John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will again preface my comments by saying that I will ask the Minister with responsibility for housing to respond directly. I repeat that there are vast differences between the delivery of different services depending on local authority areas. Louth County Council is a great example of an authority that is at the cutting edge in the issue of dereliction and bringing buildings that are derelict back into use. The council has used compulsory purchase orders and I know that compulsory sales orders are also being discussed.

I am surprised by the comment from Louth County Council about voids because there has been an unprecedented level of funding from the Department. I will have to ask Deputy English to respond directly to the Deputy with the figure for Louth but in terms of the speed at which houses are being turned around, that figure has been dramatically cut in the past few years. On the specific funding to local authorities to deal with voids, some local authorities are better than others at delivering and drawing down funding under different headings but there has been an unprecedented amount of resources and capacity devoted, at Department level, to ensuring that voids are returned to use quicker than previously was the case. I could name a couple of local authority areas where I know, from first-hand experience, that the turnaround of voids has been noticeably improved in the past couple of years. I will ask the Minister of State with responsibility for housing and urban development, Deputy English, to furnish Deputy Fitzpatrick with the specific information for Louth. From a Government perspective, the issue is not caused by a lack of funding from central government. This issue, on the face of it, sounds like a classic example of where service delivery varies from local authority to local authority. It is not because there is a shortage of funding.

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