Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the work done by the three Ministers and their officials on all of these issues we are discussing.

In terms of the housing completion data, there is no question whatsoever about the credibility, integrity and professionalism of the CSO. It is of interest to me that in its recent statement the CSO pointed to the difference possibly being that one-off homes were not being counted. Since then, it has established that most of the difference here has occurred in Dublin with 3,500 homes. In the Dublin City Council and Dún Laoghaire areas there are virtually no one-off homes, so we can be confident that is not the issue there.

It is not unusual for methodologies to be updated, refined and examined over time. The CSO data being based on new ESB connections already happened a few years ago. It could be the case that it needs to be changed again, but that would be following an examination. No methodology is infallible as such and anyone involved in data will tell us that.

Does the Minister with responsibility for housing not feel it is worth getting to the bottom of it to try and understand what the difference is about, given the gap of 6,000 between the CSO data based on new ESB connections and the data from the building control management system, so that we can be sure about the data on new home completions?