Mr. Dave Dinnigan:

I will respond to the comments on the repair and leasing scheme. We will double-check our figures but we went through it again this morning. The repair and leasing scheme was well advertised and promoted at the time and there was a lot of interest and phone calls from proposers. That narrowed down quickly. That might be because there are some different market conditions in Dublin from the rest of the country. It was felt the interest-free loan was not attractive and people were more looking for grants, which is understandable but the scheme was what it was at the time and we had to implement it. In some cases the minimum length of ten years for the lease was seen as too onerous for some individuals. The private sector also felt it might have been able to achieve greater income on the condition of 80% of the market rent. There were a few options and they were the general comments people went through as proposers getting on to Dublin City Council at the time. It seems like the repair and leasing scheme was not particularly attractive, despite quite a lot of effort being expended on our team’s behalf to engage with proposers.

The buy and renew scheme was much more successful and seemed to fit the appetite of the market much more. One ruinous house on a street or road can have a deleterious effect on the whole neighbourhood, so bringing one or two units back into us makes a significant difference. Even though 68 units looks comparatively small given the size of the city, it would have made a huge difference in many areas of the city centre. It would be our hope and expectation that we would be able to add another 99 units to that number in the coming years. We are active in promoting the scheme. We use every opportunity we can, but at the end of the day the two schemes are as they are and we have to implement them. We are also relying on proposers from the open market to engage with us.