Mr. Richard Shakespeare:

It is primarily the tax incentive where people and owners are getting tax relief. I am not very familiar with this area, but Deputy Bruton is right. We have had limited success. We have promoted it online through normal channels and letter drops to relevant properties. In terms of the rates in Dublin city, we have just over 20,000 accounts. Last year we applied 18,000-odd rates waivers to a value of approximately €160 million. Approximately 45% of the charge was waived. This year, because of the changes, approximately 9,000 accounts have some form of waiver to the value of €84 million, and that is approximately 23%.

The Deputy had a query on commercial tenants of local authorities. We have approximately 750 commercial tenants. We invited people to write to seek waivers. Depending on the type of business, we have given waivers ranging from 12% to 85% in rent relief on properties in our ownership. I hope that this answers the questions.