Mr. Michael Walsh:

The core challenge is the economic recovery of those properties. We are the proud owners of a number of older buildings in Waterford city and elsewhere in the county. We have refurbished many of them. We have a significant amount of experience of refurbishment, not just in the lease and repair scenario but in terms of our own buildings. One of the big issues with the regeneration of older properties is that the costs are far greater than they are for new build. That is the reality. There is a dilemma there in terms of achieving that. Our overall strategy is to work from there, starting out with things like the lease and repair scheme, and to gradually build from there where possible. We also want to get new builds in the core city centre because until one builds the community back, one will not increase demand. It is a sort of virtuous circle if one can get it going on that basis. At the moment, we are trying to do anything we can purposefully do to get more people occupying the core centres of towns and cities, but we are working with the art of the possible. The biggest difficulty is probably in respect of over-the-shop accommodation, where there is poor access. One must comply with all the fire safety regulations and then there is joining them up to get scale in them and things like that. They are immensely complex and difficult projects.