Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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Some of them involve leasing. A lot of them are welcome, which I accept, but the big fall-down concerns the provision of local authority housing. I am easy about how it is provided, whether it is by AHBs, turnkey arrangements or otherwise, but the big failure is in addressing the capacity of the 31 local authorities. The Department has a substantial staff and a big budget but is not delivering on the local authority housing programme. There is a failure in this regard. If there is a failure in local authorities, officials need to communicate with the councillors in each area. The councillors I meet all the time are always anxious to push on the housing programmes. Mr. Doyle knows that from meeting representatives of AILG. We have to do better than this next year. I ask Mr. Doyle to look into this again. I welcome the fact that the Department has taken 15-plus measures to try to reduce the delay in local authority delivery. I ask Mr. Doyle and his officials to revisit this in the new year to try to give the programme a new sense of purpose.

I will now let members back in the second round. They have five minutes each. We will begin with Deputy Ó Cathasaigh.