Ms Caroline Timmons:

Yes. Housing for All firmly put vacancy at the forefront of housing policy as a core part of it and bringing forward actions in that regard. The vacant homes action plan was launched in January, bringing together under one roof all of the different actions that address vacancy. Prior to that, we had put in place a vacant homes unit in the Department. That unit works closely with the vacant homes offices that now exist in 30 of the 31 local authorities - Donegal County Council is bringing the recruitment process through to finalise its own office - continuing the work that needs to be done. The vacant homes unit also works closely with the town centre first policy and the new structures built under that policy. Town regeneration officers have been put in place, who work with the vacant homes officers, who also work with the people dealing with derelict sites. There is a core group of people in local authorities connecting in with the Department and the housing delivery co-ordination office, HDCO, which is in charge of the town centre first policy. All of those parties work together, which is proving quite successful in giving energy and life to the policies in place.

We launched the CPO activation programme last week, which is part of a measure we outlined in the action plan, bringing forward a suite of documentation to help local authorities move vacant properties off their derelict homes register and into activation. That may be done under the schemes we already spoke about, such as buy and renew and repair and lease or by private activation. If that activation does not occur, it can be taken through the CPO process to move it on and use it for social or private housing, whichever is appropriate in that particular instance. That type of activation programme will now track from here on in how the local authorities are active and give us data on how many, what is coming back into use and how. Being able to see that will inform our policy interventions in the future and what else we may need to do in that space. It is fair to say it is one of the most active spaces which has really come on since Housing for All was put in place.