Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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40. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the reason for the disparity between his Department's official figure of 15,951 housing completions during the past census period with the findings of the CSO that during the same period the housing stock increased by just 8,800; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25022/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Census of Population and Housing collected and published by the Central Statistics Office produces a wide range of different housing statistics, none of which maps precisely to the measurements which are disseminated by my Department. Amongst the most important of those measures are the net change to the total housing stock, the net change to the occupied housing stock and the numbers of units occupied which the residents report were constructed since 2011. All measures of stock are subject to additions as well as removals and there is no accepted measure at this time of the level of removals between Census waves, whereas my Department has provided an estimate of the additions to the stock for many years. In relation to the net increase in the total housing stock it should be noted that this increase represents a net gain over the period and so will exclude dwellings which will have fallen out of the housing stock through dereliction and depreciation.

In regards to the 33,436 properties declared by Census respondents as having been constructed since 2011, it should be noted that 114,122 respondents did not provide any response to this question. Furthermore in respect of the 57,246 vacant properties where a reason for vacancy was collected by enumerators, some 2,180 were recorded as being new build.

My Department is working with colleagues in the Central Statistics Office and across other interested Government Departments and Agencies, along with the continuing assistance of the ESB, to develop methodologies to refine and improve the measurements of housing related activity. In this context my Department recently convened a Housing Analytics Group to monitor and review the various sources of housing data collected nationally to provide a comprehensive and coherent suite of statistics relating to housing matters. In collaboration with data owners and stakeholders, the Group will work to refine and improve existing data sources, and identify potential data gaps and new data sources, with a view to ensuring that public policy continues to be informed by the best possible housing data.

In addition, the Central Statistics Office, which is the State’s authoritative voice in relation to the provision of high quality and independent statistical information supporting evidence-based decision-making, established an independent group in January 2017, chaired by an Assistant Director General, to examine housing statistics and my Department is a member of that group. This group is considering the best analytical approaches to reconciling and combining datasets in this area and will have oversight of, and a direct involvement in, the examination of any output arising from the variety of analyses currently underway.