Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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238. To ask the Minister for Finance the estimated impact on the public finances, including fiscal space, of the approved housing bodies sector being included on balance sheet; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1689/18]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The decision to reclassify a number of tier 3 approved housing bodies (AHBs) was made by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) at the end of December 2017. This decision has been sent to Eurostat.

At this stage the impact on the government debt and expenditure are unknown. The CSO are currently engaged in collecting the required data to compile the end-March 2018 Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) notification tables (also known as the Maastricht returns) covering general government deficit and debt. At the same time the Department of Finance is also preparing the Stability Programme Update 2018. This will take full account of the figures published by the CSO as part of the government finance statistics release.

The impact on public finances and fiscal space will depend on the outcome of deliberations between Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government regarding delivery of social housing units by AHBs following the reclassification decision by the CSO.