The Government has ordered a top-level investigation into how the Central Statistics Office underestimated the number of planning permissions granted for new houses in Dublin and the mid-east regions by 300 per cent.
While Government officials admitted yesterday that the discrepancy was serious in relation to economic planning, they said a "re-look" at the housing plan announced last week would not be required.
It emerged in the Dail that the CSO underestimated by 12,000 the number of permits for new houses in Dublin and the mid-east of the State over the last 16 months. While the CSO said the number of permissions was 6,000, the real figure was 18,000.
A meeting between the CSO, the Department of the Environment and An Bord Pleanala has been called for Friday. The Government Chief Whip, Mr Seamus Brennan, said in the Dail yesterday that he took a "very serious view" of the matter and had met the director of the CSO and officials to discuss the issue.
Mr Brennan said one view was that An Bord Pleanala and or the local authorities had understated the information they supplied over a long period to the CSO. "But no doubt officials in these bodies would dispute that. I hope the meeting on Friday will clarify precisely how the understatement was brought about."
A spokesman for the CSO said its statistics were compiled from returns made by the local authorities and An Bord Pleanala, and the accuracy of their figures was dependent on information furnished to its office.
Mr Brennan said it was believed the discrepancy occurred systematically over a long period. "If that is the case I take an even more serious view of it. Unless I am misreading the information it appears to go back many years, which would mean that this discrepancy is all the more worrying."
However, he said that while the CSO figures were an important measure of construction activity, they were not the only one. The Department of the Environment publishes housing statistics and the ESB regularly publishes the number of new connections.
"What appears to have happened over quite a period, which is cause for concern, is that the various checks and balances in the system between the CSO and the Department of the Environment have broken down, perhaps over quite a long time, I am sorry to say," he said.
The Labour Party deputy leader, Mr Brendan Howlin, described the inaccuracy as "scandalous". He said considering that residential accommodation and housing were probably the most crucial political issue at the moment, statistics of this type were crucial if accurate and proper planning of housing needs was to be undertaken by the Government .
A spokesman for An Bord Pleanala said a check in the Department showed that all the relevant information about house planning permissions had been passed on to the CSO. "However, if there are suggestions as to how our system should change, we will listen to that," he said.