Mr. Paul Lemass:

On derelict houses, Housing for All sets out a range of areas where we are trying to look at vacancy. Among them, we will launch this year a Croí Cónaithe towns fund to support individuals who want to refurbish vacant properties in towns. That will be complemented by better homes energy grants from the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. There is also a statement in Housing for All that we will buy, through compulsorily purchase orders, CPOs, via local authorities, 2,500 vacant properties.

In addition, we will launch the town centre first policy shortly. It will complement the vacancy in this area. It will also pick up on urban regeneration and development fund, URDF, and rural regeneration and development fund, RRDF, moneys where we will be drawing up specific criteria to address vacancy as part of future funding proposals under both of those funds.

On the actual number of retrofits, the target was 2,400 in 2021. We achieved 1,730 at the end of the year. Frankly, the biggest barrier was Covid, which restricted our ability to go into people's houses. Mr. Mahon might want to contribute on the reaction on the ground when retrofitting has been done in the midlands. The midlands has not hit the numbers it would have hoped to for those practical reasons, but I understand that the response has been extremely positive.

I will refer to a few other points. We are in the process of reforming the fair deal scheme, which means that a person will be able to sell a property which might currently be lying vacant without any additional penalty. There are proposals from the Department of Health to reform it further in order that a property can be made available for rental while the applicant is in a fair deal nursing home. We are supporting vacant homes officers in local authorities with a fund of €50,000 per authority. We have also called out the need for a Government portfolio of properties to be examined in order that any vacant properties in a town can be made available and put on the market. Those are the measures we are taking.