John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)

This is something I am passionate about myself, as I know the Deputy is. I am focusing on it very significantly when I am going around to local authorities and meeting them. We are trying to place an increased focus and emphasis on vacancy and dereliction in general. For local authorities to have the authority to be able to be strict in imposing the likes of CPOs, they have to be efficient in turning around their own stock. We have some very good examples in that NOAC report. Wexford and Laois are below 1% in terms of vacancy. In my own local authority area in Waterford, we introduced a framework for turning around vacant properties many years ago. That is not standard practice across the sector. It should be. It is a way to drive efficiencies and reduce the turnaround time. We should not have a situation where local authorities are waiting for several council properties to be vacant for a period of time, bundling them together and going out for tender. That is no longer acceptable. I have a zero-tolerance approach in relation to turnaround times and vacancy across the local authority sector when we have such need out there.

We are totally on the same page.