Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not have a figure for the allocated funding that has been spent so far on the repair and lease scheme. I have asked for that figure and am awaiting it. I have spoken to the housing bodies and to the Housing Finance Agency and the Housing Agency. The Deputy will be aware that there is legislation coming in the autumn in respect of the regulation of housing bodies. Once we have that in place, we can secure better and longer term sources of finance, for example from pension funds or potentially perhaps from the credit unions, as was alluded to earlier by Deputy Barry Cowen. When we do that, we are bringing greater resources to bear as well as greater expertise in terms of some of the things we might be able to do in conjunction with existing schemes, be they the repair and lease scheme or the buy and renew scheme, as well as other new measures that will be coming online.

While vacant homes will be part of the strategy, we also have to look at stranded assets, by which I mean, for example, space above a shop that might have previously been a home but has now become some sort of temporary or default storage space. Such a space could actually have people living in it and might be located where people want to live, in a village or town centre where all the transport, resources, shops and everything else are nearby.

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