Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The first point I want to make was made to me by Mel Reynolds. I always give credit where it is due. This is a pretty serious matter. There is a very significant discrepancy in the local authority output figures in 2017 between what the Minister is claiming and what is in the National Oversight and Audit Commission, NOAC, report published in September 2018. This exposes a spin that is going on about output figures. According to the Minister's housing delivery for 2017, the total number of houses added to the local authority stock was 4,269 but, according to NOAC, the figure is 2,019, which is more than 50% less new local authority stock than what the Minister is claiming. The NOAC report sets out the total local authority housing stock at the beginning of, and at the end of, 2017 and one can subtract one figure from the other. How does the Minister explain this discrepancy? It is a very significant discrepancy and it has very big implications for all the Minister's targets not only for 2017 but for every year out to 2021. If the point is valid, there are some serious questions to be answered.

What seems to be at the bottom of the discrepancy, essentially, is the miscounting or double counting of sales of local authority housing, demolitions and, critically, voids. I raised this point with Brendan Kenny and he more or less acknowledged it. A void implies something that has been lying empty for ages, work is done on it and finally it is brought back into use. That is fine if it is a genuine void, but if a void is just a casual turnover, there is a big difference. I put it to the Minister that those casual turnovers are being counted in his claims for output as new local authority housing stock when they are not that. If we note the Dublin City Council targets that Brendan Kenny showed us, there are 1,000 voids roughly every year for most of the duration of the Rebuilding Ireland plan. That is preposterous because that would suggest, if we read it at face value, that there are 4,000 or 5,000 voids in the hands of Dublin City Council, but of course there are not. We noticed there are some but not that many. What we are counting are casual turnovers or vacancies. I would like that point addressed. If the additional local authority housing stock is half of what is being claimed, that needs to be admitted honestly.