Mr. Simon Shevlin:

I will answer that. In reality, nearly 80% of our social housing lists are based in Castlebar, Ballina, Westport, Ballinrobe and Claremorris, the five major towns. Those areas have better land than most places. We are diversifying. We are buying derelict sites now in those towns to build there because of the lack of greenfield sites on which to build houses. It will also help our dereliction issue in those towns. That is where we are at the moment. We have a number of sites we purchased in the past year and we are beginning to go through the purchase, the acquisition, this quarter in terms of land squared. In a place like Westport it is very hard to buy land because of the cost and the high demand there. In Castlebar there is also quite a high demand and it is a matter of finding the right location to buy the house.

As was stated, 70% of people are in one- or two-bedroom apartments or houses. These are for old people who want to find sites which are close to towns and amenities and the shops and services required in those areas. It is a challenge to find them there. I am interested in the smaller towns as well. We are working through the dereliction process there. Instead of buying greenfield sites, we are trying to buy derelict sites there. We touched on CPOs earlier but we are trying not to go down the CPO route where we can. We are trying to do a deal with the owner of the property and find those sites that are derelict. We have done that in a number of towns around the county last year and this year.