Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy knows the CSO itself was strong in its defence of its figures and methodology, which have never been brought into question before. It is our independent statistics office we depend on for the collation of such data. I do not think anyone has ever called the office's expertise, knowledge or know-how into question before. The Deputy has raised a point on completion certificates versus connections. We have always based our returns on the CSO data and I have absolute confidence in those data. Committee members travel the country. They will have seen the momentum in house building at the moment. When we see the social housing delivery figures, they will feed very much into our overall completions as well. The CSO figures are the correct figures. I am not saying the Deputy is doing so but for us to start questioning those figures or the veracity of them is not something I would support.