Mr. Joe Corr:

In a nutshell, to address Deputy Barry's question, I do not have the statistics on how many sites would be permitted for the purpose of flipping on. In my earlier comments I said we need adequately resourced local authorities so that development teams can be established within the councils to monitor these situations, communicate with developers and the landowners of these sites and ascertain why delays are happening on these sites.

Unfortunately, I find myself referring back very often to the local authority to say that this is an effective level at which to monitor the things that happen. There are myriad reasons that sites do not commence promptly after the companies involved get permission under the SHD process. Even the previous process did not stop the practice of getting permission to increase the value on a site and sell it on. What we need is an adequately resourced local authority that can monitor the situation and communicate with developers to ascertain why things are not happening, for example, is it because they are waiting to sell it on or is it genuinely because there are site constraints.