Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 125: To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the progress he has made on the development of a national house price database; and the money that has been spent on this project [37758/11]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The Programme for Government contains a commitment to improve the quality of information available on the Irish housing market by requiring that the selling price of all dwellings be recorded in a publicly available national housing price database.

To give effect to this commitment the Property Services (Regulation) Bill 2009, which provides for establishment of the Property Services Regulatory Authority, was amended at Committee Stage to expand the Authority's statutory functions to include the publication of residential property sales prices. This information will be supplied to the Authority on an ongoing basis by the Revenue Commissioners who are in receipt of it for stamp duty purposes. In anticipation of enactment of the Bill the Implementation Group established to put in place the necessary arrangements for the establishment of the Authority has initiated work for establishment of the housing price database. No expenditure on the project has arisen to-date.

The Bill was passed by the House on 22 November 2011. The amendments made in the House will be considered by the Seanad on 9 December.