Department used housingfiguresit knew were wrong
THE Department of Housing was still using faulty figures for new housing completions months after officials were briefed that the data was ‘misleading’.
Former Housing Minister Simon Coveney used the numbers to answer written questions in the Dáil as late as May when he said 15,000 new homes were provided last year – basing the assertion on the number of new ESB connections. However, that data has been disputed by housing experts, some of whom have said the real figure was probably only a third of that.
Internal emails also reveal Government officials were aware that using the ESB data was problematic and that they simply were not able to reliably estimate new home figures using available methods.
Accurate figures are important to the Government so it can track how much building is going on while trying to tackle the housing crisis. Rebuilding Ireland – Fine Gael’s action plan to increase home building – is based on the higher figures for house completions. Notes of a meeting held in February showed how counting ESB connections could not be trusted. The meeting – attended by officials from the CSO, a senior civil servant in the Department of Housing and representatives from another public body – was called to discuss ‘housing data’. The notes explained: ‘While ESB provide a monthly report on the number of “connections”, the use of this figure as a proxy for completions can be somewhat misleading outside of a normal healthy housing market. Connections to the grid do not necessarily mean a building is occupied.’ In a statement, the Department said: ‘It is important to note that the ESB figures are [not] the only dataset we use.’