Ms Sinead O'Gorman:

The rent arrears at the end of 2020 were €94.6 million in the local authorities. That had increased from €88.2 million in the previous year. The rents are calculated in accordance with each council's differential rent scheme and are collected from local authority tenants. As the Deputy has said, the rents collection performance of each local authority varies. It is shown in appendix No. 7 of the latest local authority financial statements. Practices vary.

Where large differences like that appear, although we have no role to compel any action with the local authority, we would advise the finance team in the local authority to engage with other local authorities where best practices have emerged and collection rates would be higher. There are different circumstances prevailing in the different environments of local authorities, including the range of urban and city-based authorities and more rural-based authorities. When it comes to collection of rents or rates, where there are highly performing local authorities, we ask the other local authorities to perhaps engage with them and try to apply best practice themselves. We have seen over the years that collection level of rates have improved massively.