Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)

The facts are the facts. There are derelict sites in every town, village and city in this State. Between them, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been in government for between ten and 14 years. These are the facts. I am not making this up. If the Minister of State wants to walk down the street with me, I will walk down with the three Ministers and a couple of Members of the Opposition and we will show him the dereliction.

The Minister of State should not come in here and say he is doing this and he is doing that. There is unbelievable dereliction, which is destroying communities, and he says the onus is on local authorities. I recall the pressure that myself and Deputy Ó Broin in opposition put on the previous Government. There was no section within housing to tackle dereliction until we came at it non-stop over recent years and now there is. There is one person in each local authority - one person. Would the Government not give the local authorities the funding to hire the staff to do the work? The Minister of State spoke about a fund of €150 million. Why are there so many derelict buildings? Will he answer that?

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