James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy. I will give him the figures for Limerick so far this year. Limerick City and County Council was assigned €15 million for 2025. So far, it has recouped €7 million. There have been 11 units acquired to date. There are a lot of units going through the processes. I am hopeful and confident that Limerick will draw down all of its €15 million in this regard. We have to see over the next few weeks how things play out. It is quite a substantial amount - €7 million for 11 units. I expect the difference has gone into refurbishment.

We wrote to Limerick City and County Council in the summer to say it could use 30% of that allocation to get things moving already for next year. It was the equivalent of approximately €4.5 million. That is because there is a time lag for conveyancing. If you start to engage into a process today, the reality is it will probably be six months before you are drawing it down. The idea with that is to ensure local authorities would be able to draw down all of their funding for next year so it is not a case they cannot start even engaging with people until 1 January. If so, they would be under serious pressure to draw down all of their necessary funding.