Mr. Dick Brady:

I thank Deputy O'Sullivan. I will start with the voids. Dublin City Council has a void rate of 0.79%, which is extremely low. In a normal operating environment, one would be looking at a range between 3% and 6%. Substantial sums of money have been invested in dealing with voids in the past year or two.

The Deputy referred to regeneration projects that are taking place in the inner city. Part of the regeneration project is a requirement to de-tenant the properties in order to prepare them for demolition before we build new units.

The committee will be aware that the communities we are talking about, the regeneration communities, have suffered greatly in recent years and have had to endure broken promises in regard to their accommodation and their general environment etc. What Dublin City Council is doing in terms of regeneration is honouring the promises we have made to those tenants and those communities. My view is that we should continue to honour our promises to those communities and to effect the regeneration as promised, admittedly several years later than promised. We must honour and keep our word to those communities.