Dr. Oliver Kinnane:

I agree on both points. The idea of a one-stop shop to resolve the vacancy issue is critical. The streamlining of all the administrative requirements that have been introduced is very much required. There is certainly a deficit of vacant property officers and conservation officers within local authorities and also a deficit of funding within those authorities to allow them to act in a masterplanning kind of situation where, rather than just dealing with this from individual building to building, we look at a collective of buildings within a town centre and the associated lands and lengthy gardens that many of these buildings have and consider them as a collective. Some mechanism to enable that is key.

With regard to the works that are undertaken, the SEAI has been very generous in its research and support of research. We have two projects looking at moisture within traditional buildings and, generally, categorisation of buildings and the most appropriate retrofit measures. Internationally, that knowledge is still lacking. We are certainly leading it here in Ireland, and building up that knowledge requirement. We would say from the research we have done that in any traditional building where there is evidence of moisture, there is a high risk of moisture trapping if material is added to the building, so we need to be careful in our works. There is a pilot scheme around a one-stop shop for traditional buildings that had an opening event recently. We welcome that and wish it success.