Dr. Pat Daly:

I thank the Deputy for the question. Limerick is akin to Waterford in size and scale. To add to what Mr. Shakespeare said, we could look to the blending of a conversion to a grant or a raise, or look at the time period of the building and the percentage of the tax allowance. We have had good dialogue and have gone door-to-door with our conservation and architectural teams, and talked and walked with the owners to challenge them to do more. It has resulted in 20 or 25 buildings coming back into the market, either being redeveloped or being brought for sale to the market. I can understand there is a great fear of using the scheme among some owners, developers, potential investors and even homeowners, which is that when they get into conservation of these old Georgian buildings, it will just be an open-ended bill. We have been able to guide it very heavily, as Mr. Shakespeare has said. We have been able to talk to property owners and, hopefully, give them some assurances. We have given them design templates to help them.

When we started that process and dialogue it helped things along. We were not the big, scary place where people felt they would just end up with a lot of costs, bills and regulation. We turned it on its head and said to property owners that these are very important buildings that are part of our urban architecture and history and we wanted to work with them on it. That kind of carrot approach has been better than the stick in this instance. If we could do that, and I know colleagues in Waterford are doing that, to try to make it happen, in addition to looking at some of the schemes' limits and potentials, it would help us all greatly. There is still great potential in the programme.