Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)

I will give the Minister one example of where we disagree. The voids programme is currently closed, which is absolutely unbelievable at a time when he have thousands of boarded-up houses or voids, as they are called. There is no additional funding to reopen them this side of Christmas, meaning that where any council currently has empty properties, they will all be left idle, empty and boarded-up until the new year. Has the Minister sought a costing for keeping this system open all year round? This is a solution that we have been offering for years. To be honest, there are backbenchers in the Minister's own Government telling me they support keeping the voids programme open all year long. Will the Minister provide the funding to do that?