Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not mean to be rude, but I am conscious of the time. I appreciate the Minister's response and I am aware that a lot is being done, but we need a dashboard up here. We need a dashboard on An Bord Pleanála's website because the public needs to know. I have one ask of the Minister, namely that we have a dashboard put up in place on the An Bord Pleanála website in order that there is full transparency. This is for people who want to buy houses. Many of the cases in question relate to apartments. We have an issue. I am moving on. I just wanted to raise that matter with the Minister again. I respect his work on it.

My next point relates to authorities. I contacted every local authority - in fairness, only yesterday - to ask them to provide figures on their housing voids or empty units. I had done a little work on this in the Dublin area already. I had photographs taken of these properties on a timed basis. Because some of them had gone for months, I was tracking a number of them in Dublin. I have evidence of the dates they were boarded up and the dates on which they remained boarded up. A number of local authorities do not have a clue about the number of voids they have. Some of them made all sorts of excuses, including that they were waiting for funding from the Minister's office because they needed sanction to get rid of these voids. I can think of two beautiful cottages on one street in Dalkey that are boarded up. We have issues here. When the Galway County Council chief executive wrote to me I was most impressed to learn that, lo and behold, he has the best system going. That council has a dashboard. There is a model in place in Galway. I ask the Minister to look at this dashboard, which has information on times, durations, HAP accommodation, property sizes, areas of choice, and approval rates. It is very impressive. I acknowledge the chief executive of Galway County Council. I want the Minister or someone within his Department to look at the dashboard and see if it a prototype for a model that we can apply across the other 30 local authorities.

Our councillors cannot get answers in respect of voids. I spoke to a number of them earlier. Our staff do not seem to know. Our directors of housing do not seem to know. That is simply not good enough. I will not name any more local authorities; I will just leave that matter with the Minister.