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

To return to the first point about the 85 voids, it is very easy to calculate how many voids come back or how many houses are returned to local authorities every year. In Cork I think the figure is about 20 a month. We are talking about the bones of 250 units a year. If Cork City Council knows that and the Department knows that, because it gets monthly reports from the chief executives, why is the Department not funding the 250 houses that we know come back every year?

The second point to that question is as follows. I never could understand why local authorities need to come to the Department to get permission to do voids. Would it not be a much more streamlined service if local authorities were to renovate voids as soon as they became available and then send up the expenditure or the cost to be reimbursed? At the moment, with local authorities, it is like a tennis match. They bat it up to the Department; it bats it back. The witnesses are busy people; the local authority staff are busy people. Can we not just let the local authorities get on with the work? There should be a maximum time a void should be left vacant. Could the Department see a change of policy whereby local authorities would be given that kind of responsibility to do that work?