I just spoke to them by phone. When I asked where they got thier figures for rent I was told form several sources including estate agents. Estate Agents are, it would seem, thier primary source!!
They do not ask tenents what they are paying as this would proove difficult when tenents move on. They do not do like for like monthly questionaires of tenents, ( eg tenent in 3 bed semi in a particular estate in Dublin and then use the same estate again in the following months).
Maybe this explains the huge gap between what we see on Daftwatch and the CSO figures. It will be too bad if the CSO looses credibility by not reporting the true figures.
This needs to be investigated more fully.