Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 25 November 2020

Public Accounts Committee

2019 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government.
Local Government Fund
Chapter 2 – Central Government Funding of Local Authorities.

4:30 pm

Mr. Graham Doyle:

I do not think I have that here to hand, Deputy. There was certainly an expectation that there would be a much greater uptake on that. I think what was probably discovered, as the local authorities went through the process of looking at these, was that time had moved on a little bit. I think some of these properties had begun to be used in different ways. I think there was probably less properties out there. There were plenty of properties out there that were in states of repair that would work for this scheme but maybe not in locations or maybe not fully suitable to social housing. We are very anxious to address and attack the vacancy issue. So we are still persisting with these schemes and trying to promote them again, working closely with the local authorities. Some have had a lot more success than others around this for a variety of reasons. Louth has been very good. Cork has been very good. Waterford has been very good.