Ms Laura Behan:

We have recognised that there are challenges and costs associated with bringing a home back from vacancy, which is why the grant is available to support people in doing that. Some homes need more work and sometimes €50,000 is not sufficient because of the state of dereliction. A further €20,000 is available for those homes. The grant payable can be up to €70,000 to cover the additional costs for a home that has perhaps been vacant for longer and needs a deeper refurbishment. There is a range of other schemes available via the social housing programme such as repair and lease, and buy and renew, where local authorities can make even more funding available to help with the costs of bringing those properties back. They are then used for the social housing programme. There are degrees of cost associated with the level of work that needs to be done. For the most part, including the living city initiative which was recently improved in the budget and will now be available in more towns, the supports available are scalable and tailored to the kind of work that is involved. I am afraid I do not think any of our supports would be sufficient to deal with Baggot Street hospital.