Mr. John McCarthy:

The main thing we are trying to do is to develop the vacant house reuse strategy which is at an advanced stage in the Housing Agency. More detailed analysis on housing will be made available from the census on 20 April. That will help. We have not been waiting for that. There is the Housing Agency acquisition programme, the repair and leasing scheme and the buy and renew scheme as well as mainstream acquisition, all designed to tap into vacant property. One issue raised consistently is the extent to which there may be vacant property associated with older people availing of the fair deal scheme and being in nursing home accommodation. Since last month we started to work with the Department of Health to see if there is a significant quantum of housing vacant for those reasons and, if so, whether we can incentivise it back into use.