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

I thank Ms Farrelly for clarifying that. A point was made earlier that approximately 2,700 voids were returned last year. There are 600 voids at the moment in Cork city. There is funding from the Department for 120 to be done this year. Why should local authorities be writing to the Department to get clearance or funding for voids? Would it not be a better use of everyone's time and money for local authorities to turn voids around and put in the application for the cost afterwards, rather than writing to Dublin and waiting for that list? There could be a list of 200 properties and 120 get picked. In the case of Cork, there are 500 properties and 120 get picked. I raised this with Cork City Council, which said it was going to do some of those properties out of its own resources. The point is that there are 500 houses. There will always be a percentage of houses in flux. The average is 25 houses a month that come back in Cork. Cork on average has 10% of the social housing in the State. It is a good barometer. I am calling for local authorities and officials to be given the authority to do the work and get the funding back afterwards. I am not sure who made the point earlier - it may have been Deputy O'Donoghue - that some houses have been empty for two years.

I know of properties that have been empty for four or five years. They are empty for so long because the properties are so old and it is so costly to return them to the housing stock that they are the last to be done. Surely at this stage of the game with the housing crisis, no property should be waiting for four or five years and local authorities should be given the authority to do that.