Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)

I thank the Cathaoirleach and I thank the witnesses for their presentation. I wanted to ask about the Minister's upcoming section 28 guidelines regarding the reopening of development plans. Is it the witnesses' understanding, from the way this will be worded, that these guidelines will be advisory and not mandatory? Do they think that if there is not a mandatory mechanism with respect to these guidelines, a lot of this could just amount to something that sounds a lot better than what it would actually transpire to be?

Regarding voids, do the witnesses think local authorities are doing too much work on some of these houses, which is what the Taoiseach said in the Dáil? On the issue of the sanction, do they think it would be easier if the funding could be drawn down more frequently, maybe on a monthly basis?

With regard to the working group looking at staffing, when is that expected to report and is that working group looking at salaries? I know the salary of a technician in a local authority is only €27,000 which, with the way things have gone up in recent years, I personally think - I do not know about the two witnesses - is far too low. It is going to be hard to retain anybody at that salary because you will get much more in the private sector.

On the tenant in situ scheme, do the witnesses think there will be a need for an additional volume of funding this year given that we have had such a fall-off in commencements? It has become very clear to me in the first half of the year that we are not going to be able to build ourselves out of this quagmire this year.