Northern Ireland's Finance Minister is disappointed by a marked fall in construction sector output, but said a further decline was offset by public sector investment.

Responding to the latest NI Construction Bulletin, Sammy Wilson said a 2.5% drop from the previous quarter's reading could be attributed to the fall in new private housing, and investment in the commercial sector.

"However, it is encouraging to see that this has been partially offset by increases in new public sector housing and other new public sector works and infrastructure spend."

Net capital investment by Stormont departments increased to £1.5bn in 2008-09, Mr Wilson said.

"Capital spend in the Department for Social Development for example was £228m last year, an increase of 88.8% from 2004-2005.

"This has helped ensure that this is the third quarter in a row that new public sector housing has shown an increase."

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The bulletin confirmed further job losses in the building industry.

Mr Wilson said had it not been for the "continued increase in public sector investment", the difficulties experienced by the industry would have been "much worse and job losses would have been even higher".

"The Executive will continue to do its utmost for the sector and the future of the local economy."

The primary measure of the value of construction output in Northern Ireland is obtained from the Northern Ireland Quarterly Construction Enquiry (QCE).

This is a statutory survey of construction firms operating in Northern Ireland.

Each quarter, a sample of construction firms is asked to provide details of the value of construction activity they have undertaken within NI in a specified period.

The Index uses 2005 as the base year, making it equal to 100.

The provisional seasonally adjusted Index of Construction for the period 1 April to 30 June 2009 was 96.2, down 2.5 points on the previous quarter (98.7), and down 6.2 points on the corresponding quarter in 2008 (102.4).

The estimated seasonally adjusted value of construction output, at 2005 prices, was £706million, a decrease of 2.5% (£18million) on the previous quarter (£724million) and a decrease of 6.0% (£45million) on the corresponding quarter in 2008 (£751million).

Results are provisional and subject to revision, as fuller information becomes available from subsequent returns in future quarters.

The publication dates of future QCE releases have been brought forward by two weeks, which the statistics office said will improve the "harmonisation" of QCE publication dates with those of other economic indices.

(PR/KMcA)