Mr. Michael O'Flynn:

I support what Mr. O’Connor has said. He has a background in design and understands very well issues in respect of existing properties. I absolutely agree with what the Deputy is suggesting.

It is awful to drive through villages and towns and to see derelict properties when all the infrastructure that is necessary for those properties to operate is there.

To go into the specifics of the Deputy's questions, if I recall them correctly, the grants should be related to the scale of the work that needs to be done. There has to be some basis of costs versus finished product. I have advised people who have come to me about vacant properties. At the end of the day, someone cannot end up spending more money than what something is worth, and that is a real issue. From a societal point of view, we should refurbish and enable those properties to be occupied.

I completely agree with the Deputy on cash flow. If a percentage grant is approved or applicable, there should be some system found to help with stages and to make that situation easier for someone to have a loan, the grant and the cash flow to get from start to finish. It is the big jump stopping people doing what they simply cannot afford or expect financial institution to do for them because it is dependent on the final outcome and the final cost result.

On inflation, I am sorry that construction cost inflation is only going one direction, as he probably knows. People keep thinking and talking about how material costs will come down and extraordinary things will happen. They will not. We will just have to become more efficient in what we do and how we do it, with design efficiencies and so on. I cannot offer him any comfort in that regard.