Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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To ask the Minister for Finance when the Central Bank of Ireland through the Central Statistics Office propose to begin working on compiling a wealth audit in 2013; the way the CSO will conduct the audit and the assets that will be included. [45930/12]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I have been informed by the Central Bank that the Central Statistics Office, on behalf of the Central Bank, has commenced preliminary work on a Household Finance and Consumption Survey, which will survey a small sample of Irish households (likely to be in the order of 4,000 households). The survey will collect information on household composition, employment, incomes, assets, debts and other financial decisions. Similar surveys are being carried out in all other euro area Member States, as part of an initiative to fill the gap in available statistics related to household balance sheets and financial decision making.

The main aim of the survey, both at national and euro area level, is to compile micro-level data on household finances, which should provide important insights into the economic behavior of households. The Irish survey is being conducted on the basis of a common questionnaire and methodology to be applied across all participating countries to provide information on the situation in the euro area as a whole, while also allowing comparisons to be made across countries. The first results of the survey, which will take some time to carry out, will be available in 2014.