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Today’s Irish Independent

Bazza writes:

The Department of Housing has been counting the numbers of houses based on connections to ESB networks.

I’m no electrician but I would expect a lot more than the 30,000 phantom houses that have been reported. This practice has been in place since 1970 so are any of our housing statistics correct?

Anyone?

A third of homes ‘built’ since 2011 don’t exist (irish Examiner)

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11 thoughts on “Ask A Broadsheet Reader

  1. John f

    There are Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

    It’s amazing that nobody has questioned how the number of houses was calculated before now. Like the piece says the practice has been in place since the 70s. In fairness or officialdom has previous form for using bogus statistics back up their talking points. For example, our massive growth in GDP last year, using job bridge to massage unemployment numbers et cetera.

    1. Cian

      ‘official’ Ireland, the CSO and the central bank have been pushing the GNI* in lieu of GDP for the last few years because they are aware of how misleading GDP is for our open economy.

      As for job bridge – there were never more than 7,000 people on it in any year – and the number ‘unemployment’ is anywhere between 340,000 and 540,000 – it is a tiny percentage.

  2. Cian

    If you use the same measure for 40 years – while it may not be counting what some people think (it has always been clear that they were using ESB connections) – at least it is consistent: you can make year-on-year comparisons.

    Secondly, one difficulty with counting “builds” is how should you decide when a house is actually ‘built’?
    is it when the foundations dug? the roof going on? windows in? ESB connected? when it is sold? when someone moves in? The problem is that *all* of these have different problems with accuracy.
    AFAIK the ESB connection is as good as any measure – and – the last time I looked the ESB also include the house type (so you *can* exclude cow sheds) and if it is a reconnection (someone extends their house and moves the ESB box) or not.

    The bottom line is that if a house was started in 2007 – but never actually finished (ghost estate) if that house is given a refurbish, connected to ESB, and is available in 2017 – then it *should* be included in “new 2017 builds”.

    1. Cathal

      But were cow sheds included on purpose? Huge number of sheds built from 98-08. Are they in the previous numbers or has this just started when exaggerated figures where required to make it look like they were working when in reality they were scratching their holes and claiming expenses for it.

    2. D

      ESB is not as good as any because when you close an ESB account, a reconnection counts on this measure. This is why the number is 33% higher, any of the other metrics you list would be ~33% lower.

      I really tire of your ‘nothing to see here’ attitude, this conservatism has a lot to answer for in Ireland.

  3. realPolithicks

    I heard eoghan murphy on the radio this morning, he is a classic example of Orwell’s doublespeak. He speaks a lot, frequently trying to speak over the interviewer but never actually says anything. He really does come across as someone who is way out of his depth.

    1. gringo

      If a house, or a one bedroom flat, has been disconnected for more than 6 months,it gets a new MRPN number before reconnection. This is then counted as a new connection.

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