The Building and Construction Inquiry (BCI) introduced in 2009 for reference year 2008 onwards, replaces the Census of Building and Construction (CBC). The CBC was intended to cover firms in the private (i.e non-State) sector with 20 or more persons engaged whose main activity is building, construction or civil engineering i.e firms classified to Section F of NACE Rev.2 of the NACE Industrial Classification of Economic Activity in the European Communities (NACE Rev. 2). In addition to covering private firms with 10 or more persons engaged, the BCI also covers a sample of private firms with less than 10 persons engaged.
The NACE Industrial Classification of Economic Activities developed in the European Community has been revised. All Firms classified according to NACE Rev. 2. Prior to 2008, CBC results were classified according to NACE Rev. 1.1. For further information on the NACE Rev. 2 classification of industrial activity visit the CSO website: Classification of Industrial Activity.
The Census of Building and Construction first appeared as a separate census in 1966. Prior to that, data on the building and construction sector was collected and published in the Irish Statistical Bulletin/ Irish Trade Journal as part of the Census of Industrial Production (first inclusion in the 1926 Census). It was first published as a separate release document in 1981. Data since 1981 is available electronically on our website www.cso.ie via CSO Statistical Databases/Statbank.
Nace 41.1 Development of building projects
Nace 41.2 Construction of residential and non-residential buildings
Nace 42.1 Construction of roads and railways
Nace 42.2 Construction of utility projects
Nace 42.9 Construction of other civil engineering projects
Nace 43.1 Demolition and site preparation
Nace 43.2 Electrical, plumbing and other construction installation activities
Nace 43.3 Building completion and finishing
Nace 43.9 Other specialised construction activities
Employees are persons who are paid a fixed wage or salary. Persons at work or temporarily absent because of illness, holidays, strike etc. are included. Persons working on a labour-only subcontract basis are excluded.
Manual Employees comprise skilled operatives, apprentices and unskilled operatives.
Other Employees comprise supervisory staff (foremen and supervisors), managerial, technical and clerical (male and female) employees.
Proprietors and family members, included here are those proprietors, partners etc. and members of their families who work regularly in the firm and are not paid a definite wage or salary.
Wages and salaries is the gross amount paid to employees before deduction of income tax, employees' social security contributions etc. plus payments to labour-only subcontractors. Overtime pay, bonuses, holiday pay and sick pay are included.
Acquisitions and sales of capital assets where Capital assets are defined as new and second-hand goods with an expected life of more than one year intended for use by the firm itself. Acquisitions include both purchases and construction by the firm itself of capital goods for its own use.
Production value represents the net selling value of work done during the year, whether sold or not. It is valued exclusive of VAT. It incorporates an element of double counting arising from the fact that work done on a subcontract basis by firms in a particular sector for other firms in the same sector is included in the turnover figures provided by both firms. However, in the calculation of Gross Value Added and variable 43 (value of work done by own staff) this double counting is eliminated.
Intermediate consumption represents the value of building materials, fuel, industrial services and other goods and services used in production. The definition of this variable has been changed from that given in the 1981 results (Statistical Bulletin, March 1985) to include payments to subcontractors as part of the cost of industrial services, thereby eliminating double counting from the Gross Value Added figures.
Gross Value Added is the difference between production value and intermediate consumption and represents the value added by the firm. Because work done by subcontractors is treated as part of intermediate consumption, there is no double counting in this variable.
For every non-respondent or non-surveyed enterprise a survey return is created using tax information. The primary financial value the survey uses is profit/loss data with estimates for labour costs added to arrive at a value for GVA. This is derived from the administrative data. Other financial variables normally received from the survey form are estimated using actual survey returns as the data is not available from the administrative data. This is done using ratio estimators. A basic example of the concept would be the ratio of turnover to GVA. If for a particular NACE the ratio of turnover to GVA is 4:1, we would simply multiply the derived administrative GVA by 4 to give us a turnover value.
From reference year 2019 onwards the real-time PAYE Modernisation (PMOD) dataset is used for labour costs, rather than using estimates.
