Mr. Michael Walsh:

I thank the committee for the invitation to attend the meeting. We have exceeded our targets in Waterford in terms of social housing over the past few years with 664 units across the different delivery mechanisms. We are broadly comfortable that we have a pipeline that will enable us to exceed targets in the next three or four years. We will have some land purchase issues and other issues after that but we are broadly comfortable that we will exceed the targets. Like Limerick, the housing delivery action plan is spread across city and county. Generally speaking, we are satisfied with the pipeline.

We are placing particular emphasis on affordable housing. Three schemes are on offer - advertised and otherwise.

There are about 179 houses in that context that are either being built or contracted with a view to delivery under the affordable housing schemes. We have only entered that process. We had expressions of interest a number of months ago. We are now entering the formal application process, so we are learning significantly as we go. We are one of the first local authorities, along with Cork, in this space, if we leave aside the Dublin authorities. There is learning in it, to be honest, and we are right in that space currently. We expect houses to come on stream in the next couple of months or early in the new year. We are motivated about this in the context of the broader cohort of people who are caught between those able to afford houses and those who are eligible for social housing. We are very active in that area and very animated about it. We want to ensure we make it work.

Beyond that, Mr. Grimes has been before the committee previously discussing vacancy and regeneration generally. We are in a reasonably good position. If we take the GeoDirectory figures and others, we have some of the lowest vacancy and dereliction rates in the country. Vacancy is down by 2.8% and dereliction by 1.4%. In a mature housing market, those figures are getting to the lower edges of the issue, with respect to vacancy in any case. It does not mean there is not more to be done. We are not in any sense resting on our laurels and continue to be active in the repair and lease schemes. After much effort in the initial stages, we have found that this has worked pretty well for us. As Dr. Daly outlined with regard to dereliction and CPO procedures, we need to ramp those up a little. We are very interested in the success Limerick City and County Council has achieved with CPO and dereliction. We are looking seriously at that with a view to ramping it up even further.

I do not have much to add. That is the bigger picture in many respects. There is not a local authority in the country that would tell the committee it is not under pressure in the grand scheme of things. We are hitting the targets and trying to exceed them in many areas but we are equally conscious of the pressures, especially in the urban areas. We have all had significant growth. In our case, population growth in the city in the most recent census period was 12.7%. That is imposing pressure in the form of demand and otherwise. As I said, there is not a local authority that would tell the committee it is not under pressure with delivery. Broadly, however, the resources are in place to ensure there is a good pipeline. In that regard, we have certainly been helped by the Department over the past couple of years. We are confident we can meet the targets in the budgetary envelopes. We are not in the worst place. That is how I would describe the position but that does not in any way diminish the current pressures on the social housing list and the other pressures in housing.