CSO Statistical Liaison Group on Housing
Wednesday 11th December 2019
Central Statistics Office Portobello Suite, Ardee Road, Dublin
Attendees:
Barra Casey (CSO)
Cormac Halpin (CSO)Justin Anderson (CSO)
Kieran Culhane (CSO)
Paul Morrin (CSO)
Sean O’Connor (CSO)
Alexander Wilson (Goodbody)
Colm Farrell (DPER)
Daithi Downey (Dublin City Council)
Eimear Fallon (TUD)
George Hussey (DHPLG)
Gerald Kennedy (Central Bank)
John Fitzgerald (TCD)
John McCartney (Savills)
Karl Deeter (Irish Mortgage Brokers)
Keith Kelly (Dept. Taoiseach)
Laura Flannelly (DHPLG)
Matthew Allen Coghlan (ESRI)
Nigel Clarke (Dept. Taoiseach)
Owen Joyce (Department of Finance)
Ronan Lyons (TCD)
Roslyn Molloy (Housing Agency)
Agenda:
Item 1: Welcome and Introduction – Paul Morrin, CSO
- Welcome to everyone and explanation for length of time since last meeting
- Reminder that this meeting comes under the transparency code and group Terms of Reference
Item 2: New policy relevant housing projects in the CSO – Kieran Culhane & Justin Anderson, CSO
- Presentation of concept and some findings from recent ‘Distance to everyday services in Ireland’ report
- Detailed availability of county dashboards and ED level report being published on GeoHive next week
- Presentation of some findings from recent ‘Geographical Profiles of Income in Ireland’ report, availability of further detail in Statbank was highlighted.
- Exploration of social housing research particularly referencing HAP in light of data recently received in relation to this
- Some examples of initial analysis from linking HAP data to administrative and other (including census) data was shown
Questions/comments:
- Examination of rent amounts (from RTB) could be useful in geographical profiles analysis
- Cost of commuting would be a further interesting additional element to income analysis
- There was interest in analysis with HAP shown against RTB rents and property prices to understand the market impact of HAP
- Longitudinal analysis of HAP clients was also discussed as being a particularly interesting piece of analysis
- Gaps in available social housing exist such as RAS and housing list, these are being progressed with the dept. and Housing Agency
Item3: Project on land price statistics for residential development - Barra Casey, CSO
- Update on work that has been undertaken to examine possibility of the CSO providing statistics on residential land prices
- Research is ongoing and would require further input from data owners and potentially academia to continue to progress
- At this stage there are a number of challenging aspects to the project including data matching, low volumes of market transactions and quality concerns with some data sets
Questions/comments:
- Consensus that producing land prices statistics would be very difficult. However, potentially land values could be easier (although land values and land prices are very different).
- With low number of land price data some further analysis could be done manually
Item 4: Doing more with less – Providing insights into the Irish housing market – Sean O’Connor, CSO
- Detail of recent research that has been undertaken to examine characteristics of house buyers from linking a variety of administrative sources
- There is potential for further analysis to be undertaken if there is the resource to do so
Questions/comments:
- Examining characteristics specifically of those buying houses without a mortgage would be useful for further analysis
- Exploration of what happens to a property after it is bought would also be welcome
Item 5: Statistical developments in DHPLG - George Hussey, DHPLG
- Update on plans to move towards a data strategy
- Detail of expansion of statistical team (including GIS staff being moved into team)
- Working on issue of Eircode assignments for new dwellings at an earlier date and putting Eircodes on current datasets
- Developing housing need assessment tool for LAs
Questions/comments:
- Discussion on departments LA new build statistics
