Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am probably going back over my initial questions in asking whether Mr. Cummins knows the number of voids there are nationally and in each county? Is that information available and, if it is, can it be sent to the committee? Has a cost been put on the refurbishment of them?

The only other comment I would make is that we went through the procurement and approval processes for any type of building project and I fail to understand why the association is happy enough that the threshold is only €2 million which would deliver 15 units but the delivery of 30 units would involve a process of four approvals from the Department on each occasion. My understanding is that the Department does not have the resources to deal with volume that is coming in and that is causing massive delays. We are wondering how long it takes to deliver units, but this adds about six months to that process at a minimum. Why is Mr. Cummins saying that the threshold of €2 million is adequate when it should definitely be €5 million? I would welcome a response to that question.