Ms Jean Kennedy:

There is a statutory rule that requires the property to be vacant. Our records indicate that 7,500 exemptions have been claimed in respect of homes that have been vacated. We generally do not have any direct interaction with the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. Our interaction tends to be with the Department of Finance. Unless there is a change in policy decision and the statutory rule we have to continue to operate the exemption based on existing legislation. We can provide statistics to anybody who wants to examine policy in this area.