Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)

In Cork, there were 27 cost-rental units delivered last year. The Minister is saying it is a tremendous success. Twenty-seven units is tiny. It is a tiny fraction of what is required.

Going to the next set of questions, the Local Government Fund was slashed during the austerity budgets. In the budget of 2009, before Phil Hogan was the Minister, he announced €1.6 billion for the Local Government Fund. Last month, the Minister announced €670 million for next year. The cost of running local authorities has risen considerably since then but the Supplementary Estimate is only to deal with the leftover costs from transfers of services to Uisce Éireann. When can local authorities expect funding to return to pre-austerity levels?