Mr. Gordon Daly:

With a smaller local authority, the scale of the problem and the size of the team needed can be smaller. My colleague, Mr. Kehoe, has touched on the fact that a whole-of-council approach is needed. In Limerick, we found that putting responsibility for vacant and derelict sites under the one team worked, regardless of the volume of resources. In some local authorities, responsibility might be spread across different sections. Derelict sites could be under the environment section, vacant sites could be under the planning section and vacant homes could be under the housing section. We found that our place-based approach worked. We took it town by town, village by village, and street by street within the city. As Mr. Kehoe touched on, it can also be done in other ways. Everybody does not necessarily have to be on the one team in that there could be a steering group across the organisation that pulls it all together. There are different ways to tackle this. It is critical that there be policy, strategy, various schemes and supports at national level, followed by resources and structuring. There should be information-sharing, including on best practice, with each local authority determining how best to achieve the outcomes. That can vary.