Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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We can get the figures for the Deputy. There is a variance in cost per unit of turning around vacant houses right across the various local authorities ranging from €15,000 per unit to €40,000. We have to be very careful not to reward local authorities who are neglecting to maintain stock. If the cap of €30,000 is lifted the danger is that we will reward those local authorities that are not investing adequately in the annual maintenance budgets of their stock. As I said earlier it is important to acknowledge that some stock has gone beyond the normal void turnaround. This could be called a derelict tier. The Department is looking at putting in place funding to bring those back into beneficial use. They will cost in excess of €30,000 per unit. We will be asking local authorities to come forward with their proposals on a once off basis to get them back into use and after that they will be expected to maintain them in the normal way.

In regard to the eight units in Banagher, County Offaly, which the Deputy welcomed, costs were associated with the site in terms of enabling works. The units are in the middle of the town and were a regeneration project. In addition they are passive units so they have a much higher spec than the normal unit and the Department was willing to fund them. We will monitor them over time in terms of energy efficiency and all the other benefits expected from passive housing. The Department believes there should be flexibility in terms of specifications, that one should not tie down a high spec because it brings into question the issue of viability, as we have seen recently with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. If there is a high spec on delivery of units there are viability issues in terms of the cost of delivering those units. That is an issue we can debate further down the road.