Mr. John McCarthy:

The Minister has said fairly consistently that Rebuilding Ireland is a plan for the period up to 2021, and one of the things I have said consistently is about the need to be agile. One cannot know exactly as one starts out on a six-year plan how the world will evolve over that period. It is a plan at a point in time. The Minister has said clearly that we need to be agile and we need to keep our experience and activity under review. The repair and leasing and the buy and renew schemes are in the early stages and we will certainly look at the progress we make under them. If there is greater potential there, that is something we will look at. When the vacant housing re-use strategy is finalised and submitted, the Minister has said we will consider what it says to us and see what steps may be needed on the strength of it.

When it comes to looking at vacant housing generally, the few things I have been talking about here are primarily schemes designed to bring vacant housing units into use for social housing purposes. One would expect, according as the economy improves, that another element of the vacant housing stock would also come back into use. For example, since 2012 we have been tracking the unfinished housing developments across the country. We have done that on an annual basis and what we have seen over time is that there has been a very significant reduction in that, which is something we would expect to continue. We will publish the most recent survey in the coming weeks.