Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for attending and for all their work. Unlocking vacant and derelict homes has huge untapped potential for every home that exists that is not unlocked. It is relatively quick to do. It is environmentally friendly and it makes sense, because these places are usually in very good locations. Nothing maddens people more than a vacant home, particularly when it is a local authority owned home. I know there is work being done on voids as well. I was going to ask about data so it was great to hear that conversation earlier and I might delve into that a little bit more. For me, data has been the big issue on this over the last year or so because we have so many different strands of information, the CSO and the GeoDirectory. It is great hear the progress that is happening in local authorities now in relation to this survey. Unless we can quantify the issue we cannot quantify the potential that it genuinely holds.

There used to be a website, and apologies if it still exists, called www.vacanthomes.ie. Members of the public could upload details, photographs and Eircodes of vacant homes in their locality. This issue is one which really frustrates the public. This website was a pet peeve of mine because it was a black hole. I put a lot of information into it but never heard anything back and never got an update and some of those homes are still vacant. How is that going to integrate, if at all, with the survey and the app and is that information going to captured?

Regarding targets, this is something that consistently comes up at this committee. It was great to hear Ms Timmons outline the targets on some of the schemes. Those are overall departmental targets. Are they broken down by local authorities? Are we holding local authorities to account on things like, buy and renew, repair and lease and compulsory purchase orders, CPOs, in particular? The CCMA has been very clever in who it chose to send here today because Limerick and Waterford are very much leading in this space. Let us call it as it is. When it comes to the buy and renew scheme and the repair and lease scheme Waterford has a good record and Limerick when it comes to CPOs. However, the experience of Waterford and Limerick is not representative of what is happening in local authorities up and down the country. That is a real shame. It is great for the representatives from Waterford and Limerick to come here and showcase the great work being done in these local authorities but we should not be the audience for this. The audience has to be other local authorities because they need to be following the lead of Waterford and Limerick. Unless we have robust but realistic targets set for local authorities and unless we are keeping them under pressure to do so, that is not going to happen. Unless the CCMA sends more representative local authorities to us, we cannot do that here either. I ask Ms Timmons to answer those questions in relation to the Department first.