From top: Census 2016 figures; Enda Kenny’s former director of communications Ciaran Conlon gives the former Fine Gael leader and taoiseach a helping hand at a photocall
Before Christmas, Ciaran Conlon, a former spin doctor of Enda Kenny, wrote in the Irish Independent on why he believes the Public Services Card should be embraced.
Mr Conlon, who is now Director of Strategy and Public Policy with MKC Communications, wrote:
The relevance of both the Public Service Card issue and smart metering is highlighted by my belief that the 2016 Census overstated the number of vacant properties in the State by over 100,000 and, as a result, underestimated the population by up to 200,000.
The numbers are buried a little in the final Census report but they stand out a mile when one considers the state of the property market today.
“The Census suggests that of the 1,931,497 households in the State, there are 183,312 vacant properties, indicating that roughly one in 10 properties were vacant.
“At a time of double-digit growth in prices and rents, it just doesn’t seem logical that property owners would leave their valuable assets sitting idle.
By contrast, in the rental market, according to Census and Daft.ie figures, the vacancy rate is just over one property in 100, or 3,637 properties for rent out of total of 326,493 privately rented households in the State.
“I don’t believe there are 180,000 empty properties in the State and thankfully Minister Eoghan Murphy didn’t either. Before the Budget he told media that, on closer examination by the CSO, there were actually just 20,000 vacant properties or a vacancy rate similar to the 1pc figure in the rental market. Now that seems much more realistic.”
“This intervention by Mr Murphy helped avoid the introduction of a pointless ‘use it or lose it’ property tax, but still leaves behind 100,000 or more properties that have been incorrectly labelled as vacant.”
“If they are not vacant and each property has just two people living in it – the national average is 2.7 – that gives us the 200,000 population understatement I mentioned earlier.”
The claim by Eoghan Murphy concerning vacant properties was made on September 8, 2017.
In response, the CSO released a statement saying:
During the course of the Census 2016 field campaign, which took place over 10 weeks between March and May 2016, over 4,600 enumerators delivered and collected Census data from every house in the country.
As part of this work, they recorded vacant dwellings in their area, using detailed methodology and definitions applied consistently over the past three consecutive Censuses. The CSO is confident that it’s vacant dwelling figures are a robust point-in-time record around the 24th April 2016.
In relation to the recent sample survey work on vacant dwellings conducted by Fingal County Council, the CSO did not provide a list of vacant dwellings to the Council as the CSO only ever disseminates aggregate statistics.
The CSO is in the process of contacting Fingal County Council to seek information on a number of issues, including the methodology and definitions applied by the council in compiling their numbers.
Anyone?
Meanwhile…
Read full article here
Previously: ‘The Numbers That Are Really Vacant Are Actually Much Smaller’
Ciaran Conlon: Enda’s Right-Hand Man (2011)
