Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was in Cork City Council, and for years I was looking for accurate data in relation to Cork City Council. Yesterday, Deputy Ó Broin was in Cork with me and Deputy Ó Laoghaire. We walked around with the Anois group, representatives of which, Dr. Frank O'Connor and Ms Jude Sherry, gave a presentation to this committee on dereliction. I walked around Cork city centre and the surrounding streets yesterday and noted the amount of dereliction that is in Cork. We have no accurate data in Cork City Council on derelict sites. There are fewer than 100 derelict sites listed. I saw 100 such sites yesterday on my own. That was only on North Main Street and the northside. There are no accurate dereliction figures and no accurate vacancy figures for the second city in the State. I am not blaming the witnesses but my point is that I represent people and I believe that things are so bad in my city at the moment that the housing crisis in Cork is worse than Dublin. People are looking at properties every day of the week that should be housing. Families should be in there and nothing is happening.

I have another question. The last time representatives of the Department were in here, I asked for an update on derelict homes officers and vacant homes officers. I was told that a special section was going to be set up in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to tackle dereliction and vacancy. Has that section been set up? How many staff are in there? Where are we with it?