Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I must disagree with the Minister. It is only when one walks the streets in Donegal, canvassing, that one sees the vacant estates all over the place. NAMA has many vacant estates and we should seek a way to have such estates made available to the State which is already paying for them

I have another question that I would like the Minister to take up with the Minister of State with responsibility for housing, Deputy Finneran. I believe that the Department of Social Protection should provide the funding for rent allowance but housing should be a matter for local authorities, not for the Department. In my county alone, there are a number of vacant local authority houses which have not been used but, again, are being paid for by the taxpayer. They should be used for rent allowance purposes and made available to people. There are many hundreds of local authority houses. The local authorities are not doing their job. We have to save this money for the taxpayer and these houses should be taken up for use. I ask the Minister to speak to his colleague, the Minister of State about this.

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