CSO Housing Statistical Working Group
Wednesday 12th June 2024
Oak Suite, Ardee Road, Rathmines, Dublin and Online (via MS Teams)
Attendees:
Chair: Paul Morrin, CSO
Cormac Halpin, CSO
Steven Conroy, CSO
Shane O’Sullivan, CSO
Martin Tully, Dept of Housing
Justin Anderson, Dept of Housing / CSO
Patrick Malone, Dept of Taoiseach
Eoin O’Mahoney, Dept of Taoiseach
Yvonne Hayden, Revenue
Rob Kitchin, Maynooth University
Orla Hegarty, UCD
Patrick O’Brien, Department of Finance
Shane Burke, Housing Agency
Donal Lynch, DPENPR
Orlagh Lavelle, DPENPR
Gerard Kennedy, Central Bank
Patrick O’Brien, DFIN
Bernie O’Donoghue Hynes, LGMA
Holly Morrin, LGMA
Kevin Hunt, CSO
Niall Corkery, CSO
Tara Kerins, LGMA
Brian Gallwey, RTB
Anne Marie Griffin, Dept of Housing
Eoin Corrigan, Dept of Housing
Neal Higgins, Dept of Housing
Margaret Geraghty, LGMA
Claire McManus, RIAI
Cian O’Callaghan, TCD
Kieran McQuinn, ESRI
Colm Farrell, PER
Conor Duffy, PER
Brendan Murphy, CSO
Eileen Hearne, Dept of Taoiseach
Conor Duffy, PER
Eoghan Mccarthy, AIRO
Justin Gleeson, AIRO
Tom Gillespie, University of Galway
Lorcan Sirr, TUD
Item 1: Welcome and Introduction – Paul Morrin, CSO
- Welcomed everyone to the meeting
Item 2: Overview of new Housing Division - Cormac Halpin, CSO
- Presentation on the establishment of the new CSO Housing Division.
- He outlined short term priorities, engagement and longer-term objectives for the Housing Division.
- Short term priorities included New Dwelling Completions, Planning Permissions, the creation of a CSO Housing Hub, the establishment of a regular vacancy indicator.
- Engagement: Cormac outlined his intentions to meet with key external stakeholders, create awareness, requirements gathering, co-ordination and coherence, data stewardship and the new housing division as a single point of contact.
- Longer term objectives identified were:
- BCMS & Local Authority data,
- HAP, LPT, RTB, CCR development and publications,
- SEAI & BER linkage and publications
- RPPI linkage
- Affordability Index (Rent, mortgages and income)
- Earnings in building and construction (PMOD, LFS, Solas)
- Cost of construction index (WPI, SCSI)
Item 3: Housing Statistics in the CSO – Steven Conroy, CSO
- Presentation on the current housing statistics published in the CSO.
- This included the New Dwelling Completions Quarterly Publication, a recent report which investigated the discrepancy between RTB private rental tenancy figures and Census 2022 housing figures on private landlords, Housing Assistance Payments reports, Vacant Dwelling Indicators based on metered electricity reports, analysis of the BCMS dataset.
- Steven also outlined the upcoming statistical releases from the CSO release calendar which relate to housing data in 2024.
Item 4: Production in Building and Construction Index, Shane O’Sullivan, CSO
- Presentation on the statistical series ‘Production in Building and Construction Index’.
- Shane discussed the methodology and the Q1 2024 release – provisional results.
Item 5: Data Projects in Department of Housing – Martin Tully, Department of Housing
- Martin gave a verbal update on on-going data projects in the Department of Housing.
- He mentioned the work going on in relation to the metadata registry.
Item 6: Actions to be taken
The below are a list of discussions, suggestions and actions to be taken after this CSO Housing Statistical Working Group meeting. There was interest from the wider group in engagement with the new Housing division in the CSO.
- Shane Burke (Housing Agency) suggested carrying out an audit of existing housing data. This will identify current state of play in housing statistics.
- There was interest in investigating linking BCMS to planning permissions data from the Housing for All (HFA) sub-group.
- Claire McManus (Royal Architects of Ireland) showed interest in setting up a meeting with the Housing Division to talk about data, particularly from the climate action perspective.
- Eoin Corrigan (Department of Housing) showed interest in meeting the housing division about the affordability index, at risk of poverty measures and housing affordability.
- It was suggested that the Housing division get in contact with Daithi Downey in NESC to chat about his work on publicly supported rented housing.
- Orla Hegarty (UCD) outlined concerns around measuring under occupancy and RPPI measuring off market housing, comparing RPPI with BPFI data, builders cost index.
- Rob Kitchin (Maynooth University) was interested in CSO producing housing statistics at lower levels of geography, more granular data.
- Margaret Geraghty (LGMA) interested in talking to the housing division about social/affordable housing programmes and housing deliveries across local authorities.
- Housing division meeting with Justin Anderson and Robert Ovington this week to talk about the vacant dwelling indicators based on metered consumption data and the vacant home’s unit in the Department of Housing.
- Annette Hughes (EY) suggested to set up a meeting to chat about geo directory data and the geo view reports.
- The Planning Regulator was interested in setting up a meeting with the new housing division.
