Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Hopefully the next Minister will address this issue at the earliest possible stage after the census information is made available. I think people will be keen to know whether any changes are to be made. The Minister of State might talk to us briefly about parts of the country where many people stay in hotels but are not residents. Does the presence of many hotels in certain areas affect the population statistics and consequently the number of Dáil seats? I am always looking at Dublin Central, where the population as shown in the census is out of sync with the number of people on the voting register, especially by comparison with other areas. I wonder whether this is because people who are staying in city centre hotels are counted for the purposes of the constituency of Dublin Central even though they really have nothing to do with the constituency. I would like the Minister of State to respond to this interesting issue I have raised.

I will move away from the census to raise a serious question for the CSO. As I have said, the CSO will be brought before an Oireachtas committee in due course to discuss its ongoing work and, specifically, the biggest issue it faces. I was at the Estimates meeting this time last year, when the Taoiseach took the Estimate on behalf of the Minister of State, who could not be there on the day in question. We had a detailed discussion about the role of the CSO in relation to the EUROSTAT tests for Irish Water. I think it was a bad hour for the CSO. I refer to the failure of an application that was made on the basis of information that was submitted by the CSO to EUROSTAT on behalf of the Irish people and the Government. When we are learning about everything else that happens, we must find out why the brains and intelligence of the qualified people in the CSO who made this submission ended up being on the wrong side of EUROSTAT. We will come back to this issue in detail before an Oireachtas committee on Irish Water eventually comes to meet. The Taoiseach wrote to an Oireachtas committee on 28 February 2015 in response to issues that had been raised by members of the committee early last year during a lengthy debate that had taken place in the context of the CSO Estimates. In particular, he responded to some issues I had raised during the meeting. I want to read a paragraph from the letter of 28 February 2015 that was sent by the Taoiseach to Liam Twomey, who was the Chairman of the committee that was dealing with the Estimates at the time.

It states:

In addition, Deputy Fleming queried when EUROSTAT will complete its work. A review of the Irish Water business case for the purposes of the sector classification of Irish Water in the National Accounts is currently being carried out by the Government Finance Statistics (GFS) division of the CSO.

In response to my question about the people carrying out that work, it states:

The work is being undertaken by a team comprising three statisticians (1 accountant and 2 economists) and the senior statistician in the area. The senior statistician and two of the statisticians have received Eurostat training in GFS/Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) methodology which encompasses the classification process.

It also states one of the statisticians provides training on GFS topics with the International Monetary Fund, IMF, and has delivered GFS training courses internationally.

The response continues:

While each classification process has its own particular complexities, the classification of publicly controlled entities for the market/non-market status is a relatively routine occurrence in the compilation of GFS and all members of the team are fully familiar with the criteria for the classification of public bodies.

That was the response of the Taoiseach by letter last year to the select sub-committee. The outcome was a failure. EUROSTAT did not see it the way the Department did. I tried to access further information during the course of last year, including by way of parliamentary question, in response to which I received a direct reply from Mr. Pádraig Dalton, director general of the Central Statistics Office, which stated:

With regard to the sector classification of Irish Water ... When the classification decision is finalised by Eurostat, an account of the process in as much detail as is consistent with statutory requirements for statistical confidentiality will be published.

Essentially, his response to my parliamentary question was that it was a sealed process.

I welcome the ongoing work of the CSO on the census. However, the outcome of the EUROSTAT application was not good. This is an issue the House will have to revisit because we must ensure that when the CSO makes applications on behalf of Ireland, the well trained staff can get the right result.

See this speech in context