Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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The Senator had 15 minutes at her disposal, I have only a few minutes. It is not available to me. It has not been sent to my office. In respect of the Estimates, there is an increase in the capital budget for housing on what was set out in programme expenditure, of €47 million which would provide for 280 units. On relets, I was interested to hear one of the answers or a suggestion made in that regard. Where houses are vacant - I appreciate that some are in a state of dereliction - is the option of having private contractors refurbishing them, taking them over and leasing them back to the council being considered? If so, that would be damaging in the long term. I can understand getting quotations from private contractors when the house is refurbished to be relet by the local authorities. Perhaps the Minister would clarify that issue. Up to a few months ago, if a house was abandoned, the local authority was in a position within a number of weeks to repossess and relet it before it deteriorated and before too much damage was done to it. Local authorities now have to advertise in the local press on a number of occasions that the house is vacant and are paying thousands of euro for such advertisements. If somebody comes along and wrecks the house, it is taking the house out of use for a longer period, there are more costs involved in refurbishing it and more work has to be done on it. I am aware the Minister passes through the constituency regularly, and is seen around regularly these days, so I can show him examples of where this is happening. I am very concerned about this issue as everybody wants these houses occupied. This puts a greater cost on the Department and on the local authority. The Government says it wants relets speeded up, which is what we all want. That is good for everybody, including tenants, councillors and so on. However, the problem is that this has slowed down the process and placed a huge burden, not least an advertising burden, on local authorities and further repairs need to be carried out.

On the issue of the refusal of allocations, it is unfortunate that is happening. Those of us who have come through the local authority system know the reason that is happening in most cases. It is because some local authority estates or parts of local authority estates are controlled by little gangs of bullies. I mention the legislation and the resources available to the local authorities to try to deal with estates and the tenant liaison officers. This is a serious issue.

When genuinely good families who are on the waiting list and who want to move into a home are allocated a house, they have a week or ten days to make a decision. After great soul searching, they sometimes turn the offer down. They do not want to turn it down but they do so because of what is happening. That must be examined. Again, there is a huge cost because, as the Minister pointed out earlier, the house is left vacant for a longer period. The resources of the tenant liaison officer, the powers of the local authorities and the co-operation of the Garda must be beefed up.

Did the Minister say there were 230 local authority houses completed in the first 11 months of this year and there were 700 purchases made to date by the local authorities?