Mr. John McCarthy:

The voids programme that we are talking about here would be the more serious cases where refurbishment is required. These are not necessarily longstanding because a property can become vacant and when the local authority goes in, it can find that the property is in pretty bad nick. We would expect local authorities to be doing the more routine lick-of-paint type of stuff that Deputy O'Connell talks about as part of their ordinary ongoing maintenance and we have a programme in place now to work with the local authorities to move to a much more formalised and structured planned maintenance programme.

The voids programme that we were talking about is, as I say, for the more seriously damaged properties. We have, if you like, a budget of a maximum of €30,000 per unit that a local authority could claim but that is broken down between individual component parts. In reality, the average under the voids programme is €18,000 per unit. As I say, it depends on the nature of the damage or the condition of the individual unit as to what exactly needs to be done to it.