Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

Many of the buildings we are in we have been in for some time. We rented the buildings in Portlaoise at the time of the decentralisation decision. The intention at that time was to build an entirely new building for the Department. That did not materialise for reasons that are well known, connected with decentralisation. We share a Government building but because of the number of staff we had down there, several other buildings had to be rented for us.

I have been regularly engaged with the OPW. I do not like our staff being scattered across a number of buildings. I would like them all to be in the Government building, but that would require building an extension on it, which I still hope will happen.

I have been given a figure for rental of premises. The outturn for 2015 was €882,433. The outturn for 2016 was €536,168 so it is on the way down.