Mr. Niall Cussen:

To respond to Senator Landy, the taking-in-charge process has certainly not been characterised by speed. There is a significant backlog of housing developments throughout the country which remain to be taken in charge. This is a result of the boom years. Local property tax and other considerations have been game-changers in the context of local communities' expectations regarding the quality of the service they receive in terms of ensuring that developments are ultimately taken in charge and maintained by local authorities. Under circulars we issued in the past, local authorities are required to maintain registers of their developments and to report on progress regarding the taking-in-charge process. The Office for Local Authority Management publishes local authority service indicators every year and these highlight the progress being made in respect of the taking-in-charge process. Considering the level of activity in this area and in view of the work being done by unfinished housing development co-ordinators in local authorities, we expect to see a significant increase in the number of estates being taken in charge by the authorities. One local authority recently highlighted the likelihood, quite literally, of hundreds of developments being taken in charge under an accelerated process into the future.

While the Department does not maintain a register of the thousands of estates involved and their locations - that would be a very complex administrative task in its own right - individual local authorities, through their taking-in-charge teams and unfinished housing development co-ordinators, maintain good information in this regard. Details of that can be found on the housing agencies' websites. The Senator also inquired about bonds, etc. A huge amount of information is also publicly available in that regard. I wish to bring to the attention of Oireachtas Members or members of the public who have queries in respect of this matter the fact that every local authority in the land has an unfinished housing development co-ordinator. Details relating to this are available on the websites of the Department, the housing agencies' websites and local authorities. People should make contact and obtain the information they require, which, as already stated, is available. We maintain an overview in respect of the general progress made on a year-to-year basis and we publish it as part of the report on unfinished housing developments, the most recent version of which was published just before Christmas. Again, that report is available on the Department's website.