Mr. Michael Walsh:

The question on the lack of hard data needs to be put to the Department. We know our own but we do not necessarily know the collective. I would not conflate the property register and the broad issue. We have an obligation to maintain an asset register and every property across the board is supposed to be on that. There is an issue of transferring historical paper records into that. While it might be slightly different in the bigger local authorities, in my case I think I would personally know every potential site for housing in the local authority area. If I did not, certainly one of our staff would know that.

I do not think it is a major issue. Certainly, it can be an issue to get the land for those seeking to buy it or otherwise. However, I do not believe there is an issue with regard to the knowledge of what is available in terms of our internal property holdings.

Reference was made to derelict shops, rates and change of use. I would not disagree with the point made. As the law stands, there is an obligation to apply for change of use. In general terms, I would be open to some way to mitigate the process, perhaps by designation of a particular area, in some towns and villages, because it is something of an issue. Some commercial units are unlikely to return to commercial use in the medium term. In many of these instances, they need to transition to residential use. We have discussed the idea of living communities in the middle of our towns and villages. The idea could and should be considered.

I was asked whether I was confident that the resources were available. I will offer what might be considered a clichéd answer in some respects. As chief executives and directors of services, we have to designate resources as required. Certainly, we will approach the Department on some elements and we engage in continuing dialogue.

I have a slight concern on the question of lease and repair, especially with regard to the body of work undertaken by Mr. O'Connor. It relates to empty home officers and collating or collecting the data generally. If we are to get a big hit in this area, we would need to commit significant resources quickly. We need to understand the issue fully. Certainly, we use all the resources available to us. Let us consider the vote for the housing budget. Between the Department, local authorities and the approved housing bodies, last year we spent every cent available and we will do so again this year. We are ramping up our building programme significantly. In reality, there is a two-year window. Ten years ago, we built 6,000 or 7,000 houses. We will get back to that level again within two or three years. The figures will be more like 1,500 this year and 2,500 next year. That is the territory we are in. Anyway, we will hit the Rebuilding Ireland overall targets, subject to the overall availability.

We have come through eight or ten years of recession. Local authority budgets took a hammering at every level in that period. Are we back following the recovery? Our staff numbers are down. Local authorities were among the first affected in the public service. We were forced to adapt by watching the financial position from day to day. We are down perhaps more than 20% in terms of staff. Our ability to increase the levels is limited as of yet in the context of the recovery. It varies across authorities. Anyway, we have to manage that at a local level. Certain pressures come to bear, especially on the staffing side in the housing area. We are mindful of that at chief executive level. We will be trying to resource it to the greatest possible extent within our overall resource pool.

Reference was made to the 12-month window. I will address the lease-and-repair question in that context. In some respects, the lease and repair option suits those who have capital or cases in which there is a capital problem. We need to find the stick to use with that carrot. In that case, a tax could be an option as long as it relates only to the capital issue. If we put a tax on top of a distressed property, that is to say, where there is financial distress of substance, we only compound the problem – that has been my experience. More data is needed, as is more understanding, before we make the jump. We might be unable to differentiate between the various categories.

We use CPOs, although perhaps I over-emphasised the point earlier. We use CPOs and we are happy to do so. In many instances, it is relatively straightforward to operate the process. If there is a single owner or if we know the risk is not great, we use the process. I take the point about the basic cost relative to other costs that arise. Anyway, we try to manage the overall budget to attain the greatest possible efficiency. The area is becoming increasingly complex and a wider range of initiatives are in place now than were ever in place previously. They are all needed in that context - we do not argue about that.

Reference was made to NAMA and to supply in general. From our point of view, overall housing supply is the big-ticket issue. Regardless of where people reside, whether in Louth, Dún Laoghaire or Waterford, we need more houses immediately. The question of whether we use NAMA properties or otherwise is something of a different argument. One point has struck me, although I was not centrally involved. Many of those properties were offered in blocks of 300 and 400. We are simply not going there – that is the end of that story. Many adjoined existing significant blocks. The question was whether it was feasible to take those and attain some sense of a sustainable community in terms of mix of tenure and so on. That was the predominant reason, although there was no demand in some instances. No local authority would have chosen lightly to refuse to take housing that was readily available. We need to look at the overall sum. Last year, we used a number of acquisitions because they represented great value. This was the case in many areas where we were not distorting the market. We used every available shilling from the Vote for housing last year and we will do so again this year. That is the simple reality.

Reference was made to the eligibility issue for lease and repair. I am unsure as to what is the position but I will examine the matter. This issue arose in several instances. The basic eligibility requirement is that a property has to be vacant for a given period. A person cannot come in and get a refurbishment job done on an existing leasable property. Some rules must apply. Other than that, reasonable discretion applies. We are only leaning the lessons now on the lease-and-repair provisions. We genuinely believe a considerable amount of low-hanging fruit is available. Mr. McGuinness might wish to comment. I gather the experience of buy and repair arrangements in Louth is similar.