Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

Anybody reading that would have to interpret it in his or her own way. All I can say is that my interpretation might not be that far from Deputy O'Shea's. I agree with him that it is a very bad time to be disposing of a property such as Cathal Brugha Barracks. It is an enormous property, very well located in Dublin and would have yielded a fortune if disposed of a couple of years ago during the height of the boom. This is a very bad time to be selling it since the market is flat.

As the Deputy rightly points out, and the McCarthy report recognises this, there is an upfront cost which would have to be incurred before the sale would take place. We would have had to provide some place for people to go to. Basically, we are looking for ways to save money now rather than ways to spend more. I do not envisage anything will be happening in that regard in the near future. For information purposes I should inform the House that we have about 30 smaller units throughout the country, empty at present, which we believe may be gradually sold. We are appointing valuers to see what type of money we should be seeking for them. Some of them are old with specific types of usage only and as such would not be suitable for certain types of development. We are looking at this in the immediate future. We are not looking at the imminent disposal of Cathal Brugha Barracks, however.

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