Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am far more tolerant than Deputy O'Dowd. At least, the Minister has agreed to regulate for this. I suggest that the Deputy work with the Minister to try to bring forward the regulations as a matter of urgency. I accept the Deputy's core point.

I was a member of a local authority and we scrutinised the issue of NAMA houses very carefully. Two of the main problems for local authorities - apart from those properties which were unsuitable for social housing use - was the length of time it took the Department to approve decisions for the local authorities. What Deputy O'Dowd said may be the case in his local authority, but in my local authority there was interest from the authority and the approval process took too long. Funding was not being made available by the Minister of the day, which is as much a reason for what happened as any of the others to which reference has been made.

More importantly, there are 1,000 vacant units, half of which are owned by AIB and half of which are owned by Permanent TSB, and they are being offered for sale to the Government and the Housing Agency. Perhaps the Deputy could raise this with his party colleagues at the next meeting of the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party. They are vacant and ready to go, and a large number of them are in Dublin. In a reply to a parliamentary question tabled by Deputy Pearse Doherty only a week ago, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, indicated that money was being provided for only 200 of them. I put a parliamentary question to the Minister, Deputy Coveney, recently and the answer was deeply disappointing. I asked why money was being made available for only 200 of the 1,000 units. If we could have an answer to that today or at another time, it would be very helpful.

There is a notable absence in the Chamber. While I do not doubt the ability of the three Fianna Fáil Deputies to replace the party spokesperson, and I sincerely hope it is not an urgent family matter that has taken him away, Deputy Cowen's absence is notable. If it is not due to some family emergency, I wonder if it is because he is so embarrassed at the extent of the capitulation he has had to make to Fine Gael in the so-called deal they have struck that he is not prepared to show his face. Fianna Fáil knew the details of the plan before it was launched. We know this. All of us knew, because the Minister had informed us, that the amendments would be coming. We have known it for three or four weeks. There would have been no surprises for the Fianna Fáil Front Bench at least, whatever about the Parliamentary Party, regarding what the Minister announced on Tuesday.

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