Mr. Michael McCarthy:

The Deputy makes a great point. I accept the entirety of what he said. We will meet representatives from the local authority in Cavan later in the year, probably in quarter 2, and I will broach this issue with them. In some of the scrutiny visits we have done, I have found that some local authorities do an impressive turnaround of vacant housing stock while others do not.

From the perspective of NOAC and the good practice seminar, I would like to see a more universal standard apply if something is good practice. Ultimately, if it is a policy decision, we are precluded from doing that. If we are able to flag that some local authorities are doing things really well, however, we want to interrogate the reasons why that is the case. It may be that they have different methods of private contractors going in to bring the house up to a level whereby it is possible to let it again. Other local authorities might be struggling in terms of funding and are doing such work themselves. There could be other issues.

I would like good practice to be extrapolated across the 31 local authorities because some are very good and others are not so good.