Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to start with the home completion figures for last year. As the Minister knows, the CSO data are based on ESB connections and it has a pretty sophisticated methodology to try to clean those figures compared with the previous methodology used by the Department. The issue that has arisen is not about the integrity of the CSO but the difference between ESB connection data and completion certificate data through the building control management system, BCMS. The Minister will be aware that, before a residential building can legally occupied, there has to be a completion certificate. My question is reasonable and one the Minister needs to consider and respond to. When we look at the completion certificates for last year, there is a 6,000 unit gap between the ESB connections data and the completion certificates. If we look under the bonnet of that to try to find the discrepancy, almost all of it is in the large urban centres and almost all of it is in large residential developments. Thus, two different data sets, which are not necessarily equivalent, are telling us two very different things. Given a building cannot be legally occupied until it has completion certificate, does the Minister not think it at least merits asking the question about the discrepancy between the ESB connection methodology the CSO uses legitimately and which I do not question, and another set of Government data, namely, the completion certificates through the BCMS? That is a big gap and the question is worth answering in order that we are absolutely sure which set of figures is the most accurate.