purposes. In light of this, a housing analytics group was established by the Department in early May with active CSO participation. Part of the remit of the group is to explore how best to expand and improve the data on all aspects of housing in Ireland. The CSO is committed to working closely with all our users, including the Department, to address the challenges around the production of quality housing statistics. This commitment includes progressing the secondment of professional statisticians from the CSO to the Department.