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

I had not thought of what Ms Hennigan said about people who lose their incomes for different reasons, namely losing their jobs or on foot of health issues. It is important that work is being done, so that is good to hear. We are looking at cost rental long term. People are saying we need to develop the Irish mentality to cost rental, and all those things need to be considered.

One of the big positives with the AHBs is housing maintenance. I really see it in Cork. Cork City Council has 11,000 council and social houses. There is no preventative or planned maintenance.

I was talking to a lady who lives in the Glen in Cork city who has been waiting four and a half years for new windows and doors and to another in Mayfield who has been waiting three and a half years. I spoke to the head of the Cork City Council housing maintenance unit on Monday. He told me that it only has funding for emergency works. Cork City Council got money this year to carry out retrofitting. It has done 53 properties. There is a plan to do 116 properties next year. That is out of 11,000 properties overall. The council will be 200 years trying to retrofit houses.

I compare this situation with that of the AHBs. Do not get me wrong - I am not saying the AHBs are perfect. From the information I am getting from the tenants, it seems that the AHBs are much more proactive and that they plan and engage much more. How are the AHBs able to manage the costs of doing this work when local authorities are completely failing?