Mr. Gordon Daly:

Our experience in Limerick is that the legislation, even though it is over 30 years old, works quite well. It is more streamlined and straightforward using the Derelict Sites Act to achieve a compulsory acquisition rather than the Housing Act 1966. If a property is just vacant and in good condition, the Housing Act is the avenue to take, but if it is both derelict and vacant, there is a choice. Our experience and the way we have been working it in Limerick has been to use the Derelict Sites Act. By way of that we have published 250 notices under the Derelict Sites Act to compulsorily acquire. Some 160 of those are ready with ownership invested in the council, whereas we have just published eight under the Housing Act to compulsorily acquire. The reason is that it is more streamlined under the Derelict Sites Act.

Colleagues in the Department advise there is a working group and some work has been done to examine the Derelict Sites Act 1990 to see how it could be improved. Yes, there may be elements of it that could be modified or amended but with regard to getting on with it at the moment, there is not a barrier holding us back in the context of the Derelict Sites Act. I believe the Deputy touched on it himself. It is about building up that expertise within the local authorities. It may be legislation where the organisational memory had been lost around using it. Local authorities lost a lot of staff during the economic downturn, and people also retired. That organisational memory or knowledge of how to go through this process needs to be rebuilt again. There are risks, but in fairness to the Department they are being de-risked now through the URDF, call 3, through more streams.