Mr. Padraig McNally:

I have some brief comments on some of the subjects that have already been raised. In the overall scheme of things regarding Part VIII, it is relatively immaterial whether it is eight or four weeks. The one thing we have to be careful of is that genuine concerns raised by existing tenants or others are not in any way overlooked just for the sake of getting things speeded up, because there are genuine concerns in some cases.

There is a bit of an urban-rural divide regarding the rapid builds. I would be guided by our city colleagues and our big town colleagues. I am not a fan. There is nothing to stop a proper house being built inside of six months if everything were ready on the ground. I think five years down the road we will be wondering what we will do with them and we will have spent a lot of money on them given that they are only a short-term solution.

Deputy Butler spoke about 80% of representations being about housing and homelessness. I know she is probably largely urban-based in terms of her clinics, but I do not believe we will ever find a way that can all be solved in such an area.

As Mr. Dermot McNally mentioned earlier, the whole idea of relocation should be reintroduced because there are people who would look to the possibility of moving out of cities. It is an issue that has moved slightly off the agenda. Given the crisis in areas such as Dublin, it is not feasible to expect the problem to be solved in the short term. Sadly, many of 4,000 NAMA units that have not been taken up were built in the wrong places in terms of daily requirements. Many of them are the mistakes of bad and rushed planned during the ten years of madness that we all witnessed.

Deputy Ó Broin made good points on voids. I understand there is variation from one county to another, in some cases it is as low as 2% while in others it is as high as 18%. At any given time, the amount of empty housing stock ranges from 2% to 18%. All one need do is check what the councils with a 2% level of empty houses are doing and tell those who have a disgraceful level of 18%. We must use best practice and share best practice. In relation to putting design teams in place and moving them around, we did that very successfully in the area of roads. Indeed, the question was asked as to who pays the technical staff. When the national roads were being built, the engineers for the county which the road went through oversaw the project on the ground. They were paid directly or indirectly by the NRA, now Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII. There is no reason that model cannot be transferred to housing. Housing is a much easier science in that they do not need to move around as much. Building a housing scheme when the site is ready, whether in Dublin or Cork, does not matter, rather it is the design of the houses and how they are constructed. Building a road is slightly more complex and I can see a need where they have to move. Much of the design work is desktop and can be accessed. The level of voids is unacceptably high in some counties while there are other counties that deserve to be congratulated. I suggest they share best practice.