Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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1361. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government his views on whether there is a risk that the finances of approved housing bodies could become classified under the general Government heading in statistical accounting due to their role in the social housing PPP programme; and if his attention has been drawn to the fact that EUROSTAT has requested the CSO to examine the impact of this programme on the classification of AHBs vis-à-vis the market/non-market test. [47127/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Central Statistics Office (CSO) is responsible under EU law for the reporting of Government finance statistics, including deficit and debt. This includes classifying organisations and transactions according to the legislation underpinning the compilation of national accounts in the European Union through the ‘European System of Accounts’ (ESA 2010). These legally binding rules lay down criteria to establish whether individual entities should be included as part of the General Government sector, to consider whether they are ‘on-balance sheet’ or ‘off-balance sheet’ for Government accounting purposes.

Eurostat has requested the CSO to review the classification of the AHBs in Ireland, which are currently classified as ‘non-profit institutions serving households’ under ‘Sector 15’ of ESA 2010, and therefore outside of the General Government sector.

The CSO had previously reviewed the AHB sector classification in 2014 and concluded that these entities should remain classified to Sector 15 under ESA 2010.  It was indicated at that time that should expected new developments in relation to social housing materialise, the status of these bodies under any revised relationship with the housing authorities (local authorities) or any other government body would be reviewed at that point.  In October 2016 Eurostat requested the CSO to review the classification of AHBs, expressing the view that the role of government financing should be given greater weight in the classification decision than had been the case at the time of the 2014 review.  The possible participation of AHBs in the Social Housing PPP Programme has not been cited as a specific reason for the review.

It is understood that the methodological approach being undertaken by the CSO in the review is to examine the classification of AHBs on a tier-by-tier and on an AHB by AHB basis.  The initial focus is on the 16 larger AHBs categorised as ‘Tier 3’ under the voluntary regulatory code in operation for the sector, which is overseen by the interim regulator’s office based in the Housing Agency.

While being mindful of the independence of the CSO and Eurostat my Department has made a number of detailed submissions and is in on-going dialogue with CSO on the matter.