Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Professor O'Brien always has a problem with me. I hope I am not repeating what has been said already as I was a little late in arriving.

Is the degree of pressure on the local authorities regarding land purchase loans in terms of the availability of money to repair voids an issue? The Minister told me in the Dáil that if any local authority is not in a position to repair voids in its area and it submits an application in that respect by 14 December, he would be prepared to provide additional money for the repair of voids. He said that categorically last week.

On the issue of CPOs, I will not repeat the praise of various local authorities in that respect. As a few of the representatives will be aware, I have had a bee in my bonnet for many years about the issue of vacant rural housing. There has been a great concentration on addressing urban vacant housing. Anybody who was a candidate in the local authority elections and has traversed the roads will know the degree of vacant rural housing. Those properties have been identified. If one or two such properties were taken back into use in every parish, it would rejuvenate local schools facing challenges and it would provide funding for the local community. By developing the synergies of the IFA and community organisations and making funding available, not necessarily to the local authority but with the help of the local authority, many of those vacant properties could be identified. Such vacant properties exist and in some of them there is furniture, although I acknowledge there are legal issues regarding some of them.

I refer to the issue of student accommodation. I note that many of the traditional houses in the vicinity of Dundalk Institute of Technology in my constituency have large gardens. I mentioned to Deputy Darragh O'Brien that an incentive should be offered to encourage homeowners to build granny flats or single extensions to the rear of properties with large gardens in the vicinity of college areas. Incentives could be offered to property owners, many of whom would be elderly, to provide a sun-room type accommodation for students and a grant could be provided to people who own plots of land for such development. Has any of the representatives a view on that proposal?