Ms Caroline Timmons:

We just about met our target last year under the voids programme, which I think was 2,400. We were just under that target. We have a similar target for this year. It is a matter for the council to bring forward the voids unit to us and to suggest what they could do. At any point during the year if they feel they can do more, we are open to that. If they want to do more than that this year, we are open to that. We do not consider that that is an issue in respect of the numbers. As for the length of time it takes to return the units, we do encourage the councils to do the minimum works applicable to get the units back into use. It is really important to us that that message gets across because of the level of homelessness at the moment. In particular, we need to see those social units being brought back into use as quickly as possible. That has been very clearly communicated by the Minister and the Department to local authorities, so if there has been a lag in the time it has taken to bring units back into use over previous years, we expect that local authorities are working on that as we speak.